Music Censorship In Its Latest Avatar – Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way”
Music censorship has been around for some time and was especially common in the 1970s and 1980s, when the compositions of heavy metal and rap were considered immoral and harmful for the younger generation. Music censorship has been levied for political, moral, religious and even military reasons.
Music Censorship is not entirely a thing of the past
The fact that music censorship is not entirely a thing of the past and exists even today is proved by the recent ban on Lady Gaga’s song “Judas” from the album “Born This Way” in Lebanon. The reason for this music censorship is that it is considered irreligious and offensive to Christianity. The Lebanese police also went so far as seize copies of Lady Gaga’s said album and even removed from Lebanese Radio.
Surprisingly, the song has been the number one chartbuster in several countries across the world. The song has been objected to by the various Catholic groups of Lebanon, including the Maronite Catholics, which make up 20% of Lebanon’s population.
It is now time to consider whether this incidence of music censorship is in fact, justified. Most people are astonished by this case of music censorship because they feel that the lyrics of the song “Judas” are hardly obscene. While Lady Gaga does use the words “I’m just a holy fool”, these words are nowhere near the more religiously slanderous songs of the past.
What seems to have brought on the censorship, in fact, is the vivid imagery used by Lady Gaga in the song “Judas”. This song shows the musician moving with modern day biker gang versions of the disciples of Jesus, and is even shown to be flirting with Judas and Jesus himself.
Surprisingly, simultaneously, the Lebanese government has maintained that their stand is against all forms of censorship, including music censorship. In fact, this move to implement music censorships is obviously brought on by the need to appease the strong and radical religious groups in the country of Lebanon. It is interesting to note that the singer and musician, Lady Gaga herself, is highly regarded and extremely popular in the state of Lebanon.
This example of music censorships in Lebanon is very different from the outright governmental opposition to Lady Gaga’s music in China. The Chinese government has banned outright, several songs and compositions by artists such as Lady Gaga and even Katy Perry. It is astonishing that the Chinese government has even halted the download of these songs from the Internet on to personal music devices, in a move to bring about complete music censorship, at least in these cases.
Music Censorship
It is a great debate whether any form of music censorship has any long term effects on the career of the singer and the musician. Some even feel that a music censorship or even any kind of censorship only leads to an increased popularity of the very item that has been banned. Surreptitious sales of the music that has been banned has been seen to go up in many cases of music censorship. Music Censorship
