Music censorship usually takes place when people become offended on religious grounds. If a person has strong religious beliefs surely no music would threaten that belief system unless they are very weak minded and get the helping hand of the government to silence the artists.
Not all censorship is sparked off by religion but it always happens when music goes against somebody’s beliefs usually weak-minded people. The government should not act on the weak persons behalf but perhaps share the views of a strong minded person; accept the artists music as everyone is entitled to an opinion.
The way censorship works in my mind is that people with authority and power get to censor whereas those who lack authority get silenced.
Censorship is a much bigger issue in the USA where politicians have’ sold out’ the country to corporate interests, they have turned a once free nation into an intolerant theocracy, where nobody can say a word that may be deemed offensive by someone.
Over the last ten years many explicit cd’s have had the infamous ‘Parental Advisory’ stickers branded on them. These stickers usually don’t cause a problem to customers knowing what they want but customers just browsing will be put off and the band will be losing out on money just because they challenged the government’s point of view. Many bands and artists have been fighting the sticker issue: Rage Against The Machine and the Beastie Boys to name but a few. In the U.S. a law was going to come in that meant that if you got caught buying a stickered product under the age of 18 community service looms for liking alternative music.
When ever censorship gets talked about the phrase ‘freedom of speech’ comes into play, if there was no freedom of speech everyone would have to start liking these homogenized boy bands that most probably have lyrics written by the government so that they cant be banned, censored or considered ‘harmful’.
If censors are blocking out all ‘harmful’ music then everyone will end up being the same.
Surely individuality in society is better than conformity? YOU DECIDE.
