Music Censorship

Musicians, recording companies and fans are all concerned with the issue of music censorship. These people are pitted against the government officials and community organizations who are seeking to stamp out what is considered to be "obscenity" in popular music. However, problems arise in seeking an adequate definition of obscenity as it applies to artistic works. The Supreme Court definition for obscenity in art was reached in the 1973 case entitled Miller versus California. In that case, it was decided that obscenity is a community issue and that it must be determined on the basis of local, as opposed to federal, standards. In addition, the Supreme Court decided that, in order for a product to be obscene, it must be "patently offensive... [and] it also must appeal to prurient interests and lack serious artistic merit" ("The Issue is Fear," 1990, p. 24). Controversies arise in seeking a definition for what constitutes artistic merit. Obviously, value in art is a very subjective thing. Some people will derive pleasure or insights from a work which others will find disgusting, disturbing or unappealing. Therefore, the issue of music censorship has become a topic of heated debate.

The topic of censorship in music is not something new. For example, in 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono were censored when they released an album entitled Two Virgins. The cover of that album showed the two artists with full-frontal nudity. With this image, Lennon and Ono were seeking to m

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ecord, and it had concerned a visual image as opposed to lyrics. Many people in the record industry took up arms against the legal censorship of 2 Live Crew. For example, Rolling Stone magazine ran an editorial that questioned the judgment that the material on the album was "obscene." Citing the Supreme Court decision that obscenity is defined by a lack of artistic merit, the editorial claimed that it is hard to believe that "an album that almost 2 million people have bought, laughed with and danced to has no value as a creative work" (p. 24). Even though many people found As Nasty As They Wanna Be to be offensive, and many others considered its lyrics to be immature, there were obviously still many others who found some type of artistic value in it. One of the most controversial issues surrounding music censorship is the question of providing warning labels on recordings. Soon after the 1985 PMRC hearings, most of the major record companies in America agreed to voluntarily place stickers on albums which might be considered to be obscene by some listeners (Goldberg, 1990, p. 26). Thus, it is now common practice for the major labels to screen the songs of their artists in search of possible obscenities. However, there has b

Category: Government - M