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Grex > Oldmusic > #36: Clearchannel? Doesn't seem so clear to me |  |
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ea
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Clearchannel? Doesn't seem so clear to me
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Sep 19 00:59 UTC 2001 |
For those of you who didn't see this on Slashdot, it seems that
ClearChannel Communications (a rather huge radio conglomerate in the US,
owners of Ann Arbor's Kool 107, W4 Country, and WTKA) have issued a list
of songs that are not to be played on any ClearChannel station until
further notice. The complete list of forbidden songs can be found at
http://www.fuckedcompany.com/extras/clearchannel_email.cfm
Among the highlights (low points?) of the list that should probably
not be on the list(in my opinion):
Cat Stevens - Peace Train
Led Zepplin - Stairway to Heaven
Billy Joel - Only the Good Die Young
Shelly Fabares - Johnny Angel
Surfaris - Wipeout
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| 47 responses total. |
scott
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response 1 of 47:
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Sep 19 01:53 UTC 2001 |
Ronnie Dio's "Holy Diver"? Hell, Pat Boone covered that song.
This is what happens when we assume that deregulation is OK.
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scott
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response 2 of 47:
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Sep 19 01:55 UTC 2001 |
(Now linked to music as item 36)
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janc
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response 3 of 47:
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Sep 19 02:26 UTC 2001 |
I don't know pop music well enough to see a pattern here. What counts as
"questionable content" in their eyes?
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gelinas
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response 4 of 47:
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Sep 19 02:32 UTC 2001 |
"Walk like an Egyptian": racism
"Mack the Knife": celebrating a murderer
"Obla di, Obla da": Not for everyone, eh?
"What a Wonderful World": It is?
Is this list real? I dunno. But it took a certain creativity to compile.
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richard
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response 5 of 47:
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Sep 19 02:45 UTC 2001 |
Believe it or not, also on that list was John Lennon's "Imagine"! I
guess they consider a song about peace inappropriate when everybody's
talking about wanting to go to war.
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senna
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response 6 of 47:
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Sep 19 02:50 UTC 2001 |
Stairway to Heaven? Why? I'm not seeing the connnection, either.
This is an incredible list. All Rage against the Machine songs? Maybe they
object to the anti-government nature of the band. Four Metallica songs?
I recognize a lot of these. The ban Tool's "intolerance," not a major radio
single to begin with, but leave Grammy-winning AEnema permitted. Must not
be content related--Aenema is a stunning song about the violent crash of Los
Angeles into the sea, insulting numerous types of people in the process. Here
are the lyrics to "intolerance," courtesy of toolshed.down.net.
I don't want to be hostile.
I don't want to be dismal.
But I don't want to rot in an apathetic existance either.
See
I want to believe you,
and I want to trust
and I want to have faith to put away the dagger.
But you lie, cheat, and steal.
And yet
I tolerate you.
Veil of virtue hung to hide your method
while I smile and laugh and dance
and sing your praise and glory.
Shroud of virtue hung to mask your stigma
as I smile and laugh and dance
and sing your glory
while you
lie, cheat, and steal.
How can I tolerate you.
Our guilt,our blame ,
I've been far too sympathetic.
Our blood, our fault.
I've been far too sympathetic.
I am not innocent.
You are not innocent.
Noone is innocent.
I will no longer tolerate you
Even if I must go down beside you.
Because,
Noone is innocent.
Must have vague terrorist implications. U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday," decrying
violence, must as well. That's the only possible link... anything related
to flying or explosions. Hyper, hypersensitive. I guess people are expected
to go into convulsions if they hear "new York, New York." I would too, but
only because they play it after Yankee games.
Why, oh why, are they so stupid? These are some pretty dumb songs to ban.
I'm still trying to figure out why they banned "Head like a Hole" from Nine
Inch Nails, and nothing else.
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senna
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response 7 of 47:
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Sep 19 02:51 UTC 2001 |
Richard slipped in, changing nothing in my response.
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tomaso
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response 8 of 47:
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Sep 19 03:21 UTC 2001 |
Cat Stevens is probably on this stupid list because of his conversion to Islam
some years ago.
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mcnally
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response 9 of 47:
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Sep 19 04:12 UTC 2001 |
Or, more specifically, because of his unpopular support for the Iranian-
issued fatwa against Salman Rushdie, which has stained his public image
with the perception of connection to hard-line anti-western elements.
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bdh3
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response 10 of 47:
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Sep 19 04:30 UTC 2001 |
re Cat: Yeah. I remember seeing a video clip asking him what he thought
about folk burning his records in 1990. He said he'd burn them too.
(Many 'new' converts to any religion tend to be rather conservative -
its not just islam. I'd suspect he'd not be in favor of the recent
events though.)
I can see radio stations being considerate of advertising revenue by
banning some songs perhaps and its nothing new (I remember glen roberts
organizing a small group of people to periodically mass call a certain
A2 radio station and request Alice Cooper songs which were banned for
some reason (my how times have changed)). Public media probably ought
to act in a responsible fashion and try to not enflame emotions at times
like these (or perhaps in general) maybe. But is it really so clear
that the likes of Martin Luther King ought to be banned and those of KKK
spokespersons be permitted (deliberate 'mistake')? Wasn't it Steve Dahl
that had a popular parody of _Barbara-Ann_ that played some years ago?
Should it have been banned?
As for _Imagine_, as I christian I think it ought to be...
played. I think it is a pretty song.
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gelinas
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response 11 of 47:
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Sep 19 04:44 UTC 2001 |
(If that's the one I'm thinking of, I still sing that refrain now and again.)
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bdh3
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response 12 of 47:
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Sep 19 04:59 UTC 2001 |
SHIT! My bad. I shoulda checked out http://www.snopes.com before
responding to this post. Its an 'urban legend' folks - although there
is a tiny grain of truth in it (very tiny).
I would also suggest that folk check out the page before entering items
they've 'heard' or got in e-mail.
/SHIT!
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krj
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response 13 of 47:
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Sep 19 06:28 UTC 2001 |
LA Times music critic Robert Hilburn, in an article titled
"Judging Songs by their Titles," addresses the program directors
of the Clear Channel stations:
"Far from being distasteful, many of the 150 songs on that
long list of 'lyrically questionable' recordings sent to you
by the home office are exactly what you *should* be playing in
the aftermath of last week's terrorist attacks."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-091901hilburn.story
Salon has written about Clear Channel Communications at length:
it's a rather brutish corporation with no particular love of
music which now has a stranglehold on the country's rock music radio.
Love the Telecomm Act of 1986!
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bdh3
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response 14 of 47:
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Sep 19 07:28 UTC 2001 |
Again. Don't you get it? Its not true. Its another urban legend.
Yer gettin' pissed off about something that ain't even real.
(In the real (FTF) world I would hesitate to point this out to anyone as
my experience as well as observing the experience of others is that
nobody likes to be told they've been an idiot and instead of getting mad
at whomever passed on to them the basis of their idiocy they instead get
pissed at you. 'kill the messenger' as it were.)
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dbratman
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response 15 of 47:
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Sep 19 07:52 UTC 2001 |
It's not a hoax, Huang. Read the Snopes account more closely. The
tiny grain of falsehood in it (very tiny) is the claim that Clear
Channels officially banned these songs. Some program director at Clear
Channels DID compile a list (it's not entirely clear if it's THIS list,
though), and DID distribute it. Here is the report from Slate of Clear
Channels' own original statement:
"Jack Evans, a regional senior VP of programming at Clear Channel
insisted this list was not an effort initiated by management: "After
and during what was happening in New York and Washington and outside of
Pittsburgh, some of our program directors began e-mailing each other
about songs and questionable song titles," though the finished list was
distributed to the program directors by Clear Channel management."
Clear Channel's own press release (at biz.yahoo.com) says nothing about
the list not being real, only that they haven't actually banned songs.
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bdh3
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response 16 of 47:
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Sep 19 08:44 UTC 2001 |
Thus the 'banned list' doesn't exist, and thus 'Clear Channel' didn't
ban songs thus it is an 'urban legend' thus posted as such on
http://www.snopes.com . I don't see an item about ABC network's
decision to stop broadcasting video of the planes smashing into the
towers every 34 seconds. Is ABC 'censoring' because they have a clue
about 'sensitivity'? (ABC et all took a major financial hit by not
carrying or 'breaking' for commercials so one can sure conclude it
wasn't for financial reasons and thus they are actually 'sensitive'.)
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bdh3
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response 17 of 47:
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Sep 19 08:47 UTC 2001 |
For a clue re-read item #0 and think for a few seconds.
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gull
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response 18 of 47:
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Sep 19 13:20 UTC 2001 |
Re #6: Personally I think some of these songs are only on the list because
they're terminally overplayed anyway. I'd put 'American Pie', 'Stairway to
Heaven', and 'Ironic' in those categories. (Though I think the first two
are good songs.)
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brighn
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response 19 of 47:
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Sep 19 14:33 UTC 2001 |
"American Pie" is about people dying in a plane crash. You might not be able
to pick that up from the lyrics, though, because you need to know the history
behind it (the pivotal incident being the death of Buddy Holly, Ritchie
Valens, and The Big Bopper, allegedly drunk when they convinced their pilot
to take off in a snowstorm: "And good old boys were drinkin' whiskey and rye,
singin' 'This'll be the day that I die'"). The song is really about the death
of innocence in pop music, characterized by tht single event.
The most glaring absence from the list, which is what led me to believe it
was a fabrication (because this song should be in the top ten in any music
expert's mind for being wholly inappropriate from its title, even though its
content is irrelevant):
The Cure, "Killing an Arab."
I'd assumed "Obla-di Obla-da" was on the list for suggesting that "life goes
on." the list looks more like the first major Sick Joke than a serious list.
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krj
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response 20 of 47:
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Sep 19 15:14 UTC 2001 |
Heh. Slate's followup piece is titled: "Profiles in Ass Covering."
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dbratman
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response 21 of 47:
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Sep 19 16:11 UTC 2001 |
Huang: The list exists. No denials have been issued that the list
published is indeed the list that Clear Channels ADMITS THAT THEY
DISTRIBUTED.
The "hoax" - the ONLY hoax admitted to date - is the tiny grain of
falsehood (very tiny) that the list was an official ban on the songs.
You remind me of the people who insist that Alexander Pope never
wrote "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing", uh-uh, no way, it's a
complete fabrication - because the actual quote is "A little
learning". Or that the Earth isn't round - because it's slightly
oblate.
That Clear Channels banned the songs is untrue - but a reasonable
misinterpretation given what they DID do. And it's the lunacy of even
SUGGESTING that these songs not be played that's the shocking and silly
thing here, and the reason the list warrants being giggled at.
Only if it turns out that the entire list was the product of a jokester
will the list itself warrant the description "hoax". And there is no
evidence of that to date.
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brighn
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response 22 of 47:
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Sep 19 17:54 UTC 2001 |
The allegation in this item has been that, as a service to local operators,
Clear Channel compiled a list of songs that other operators had said they were
going to avoid playing. That's a far different thing from Clear Channel
generating a list on its own and then distributing it.
So it's not quite a hoax, but it is a major exagerration.
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janc
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response 23 of 47:
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Sep 19 18:30 UTC 2001 |
http://www.snopes2.com/inboxer/hoaxes/radio.htm
The list exists. But it was meant only as a list of songs affiliates might
not want to play immediately after the plane crash.
Or so says Snopes. I'm not sure how far to trust a company whose pages have
a "The URL for this page is" line on the bottom of the page with a URL
that does not work.
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brighn
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response 24 of 47:
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Sep 19 21:09 UTC 2001 |
Snopes isn't really a company. It's more of a ... thing. I dunno what to call
it. Not a company, though.
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