Rock and Roll

Music Censorship

Jeremy Dengate

COM/172

February 6, 2012

Karen Mitchell

Music Censorship

When Federal, Local, or State governments restrict the type of music that can be purchased or played over the air, this is known as censorship. Music censorship is the practice of limiting free access to musical works. This type of censorship stems from many different motivations, including moral, military, political, or religious. Censorship falls into many different categories, such as changed or excluded lyrics (known as radio edit), to restricted album artwork, all the way up to the banning of the artists themselves. The United States Government has played many roles in mainstream censorship, throughout the history of music, these censors have mainly targeted controversial lyrics as the problem, but there have been many efforts to blame the actual music for causing society’s woes. Music is censored because music is the free expression of the ideas, traditions and emotions of individuals and of the people. These ideals may conflict with the ideals of people in power. That power may be special interest groups, religious, or political.

According to Freemuse.org (2010) “Religious censorship is defined as the act of suppressing views that are contrary of those of an organized religion.” This type of censorship is usually used because of heresy or sacrilege. It is censored because it is viewed as profane or obscene in the eyes of the religious faith. The Catholic Church used the Librorum Prohibitorum (list of prohibited books) to ban hundreds of books. The index was abolished in 1965, yet the Church still holds a list of material deemed dangerous by the Church’s Holy Office. It can be difficult to defend this type of censorship because the Church will only allow members of the clergy to review material for censor. These interpretations are usually dogmatic. Censorship by religion sometimes can sometimes work in the opposite direction...