The Controversy Of Music Censorship

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Music censorship has become a topic of much controversy over the ages as it has progressively become widely used. Censorship is “the official government suppression of any public expression that a governing authority believes to threaten either its power or the accepted social and moral order.” The Parents Music Resource Center (PRMC) first pushed for censorship in music, and brought about the “Parental Advisory Explicit Content” stickers on albums. Music is a powerful form of expression that both entertains and has the ability to create change in our society. This causes the government to fear music and put regulations upon it, which is not right. Censorship in music ultimately compromises the First Amendment, restricts artists creativity and compromises the meaning of the…show more content…
(Jones 73) These indirect challenges have come through lawsuits that for example claimed that the lyrics of an artist's songs caused suicide in two teenagers. Another example of this comes from a source, in the 1960’s, that says that “law enforcement officials have asked record store owners to keep copies of 2 Live Crew’s album “As Nasty As They Wanna Be” off the shelves” (Jones 73), due to the album containing sexually explicit lyrics. These both exemplify the government using its power, even if it violates our rights, to maintain the control that they have over society. “But while the political censorship of music is widespread, it remains associated with particular systems and ideologies. Both Stalin’s regime and the Nazis took music very seriously both as a form of propaganda and of oppression.”(Street 11-12), this creates comparisons to whom our government fought hard to expel as well as their ideologies from the world today, yet they are displaying many of the same traits. The violations that are occurring also effect the artist and their

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