Baby It's Banned in Philly

[eyeconic]

I’m not dismissing anyone and I’m sorry about your friend. But I’ll bet the song never even entered her mind until all of the hype surrounding it. Maybe I’m wrong.

But what I find the most disturbing is that you originally dismissed this thread by saying yippee skippee if radio stations play it and yippee skippee if they don’t. And now that you’ve seen some evidence that stations actually are banning the song, suddenly you have a compelling and heart wrenching story about why people find the song so outrageous.

Are you contrary by nature?

ditto, ditto, ditto...

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

Let’s assume it’s not being played at all. We don’t really know that, but so stipulated. I’d wager they don’t play Christmas in Hollis. Is it banned? No. It’s not played. There’s a difference there. I haven’t heard them play a slew of songs, or versions thereof. I’m not going through and saying they banned everything that doesn’t make the cut, nor assuming a rationale.

My friend pretty much can identify the song by opening notes, and changes the station. Never asked a station not to play it. Some may ask that. I didn’t live it, so I’m in no position to say either approach is more valid than the other. Same for other songs, movies, shows or whatever that evoke painful associations for others. All valid responses.

 

[semoochie]

Unless you go back to when "pre-rock" songs were familiar to everyone, I don't think this song was played to any extent, until it was used in "Elf". Anyone who remembers that time seems to have no problem with the song and wonders what all the hubbub is about but some who grew up in the "no means no" era and can't relate to "playing hard to get", are disgusted by it!

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

That’s interesting. I forgot about Elf. Haven’t seen that in years.

 

[CTListener]

Unless you go back to when "pre-rock" songs were familiar to everyone, I don't think this song was played to any extent, until it was used in "Elf".

I don't think anyone would dispute that. "Elf" did for that song what "Ghost" did for "Unchained Melody," which was far behind "You've Lost That Loving Feeling," "Soul and Inspiration" and even "Rock and Roll Heaven" in exposure on oldies stations before then.

 

[landtuna]

I'd never heard of "Baby" before all the publicity began so I went and read the lyrics. Nothing there. If "Baby" was compared to the average rap *song it would be an absolute vacuum. I do not understand what all the uproar is about. In 1944, when the first edition of the song was produced, the world and particularly the USA had many other much more pressing things to worry about. This is a tempest in a teapot.

*song - there is no such thing as a rap "song" and it is so valueless there is no English word to describe it either.

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

And that tells us about all we need to know. Is there a lawn somewhere that needs protecting from those young whippersnappers and their loud music?

 

[Jstnpspck]

SO, steering us back on topic and away from vague bigotry-

I believe WBEB'S removal of BICO actually dates back a few years. There was an article a few weeks back on Philly.com about the current fervor which had an embedded tweet from Andrea Duffy announcing the removal from 101.1 with a hashtag along the lines of #babyitscalledconsent. I jumped over to her twitter and scrolled a bit trying to find the tweet to no avail. I jumped back to the article to look at the tweet again and noticed the timestamp was from either 2017 or 2016.

AFAIK, Today's More B did this years ago, with no brouhaha, before the current outrage uproar.

 

[semoochie]

That’s interesting. I forgot about Elf. Haven’t seen that in years.

I watch it every year along with White Christmas, Christmas Vacation, Home Alone, The Man Who Came to Dinner and about 20 others. By the way, if you haven't seen it, there's one called "It Happened on 5th Avenue" that is definitely worth your while.

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

@ Jstpnpsck: Exactly, re 'brouhaha' !

If you the music director, or regional PD, or the station owner's wife think a tune is unsuitable, DON'T PLAY IT.
But a station that does everything but have Santa skywrite a song's exclusion is not guided by morals or principle. The sole agenda is to create conflict and buzz. As all of us here can see, that's what it started.

The person(s) to put on the witness stand and asked 'why?' is the one who was naughty, and to've tattled this tidbit to the magazine.

Ah, what the heck. No one will be talking about it for another year, anyway.

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

I could be missing pieces of news amidst all the other avalanche of news, but wasn't it one lonely station in Cleveland (or something like that) that made a point of not playing, then re-adding, the song? And I think I saw all of one article about vocal groups that decide to sing or not sing it in their holiday performances. So even in that context, it's a fairly minor issue, and not one the B made anything out of. (I did find the aforementioned Tweet--it was 2017. It generated a whopping two likes, three retweets and a couple of comments.)

 

[kevtronics]

This is such a non-story. You could say that The Breeze (WISX) banned all Christmas music, because I didn't hear them playing any of it yesterday. I guess they figured that since B-101 was going to beat everyone else in the holiday ratings, it wasn't even worth trying.

 

[Ai4i]

A woman is rumored to have frozen to death on her way home recently.
Her boyfriend had reportedly tried to warn her multiple times NOT to go outside.

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

Um, was that supposed to be a joke?

 

[Ai4i]

Um, was that supposed to be a joke?

No, it wasn't just supposed to be a joke,
it actually, really IS one, and a good one at that.