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Censoring/Editing Words in a song on one station, but not another

MarcB

MarcB

A little while ago I was listening to Clear Channel's Variety Hit formatted The River 105.9 out of Hartford, CT and they played "What it's Like" by Everlast. They censored out the word w.h.o.r.e. and a few other words. Meanwhile I have also heard the song on Connecticut's Alternative Rock Radio 104.1 WMRQ, which is owned by the independent company Red Wolf Broadcasting and they leave said words in tact.

The same for the Country Song "Toes" by The Zac Brown Band. On Clear Channel's Country 92.5 in Hartford the line "Toes in the Water, a.s.s. in the sand is replaced with "Toes in the Water, Toes in the Sand.". (That's not possible by the way). I know I've heard it on another Country Station not owned by Clear Channel play it unedited. A Country Themed Night club in Wolcott, CT usually plays the unedited version of Toes too unless there's a fill-in DJ using their own equipment and only has the edited version on their laptop.
 
MarcB said:
A little while ago I was listening to Clear Channel's Variety Hit formatted The River 105.9 out of Hartford, CT and they played "What it's Like" by Everlast. They censored out the word w.h.o.r.e. and a few other words. Meanwhile I have also heard the song on Connecticut's Alternative Rock Radio 104.1 WMRQ, which is owned by the independent company Red Wolf Broadcasting and they leave said words in tact.
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You answered your own question. It depends on format and owner. CC's going to clean edit any song regardless of format, the little guy, maybe not. An older aimed format like VH's woud edit it, a rock station would not.

I've heard a couple versions of What It's Like too, a "super clean" version with everything objectionable edited, a "clean version" that only had the really naughty words and the unedited version.
 
What is it with stations that not only censor the nasty stuff in "What It's Like" Everlast but replaces the objectionable words with what sounds like morning zoo sound effects? I've heard this version on many stations on more conservative pop stations and for a fairly topically serious song, it's a bit more disturbing than the original unfiltered version......
 
Some of the "clean" versions come from the record label, not the station or owner. In that way, they're heard on all stations, not just the ones owned by a particular company.
 
TheBigA said:
Some of the "clean" versions come from the record label, not the station or owner. In that way, they're heard on all stations, not just the ones owned by a particular company.
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Well yeah, but kinda ruins the song. And speaking of Everlast, the second single from this album "Ends" has this lyric "From the Wetlands, all the way to the Apollo/If you're broke she's spittin', and if you're rich she might swallow/For the ends....." And I have YET to hear a station/promo that censors this one......
 
Bongwater said:
Well yeah, but kinda ruins the song.
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Oh well. The record label wants people to BUY the song. The original version is available for sale. And what I've seen is that people are willing to pay for the "dirty" version, which is good for the artist and label.
 
Here's another twist on the subject: Radio stations censoring musical notes from a song with clean lyrics.

The example I wish to cite comes from 1983 and the old WHDH-850 in Boston, which at the time was a full-service Adult Contemporary format (with a four-hour evening talk show).

That Summer, once it began climbing the Billboard "Hot 100", the station began playing the Kinks' "Come Dancing".

If you're familiar with that song, you will know that during the instrumental break midway through, there is a sharp (and short) heavy-metal style guitar riff, but otherwise, the song has a sound that was compatible with most AC formats of the period.

Well, WHDH played "Come Dancing", but edited-out the sharp guitar riff during the instrumental break.
 
From the early '70s, Simon & Garfunkle's Kodachrome comes to mind. Some stations "beeped" that insideous "C" word. Others simply silenced that half second of naughtiness. Meanwhile, college FM stations were really pushing the envelope by playing the K song, "C" word unencumbered.

Just reporting on memories of the Albuquerque market. I've heard accounts of bigger city stations playing the song uncensored, even on AM.
 
jfrancispastirchak said:
From the early '70s, Simon & Garfunkle's Kodachrome comes to mind. Some stations "beeped" that insideous "C" word. Others simply silenced that half second of naughtiness. Meanwhile, college FM stations were really pushing the envelope by playing the K song, "C" word unencumbered.

Just reporting on memories of the Albuquerque market. I've heard accounts of bigger city stations playing the song uncensored, even on AM.
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I think you can say "crap" here on Radio Discusssions. Since we're getting into Oldies, here are some examples I can recall from the heydey of Top 40:

Itchycoo Park - some stations refused to play the song at all, others played it uncut, but some played it after removing "we can miss out school, won't that be cool" and "we'll get high, there..." This was kind of silly given that the song was ABOUT getting high in the park - probably on something like LSD.

Ballad of John and Yoko - in LA, KRLA played it uncut, KHJ (Boss Radio) didn't play it at all, and KGBS did a clumsy station edit, cutting out the "Christ," that line becoming just "You know it ain't easy..."

- Play that Funky Music - there was a version - studio edit I think - with the "white boy" edited out.

The Joker (Steve Miller). Some stations played a version with "midnight toker" edited out, the line becoming only "I'm a joker, I'm a smoker." I guess smoking was OK as long as one could assume it wasn't marijuana.

Jet Airliner(Steve Miller again). There was a studio version played by some stations in which "funky s**t going down in the city" became "funky kicks...". This is the version most classic hits station play to this day.
 
Lkeller said:

I think you can say "crap" here on Radio Discusssions. Since we're getting into Oldies, here are some examples I can recall from the heydey of Top 40:
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Yes, we can. I was only being facetious. Sorry, as usual I forgot to smile.
 
Lkeller said:
I think you can say "crap" here on Radio Discusssions. Since we're getting into Oldies, here are some examples I can recall from the heydey of Top 40:

Itchycoo Park - some stations refused to play the song at all, others played it uncut, but some played it after removing "we can miss out school, won't that be cool" and "we'll get high, there..." This was kind of silly given that the song was ABOUT getting high in the park - probably on something like LSD.

Ballad of John and Yoko - in LA, KRLA played it uncut, KHJ (Boss Radio) didn't play it at all, and KGBS did a clumsy station edit, cutting out the "Christ," that line becoming just "You know it ain't easy..."

- Play that Funky Music - there was a version - studio edit I think - with the "white boy" edited out.

The Joker (Steve Miller). Some stations played a version with "midnight toker" edited out, the line becoming only "I'm a joker, I'm a smoker." I guess smoking was OK as long as one could assume it wasn't marijuana.

Jet Airliner(Steve Miller again). There was a studio version played by some stations in which "funky s**t going down in the city" became "funky kicks...". This is the version most classic hits station play to this day.
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Ah, yes, the "good old days" when FM stations played the nasty originals and AM stations played the edited/cleaned-up versions.

Money (Pink Floyd). FM: "Don't give me that do goody-good bull***t." AM: "Don't give me that do goody-good bull..."

Who Are You (The Who). FM: "Who the f*** are you." AM: "Who the hell are you."

Let's Spend The Night Together (Rolling Stones). Radio: "Let's spend the night together" Ed Sullivan Show: "Let's spend some time together"

Break On Through (The Doors). First release: "She gets HI-I-I-I-IGH" Everything else: "She gets...." Repeated 3 times, of course.
 
Lkeller said:
I think you can say "crap" here on Radio Discussions.
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"Crap" itself is a euphemism for other things. ;D
Since we're getting into Oldies, here are some examples I can recall from the heydey of Top 40:
Jet Airliner(Steve Miller again). There was a studio version played by some stations in which "funky s**t going down in the city" became "funky kicks...". This is the version most classic hits station play to this day.
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That version is from the single, which also appeared on the 1974-1978 Greatest Hits album. It may be that version that you are hearing.

And yes, you can say "funky shit" here on RD, as well! ;D I just did! 8)
 
The worst one I've heard is KPLZ's edit of Party Rock Anthem. Most stations play the unedited version of this song, but whenever it gets to an explicit part on KPLZ, they completely edit it out and play the intro again. Oh and here's one I just thought of, KKBR/Billings just recently flipped from Classic Hits to CHR, and I took a listen a couple of times. Instead of the radio edit of I Love It, they just mute all the bad words. Why don't they just play the regular radio edit?
 
On classic rock radio until 2004, it was actually OK to play the unedited versions of "Jet Airliner", "Money" and "Who Are You" on most stations. Even John Mellencamp's "Play Guitar" with the final line in the last verse "Forget all about that macho s--t and learn how to play guitar!" was good for a few spins on some stations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxuFWnul7II

(While the other songs and their nasty words came and went so fast, you barely noticed them, there was NO mistaking what you heard on this song.)

Very rarely have I heard rock stations before 2004 play only the censored versions of "Jet Airliner", "Money" and "Who Are You". And they usually didn't last long before flipping to another format.

All that changed after the Janet Jackson Super Bowl debacle in 2004. Suddenly, every station got paranoid when they saw the new fines ($325,000 for each nasty word.)

And for what? A nanosecond nipple shot that nobody actually saw live? And only discovered when the footage was slowed down and in pixelated digital fuzz from the reduced playback speed before the added pixelation during post editing for playback ad nauseum on evening TV newscasts for nearly a month?

Oh dear. "Won't somebody think of the children?" Yes, Junior now has a full education. That one pixelated, unrecognizable.... whatever it is....... has sent millions of kids into a life of sleaze. Wahwahwah......

I personally think the most impressionable TV viewers aren't the kids, but these "parents" (who seem to have already had an agenda long before Janet's "wardrobe malfunction") screaming about the slightest off-color word or trace nudity. The kids themselves actually didn't notice a thing until these "parents" started freaking out over it and pointing it out.

How ironic is that?

In the '80s, nobody paid attention to pop lyrics until the PMRC came along, and soon every record had to have an "Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics" sticker if they intended to sell platinum. And forget the sticker, it became proudly a part of the album artwork itself...

I think it's time to finally get over it and recognize the problem for what it is. And it's not breasts, four letter words or the kids, it's a tiny group of self appointed "moral watchdogs" trying to dictate what the rest of us see or hear.

And as a parent, I find it a thousand times more objectionable that these smut-crazed people are busy loudly pointing out where kids can find all this filth than the artists who made the "offending" material. Some of which they might not have even heard about if these so-called "moral watchdogs" just minded their own business......
 
Not that I agreed with the rest of the post I saw over on the Seattle-Tacoma board a couple weeks ago about how corperate radio caused a seemingly conservative slant to everything, but I do think that hole incident was blown way out of proportion. It did seem like they made way too big of a deal about it, especially if it was like you said, not even seen until the footage was slowed down.
 
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