Pirate Bay to be blocked By UK ISPs. "File-sharing site The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK internet service providers, the High Court has ruled." [more inside]
posted by marienbad on Apr 30, 2012 - 400 comments

Songs by Lady Gaga, Beyonce and Katy Perry are among those newly banned by China's culture ministry. Chinese Internet sites must remove them by 15 September in the interests of "national cultural security". Last May China banned a Mongolian protest song and arrested the student who made it, while Tibetan singer Tashi Dhondup was sentanced to one year and seven months’ imprisonment for producing a music album with “subversive songs”. Funnily enough, they also banned 'Guns'n'Roses' long awaited Chinese Democracy. No word yet on China Crisis.
posted by joannemullen on Aug 24, 2011 - 35 comments

The Complaints Choir phenomenon, started by the Finnish artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, has spread all over the world since last we paid it any attention, from Birmingham to Helsinki, Hamburg, St. Petersburg, Poikkilaakso, Bodø, Penn State, Canada, Juneau, Gabriola Island, Sointula, Jerusalem, Melbourne, Budapest, Malmö, Chicago, Florence, Copenhagen, Vancouver (2), Philadelphia, Sundbyberg, Milano, Åland, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Rotterdam, Basel, Umeå, Ljubljana, Gdansk, Arizona State University, Washington, DC, Horace Mann School, Durham-Chapel Hill, Auckland, Toronto theatre students, Kortrijk, Cairo (2), St. Pölten, Maribor, Port Coquitlam, Ústí nad Labem, Columbus & Kauhajoki (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8). For more information, including a 9 step guide to forming your own complaints choir, go to the Complaints Choir website. Finally, here's the Singapore Complaints Choir, whose performance was banned by the Singapore government.
posted by Kattullus on Nov 19, 2010 - 40 comments

The Free Art and Technology (F.A.T.) Lab is an organization dedicated to enriching the public domain through the research and development of creative technologies and media. You may know them from such projects as How to build a fake Google Street View car, public domain donor stickers, internet famous class, the first rap video to end with a download source code link, or their numerous firefox add-ons (such as China Channel, Tourettes Machine, or Back to the future). FAT members have been hard at work standardizing various open source graffiti-related software packages, including Graffiti Analysis, Laser Tag, Fat Tag Deluxe and EyeWriter [previously] to be GML (Graffiti Markup Language) compliant. Fuck Google. Fuck Twitter. FuckFlickr. Fuck SXSW. Fuck 3D. FAT Lab is Kanye shades for the open source movement.
posted by finite on Mar 13, 2010 - 8 comments

Rammstein's Pussy (video, really NSFW, SLnYT) gets right to the point. Youtube has taken down uploads. Facebook has taken down links (though not Links). Here's a fan-created censored version (NSFW lyrics). [more inside]
posted by zippy on Sep 19, 2009 - 171 comments

Some videos: In 1985, Tipper Gore's PMRC released a list they called the "Filthy Fifteen," detailing what they believed to be the fifteen most objectionable songs of the time, and the reason they felt each song should be censored... [more inside]
posted by the_bone on Jan 3, 2009 - 120 comments

Björk, in Shanghai, on Tibet: Declare Independence! [YouTube] [more inside]
posted by finite on Mar 6, 2008 - 80 comments

The Smothers Brothers are a folk-singing comedy duo whose television show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour featured music, comedy, and political satire. CBS abruptly canceled the show in 1969 due to continued arguments about censorship. [more inside]
posted by oneirodynia on Sep 14, 2007 - 37 comments

In 1964, a clean-cut college student named Jim Morrison appeared in a promotional film for Florida State University. [previously] The following year, Jim moved to California and transferred to UCLA's film school. After earning his degree, Morrison got together with another talented young filmmaker named Ray Manzarek, and they started a little band called The Doors. Jim didn't return to Florida until 1969, by which time he'd become one of the biggest rock stars in the world. Then, in what VH1 would later call the 31st most shocking moment in rock & roll history, he exposed his private parts and simulated masturbation and copulation during a concert in Miami — in front of innocent children. A felony. [This was not the first or last run-in Jim (aka "Mr Mojo Risin", aka "The Lizard King") had with the police. But that's not to say he was all bad.] Despite the absence of any photographic evidence (audio only), when the case went to trial Morrison was found guilty of indecent exposure and public profanity, both misdemeanors. He was sentenced to 6 months in prison, but allowed to remain free on bail pending appeal. [His estranged father put in a good word for him with the Department of Probation.] At the time of Jim Morrison's death in a Parisian bath tub in 1971, his appeal had not yet been heard. [This is THE END.]
posted by Poolio on Sep 3, 2007 - 84 comments

Frank Zappa' was so many different things { Mother of Invention, orchestra conductor, garage freak, SNL musical guest, anti-censorship advocate, home movie maker, Congressional witness, Monkee, documentary film subject, whipping boy, drug trafficker, late-night TV talk show interviewee, death wisher, composer, Dance Fever judge, master of his domain, dental floss tycoon, cosmic force, breast man, Crossfire combatant and The Walrus, among others } that the one day he was recently given by Baltimore's Mayor hardly seems enoughs.
posted by Poolio on Aug 12, 2007 - 79 comments

Why Does AT&T Hate Pearl Jam’s Freedom? Well, of course, they’re all apologies now… But this latest corporate misadventure seems to touch on all the hot buttons: Media consolidation, net neutrality and the future of political speech in America. (Newsfilter)
posted by saulgoodman on Aug 10, 2007 - 72 comments

Ten banned records, burned and played. (Flash with audio.)
posted by hydrophonic on Mar 30, 2006 - 35 comments

"Unintelligible at any speed." No, not Ralph Nader mumbling, but the lyrics to "Louie Louie," in the FBI's humble assessment more than 40 years ago. Nevertheless, this week a Michigan school superintendent banned a middle school marching band from playing the song... even without anyone singing the lyrics.
posted by twsf on May 5, 2005 - 47 comments

Secret Service investigates high school band Coalition of the Willing for performing a Bob Dylan song. Actually, for wanting to perform a Bob Dylan song. Parents freak out.
posted by swift on Nov 15, 2004 - 59 comments

Taboo Tunes :: an interesting exhibit of controversial and banned music recordings (and sometimes cover photographs), which is especially resonant in the interesting times in which we live. Be sure to visit The Gallery of the Forbidden.
posted by anastasiav on Apr 20, 2004 - 18 comments

"I Have a Gentil C**k." A rooster that is, but Apple may not have realized that when they altered the title on iTunes (iTunes link.) The song (sample: Real Audio, Windows Media), arranged by Carol Wood, is a 14th-15th century medieval love song, a variation of the aube. It may have inspired Chaucer's description of Chantecleer in the Canterbury Tales. [Via Digital Medievalist, SFW unless you work for Apple.]
posted by homunculus on Feb 3, 2004 - 10 comments

Shostakovichiana. Documents and articles about one of the twentieth century's greatest composers, some of them focusing on the problems he encountered working under a totalitarian system. Some highlights :- 'Do not judge me too harshly': anti-Communism in Shostakovich's letters; 'You must remember!': Shostakovich's alleged 1937 interrogation; About Shostakovich's 1948 downfall. More related material can be found at the Music under Soviet Rule page.
There are a number of interesting sites dealing with music expression and censorship generally. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum has a site on the music of the concentration camps - 'While popular songs dating from before the war remained attractive as escapist fare, the ghetto, camp, and partisan settings also gave rise to a repertoire of new works. ' Here's a Guardian article on the Blue Notes, who 'fought apartheid in South Africa with searing jazz'. Here's a page about the Drapchi 14, Tibetan nuns who 'recorded independence songs and messages to their families on a tape recorder' (and were subsequently punished). Finally, a page on records which were banned from BBC radio during the 1991 Gulf War (example :- 'Walk Like an Egyptian').
posted by plep on Mar 26, 2003 - 18 comments

MTV bans Public Enemy 's video "Gotta Give the Peeps What They Need" because the video contains the lyric "Free Mumia and H Rap Brown". MTV are willing to air the video if the lyric is cut. Public Enemy front-man Chuck D is vocal in his response. Responsible action or censorship in its worst form?
posted by nthdegx on Sep 14, 2002 - 75 comments

"Red" China? Communist Cuba? No kids, its America! Where the government has decided for us that we shouldn't listen to music that "contains unmistakable offensive sexual references. In this regard, portions of the lyrics contain sexual references in conjunction with sexual expletives that appear intended to pander and shock". Aren't you glad Big Brother is taking care of you?
posted by owillis on Jun 8, 2001 - 28 comments