Music Censorship

Essay by Kelly ConlonA+, April 1996

download word file, 15 pages 4.4 1 reviews

Downloaded 369 times

During the Doors concert in Miami, in 1969, lead singer Jim Morrison, 'did

lewdly and lasciviously expose his penis and shake it. . .' (Rosen et al. 90).

Today, Billy Joe Armstrong, lead singer of Green Day, bares all at his concert in

Philadelphia (Bernstein 95). The eccentric Courtney Love will rip off her bra for

the audience to marvel and glorify at her action (Bernstein 95). She acts in such

a fashion because she is insane and wants to prove it to the world, where as Billy

Joe just performs naked for the shock value and the love of hearing tabloids and

gossip. Both performers of past and present conducted strange acts on stage for

the shock value and attention, but with performers of old, it reflected their life and

what they were really like. Today's performers, however, do not act like that in

real life, for the most part.

Today, performers take on challenges, like the dare of

a child. . . 'Betcha won't do it!' These rock performers cannot turn down a dare

or back away from even the slightest bit of public notoriety. By listening to one of

their 'questionable' albums, it is easily noticeable how they thrive off of it. All of

these performers do have one thing in common, at one time or another,

censorship made them victims because of their social unacceptable actions or

the content of their music and lyrics. While censorship is slightly more realistic

and open-minded (no more censoring performers from the waist down, like Elvis

Presley on the Ed Sullivan show), it still affects listeners and their choice of music

quite significantly. Although the government, music associations, and other

various groups try censorship, the music a person chooses is still, and always

should be, his choice.

Some children are...