Music Censorship Essay, Research Paper

Music Censorship

We ve all heard music. We ve all heard curse words. Yet, when the two are put together they cause controversy. Both music and curse words are forms of human expression. Music written with words that convey feelings and situations, and explicit words are words that essentially reinforce a statement or idea. True, some words are just tossed around (the infamous four-letter words) for no reason whatsoever and are really useless. But society knows this and continues to use the words themselves. So why do they try to censor it from their children when they use the words profusely? Society today uses music as a scapegoat for their own lack of delusional perfection.

Music censorship really doesn t exist. Some say it s a violation of the First Amendment. In a way it is, but only at a government level. Local governments, stores, and agencies decide what is obscene or not and censor it by themselves.

Then what is the point over arguing about music censorship? There are many.

Society points the finger at music today for school shootings and such atrocities. They blamed artist Marilyn Manson as an influence in the Jonesboro, Arkansas school shooting. He isn t the only musician to be blamed as influencing children through music. Because of this influence people want to ban such heavy music and censor it so much that the music will in fact lose everything that makes it. Marilyn s music is written to express emotion and ideas, such as the music of Tony Bennett and Aretha Franklin is written. However, most of today s generation listens to such music and most of them don t run around shooting people or committing any crime whatsoever. The children that do do these things either take the music too seriously or are mentally unstable.

There are also the Parental Advisory stickers on albums that contain explicit lyrics . There is really no point to this precaution since most people barely even notice the sticker. However, there is current legislature going on in a few select states that is trying to limit the distribution of such records and going as far as to enacting an age limit to buy such material. What s the point? The younger generation still manages to get a hold of cigarettes and such items, despite their age limit. Such legislation would just cause more of an uprising. Such an idea is purely ridiculous.

When someone buys music material, they know what they re buying, or hopefully do. They know if explicit words are used in lyrics. They know the nature of the lyrics. If they don t like anything about it, they don t buy it. Why prevent people that would enjoy something that has these things from buying it? True, there are the select few who might take the lyrics too seriously and do something stupid, but that s only a few. Why prohibit something so huge, especially in today s pop culture, just because of a select few individuals? Contrary to popular belief, our society will never be a utopia. That s an idea that s unreachable. Thus, leave our ideas in music. They reflect life s qualities. They help with human expression. They help with human emotion. Don t be under the mistaken impression that we could ever be perfect.