Music News

BBC Radio 1 will not play the original version of Fairytale of New York by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl this Christmas, seemingly because it thinks its audience of snowflakes will be easily offended by the lyrics.

Radio 1 said young listeners were particularly sensitive to derogatory terms for gender and sexuality. It will instead play an edited version with different lyrics sung by MacColl. A BBC spokesman said:

We know the song is considered a Christmas classic and we will continue to play it this year, with our radio stations choosing the version of the song most relevant for their audience.

The new edited version changes two lines - one swapped for an alternative version in which MacColl sings You're cheap and you're haggard in place of You cheap lousy faggot.

In Radio 1's newly-edited version, another unspecified line, sung by Shane MacGowan in the second verse, has a word removed entirely.

But the 1987 original will still be played on Radio 2, while 6 Music DJs can choose between the two versions.

The duet is one of the most enduring Christmas pop songs, having returned to the UK top 20 every year since 2005. MacColl originally sang the censored line on Top of the Pops in 1992. The same wording was used by Ronan Keating and Moya Brennan in their 2000 cover version. When Ed Sheeran and Anne-Marie performed the song in Radio 1's Live Lounge in 2017, she opted to call him a cheap lousy blagger.

Paris Opera is getting into a spin about race and diversity in its ballets and operas.

400 of its staff (about a quarter of the total) have signed an open letter calling for an end to the silence that surrounds racism.

The letter calls for a ban on blackface in its operas and ballets and for pointe shoes and tights to match dancers' skin colour, a practice already commonplace in Europe's major ballet companies. The letter also calls for a ban on use of the word 'nigger' in the dialogue of operas.

In response, the opera's director Alexander Neef has launched an external investigation into the claims, with a report to be published by December. Neef asked investigators to examine the ballet blanc, the tradition of female dancers all wearing white tutus or dresses, as well as other issues.

The Jam's anti-racism anthem Down in the Tube Station at Midnight was a song released with a message in 1978. It had a powerful message, too strong for the BBC who thought that the track wasn't acceptable to play on the radio and, subsequently, chose to ban it.

The track was met by hostility, eg when BBC Radio 1 DJ Tony Blackburn complained that it was disgusting the way punks sing about violence: Why can't they sing about trees and flowers?

Blackburn was not alone in the BBC as a figure who hated everything about the song and the broadcaster decided, at the time, that they had no choice but to ban the track from receiving airplay due to its disturbing nature.

The Jam knew that making Down in the Tube Station at Midnight as a single would be a bold move, one which would anger some quarters who simply wanted the music to be lovey-dovey and, in truth, not to reflect back at societal issues--a pivotal reason why they released it.

The Jam were three albums in and had become an unstoppable force of nature so, if the BBC thought that there ban would nullify the message, they were wrong as it became their second UK Top 20 hit, much to the delight of Tony Blackburn no doubt.

Polish public radio has censored an anti-government song that topped the charts and was then removed from the station's website.

Kazik's Your Pain is Better than Mine is widely seen as criticising the head of Poland's ruling nationalist party.

The station director has claimed the chart was fixed, but MPs from the ruling party as well as the opposition have condemned the song's removal. ?

The song's theme is grieving and the lockdown of the nation's cemeteries during the coronavirus outbreak. Kazik Staszewski's song doesn't mention Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the head of Law and Justice, by name, but his target is pretty clear.

When cemeteries were closed, Kaczynski still visited the Warsaw grave of his mother and the graves of victims of a Russian air disaster in Smolensk in which his twin brother, President Lech Kaczynski, was killed. By Friday, Kazik's song had topped Poland's renowned chart on Radio Three, highlighting a sense of one law for ordinary Poles and another for the ruling party's leader.

Shortly after the chart show was broadcast, internet links and news about the veteran singer's hit were disabled on the website of Radio Three, known as Trojka.The chart is voted on by Trojka listeners and station boss Tomasz Kowalczewski insisted it had been manipulated: We already know for sure that this song did not win. It was manually moved to number one. In other words, it was fixed for sure, he claimed.

Earlier in March, the Egyptian parliament started discussing a draft amendment to the Penal Code that aims to provide harsher penalties including imprisonment for using lewd or offensive words, especially in artworks. The suggested amendment may send the offender to prison for three years for offending public sensibilities through lewd language, instead of a fine of 500 Egyptian pounds ($32) currently determined by law.

The draft law needs to go through parliamentary subcommittees, but no date has yet been set.

The bill comes in the wake of a major controversy over mahraganat , a hybrid music genre that combines folk with electronic music and uses colloquialism in its lyrics. This genre of music, whose name literally means festivals in Arabic, originated in the Cairo slums in the early 2000s. Its beat resembles that of American rap and, like rap, its lyrics contain sexual innuendos, racy words and obscenities.

These songs have entered every household in Egypt through the internet and smartphones, Amer told Al-Monitor. A mother, a sister, a wife or daughter should never be exposed to such words because they are offensive and often sexist.

The lyrics of one of these songs -- Bent el-Geran (The Neighbor's Daughter) by Hassan Shakosh and Omar Kamal -- ignited on Feb. 14 the debate on mahraganat. The song's lyrics suggest alcohol and hashish -- both of which are forbidden in Islam -- to get over a heartbreak.

The suggestion of alcohol and hashish angered many critics, the powerful Egyptian Musicians Syndicate and parliamentarians, including Amer. They argued that the song was an attack on the public taste and encouragement of immorality.

  The One Show
26 February 2020

Summary of complaint

We received complaints about the dance routine of The Pussycat Dolls.

Our response

The Pussycat Dolls are well known for their dance routines and outfits and we announced at the start of the show that they would be appearing. Their performance then came towards the end of the programme, just before 8pm

As with all performers, we worked with the band to ensure their performance was suitable for the programme. We felt it was appropriate for the time slot and wouldn't fall outside the expectations of most viewers. However, we appreciate that some viewers didn't agree.

The programme also included a film which looked at cosmetic procedures which are being purchased by children, without the need for parental consent or appropriate checks. We believe this film highlighted an important issue. We have noted that some viewers felt that these two items shouldn't have been included in the same programme.

A Glasgow record store has decided to ban British pop icon Morrissey from its shelves.Monorail Music said it will continue to sell records from the Smiths:

But like many of our peers will not sell the singer's 13th studio album, I'm Not One dog on a leash.

This follows last year's indie music store ban for Morrissey's latest album, California Son .

Morrissey responded to the latest round of stains and stops saying:

I call for the prosperity of the word. free; the disappearance of totalitarian control; I call for diversity of opinion; I call for the total abolition of the sea; I call for peace, above all; I call for civil society; I call for an end so far. unknown to brutality; No to Soviet Britain.

Morrissey's I'm Not One dog on a leash is set to be released on 20th March.
 

Alanis Morissette was invited to appear ABC's Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest. She was joined by the cast of her new Broadway musical J agged Little Pill .

But the producers had clearly done no research into what they may expect from the performance. When she took to the stage in Times Square on Tuesday night, those fans were no doubt thrilled to see a performance of  Morissette's 1995 single You Oughta Know.

Or at least they were until they realized that some of the song's edgier lyrics had been removed entirely, while seemingly random lyrics were bleeped, including the word perverted in the lyric Is she perverted like me?

A viewer pointed out that the excised lyrics actually appear intact when the song receives radio play throughout North America. Another tweeted:

Our president says horrible things every day that @ABC reports, but on @ABC you can't ask if she would go down on you in a theater.

ABC also censored the line: An older version of me for reasons not quite clear.