Censorship, the act of condemning a piece because of its content, is most widely recognizable in the music industry. Censorship in music has been a major problem plaguing America since the early nineteen forties. Every major genre of music has, at some point in time, been censored because of its content. Censorship of music is a blatant violation of the first amendment which guarantees every person in society the right to freedom of speech and expression. Censorship is an attack against American's first amendment right guaranteeing the freedom of speech; however if a song or album is deemed obscene the first amendment does not protect this. .
Many experts feel that music directly influences negative situations in today's youth. These accusations prompt the harsh censorship of music. These situations include, but are not limited to: suicide, murder and sexual assault. Parents and experts argue that rappers and musicians use vulgar, profane, sexually explicit lyrics to target the teenage audience. For those teens, this music is a release that expresses everything they feel in daily life; for parents, this is seen as monetarily driven and only used to earn more money to corrupt their children. .
For many years radio has been censoring music as a result of the FCC regulations. In 1940 NBC banned 147 songs. Ultimately, the rock and roll community took the harshest affects of radio censorship. In an attempt to let radio stations know what types of songs were unacceptable sent a list of 22 drug related songs to radio stations. An example of the songs that were deemed unacceptable for air play were: Puff the magic dragon; I get by with a little help from my friends and Lucy in the sky with diamonds. Ultimately these songs were banned from radio broadcast. In an extreme effort to censor music, President Nixon tried to have John Lennon deported for his deviant behavior and anti-political messages in his songs.
