Once edited for radio, but no more (or the reverse.)

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Elliottmarx, Nov 13, 2016.

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  1. Elliottmarx

    Elliottmarx Always in the mood for Burt Bacharach Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    In the 80's and 90's Los Angeles radio stations would play, "and she never lost her head, even when giving head." Or Daltrey screaming, "Who the **** are You?" Then in 2000 or so, removed those assumed vulgarities. But now, they're back.

    I realize that corporate media overlords took control of the air starting in the mid-90's, but why the back and forth? Don't you cringe when standards and practices arbitrarily chops up a beloved song?
     
  2. SonyTek

    SonyTek Forum Resident

    Location:
    Inland Empire, CA
    I know this topic has been talked about here on several occasions, but the primo example of this would probably be "Funky s#it going down in the city", which it seemed like every station played unedited back when it was new. Later, it seemed like no one would play this version. Even now, I can rarely remember hearing the unedited version on the radio. I don't listen to FM radio much anymore here in L.A. but I'm pretty sure they play it safe nowadays.
     
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  3. SJB

    SJB Beloved Parasitic Nuisance

    Sometimes an artist will take it upon themselves to prepare a cleaned-up version for airplay, Wal-Mart, and any other locale where tender ears may be corrupted. (Tenacious D re-recorded their "Rize of the Fenix" album in such a manner, for instance replacing a crude fellatio reference with "I licked your pit.")

    For some reason I thought it would be amusing for a self-censoring artist to replace every vulgar word with [SPOON] - possibly spoken, in a voice clearly not belonging to the song's vocalist, reminiscent of the inserted word "Gangrene" in a Monty Python cartoon. (For some reason the BBC decided that "cancer" is offensive but "gangrene" is funny.)
     
  4. drasil

    drasil Former Resident

    Location:
    NYC
    when my pop band in high school played shows for the school, we were forced to remove 'vulgarities' from lyrics after an incident for which I was nearly suspended.

    we did this by replacing any and all of them with a spoken, deadpan 'what' delivered by lead and backing vocals simultaneously.
     
  5. LandHorses

    LandHorses I contain multitudes

    Location:
    New Joisey
    It also happened with "The Devil Went Down To Georgia." I heard it on the radio for weeks before the "sun of a gun" version.
     
  6. bunglejerry

    bunglejerry Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto, ON
    In the case of "Money for Nothing" and "Fairytale of New York", the curse word in question has become widely accepted as more offensive today than it was back in the 80s.
     
  7. Hey Vinyl Man

    Hey Vinyl Man Another bloody Yank down under...

    "Brown Eyed Girl" - as recently as four years ago (in Singapore) I heard the censored version (replacing "Making love in the green grass" with a repeat of "laughin' and a-runnin', hey hey") on the radio. In a country where Eminem was on the radio all the time.
     
  8. I dare them to play "Sexy MF" by Prince! :evil:
     
  9. SJB

    SJB Beloved Parasitic Nuisance

    Or "Dance, M.F., Dance!" by the Violent Femmes.

    "We Can Yoink" by Preoccupied Pipers is pre-censored but the missing words (really, one word, repeated) can be deduced. There's a video for it on YouTube, but it has still images of animals yoinking and I didn't know how that would jibe with forum rules.
     
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  10. JonUrban

    JonUrban SHF Member #497

    Location:
    Connecticut
    I remember some stations removing the line "..all the crap I learned in high school" from Kodachrome. Hard to believe it when you think about it. As I recall, some edited the line by inserting the word 'girls' from another verse to make it "...all the girls I knew in high school".

    Were we that lame back then? I guess we were.
     
    Last edited: Nov 13, 2016
  11. bRETT

    bRETT Senior Member

    Location:
    Boston MA
    There was indeed an edited version of that, which was more like "Sexy M".
     
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  12. JRM

    JRM Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eugene, Oregon
    Grateful Dead - Uncle John's Band

    “Goddamn, well I declare / Have you seen the like?”

    Warner Bros. engineers awkwardly deleted the offending phrase and also eliminated one chorus and truncated another in an effort to make the single more radio-friendly. “I gave them instructions on how to properly edit it,” an exasperated Garcia said in late 1970, “and they garbled it so completely and we didn’t get a chance to hear it until way late, and it was—oh f--k, what an atrocity!” In the same interview, Garcia admitted his ambivalence about striving for a hit: “It would be nice to have a single, but a hit single usually means twelve-year-old audiences.”

    “Uncle John’s Band” stayed on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for seven weeks in the summer of 1970, making it to as high as number 69, which sounds fairly impressive but probably is more a reflection of Warner Bros. promo men doggedly “working” the record than actual sales. The unclipped album version received much more airplay than the single, and the feared influx of twelve-year-olds never materialized. (Garcia bio)
     
  13. qwerty

    qwerty A resident of the SH_Forums.

    In the old days record companies would provide a clean version for radio, and in my country albums were released to protect our delicate sensibilities from such vulgarities (eg. Magazine, Marianne Faithful). Nowdays if a radio station wants to protect their listeners/sponsors, they can easily do the edit using Audacity (or equivalent). I'm sure the record companies don't care, as they would prefer some airplay rather than no airplay. And since when does anyone in the broader music industry care what the artist thinks/wants?
     
  14. buzzzx

    buzzzx Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cal.
    I notice "Break on Through" by the Doors now gives us "She gets...high", when for years it was just "She gets..."
     
  15. Dr. Funk

    Dr. Funk Vintage Dust

    Location:
    Fort Worth TX
    Pink Floyd -Money
    KMOD in Tulsa always played the unedited ********. I went back last year and they removed the **** but not the bull. Sounded funny.
     
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  16. varispeed

    varispeed what if?

    Location:
    Los Angeles Ca
    Anyone here old enough to remember "Greenback Dollar" on the radio when it was "and I don't give a GUITAR STRUM bout a greenback a dollar".....
     
  17. TheLazenby

    TheLazenby Forum Resident In Memoriam

    Location:
    Pittsburgh
    Not to mention, "The End" now has "FAHK FAHK FAHK FAHK FAHK FAHK FAHK MEH BAYBEH! FAHK MEH BAYBEH!"
     
  18. Bowieboy

    Bowieboy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Louisville
    I love the censored edit of the song were they replace the F with a scream "You sexy mother--OWWW!!"
     
  19. NickCarraway

    NickCarraway Forum Resident

    Location:
    Gastonia, NC
    Was there ever a version of MFN with just "that" word edited? The single version removes that whole verse, and whenever I've heard the album version on radio it's been uncensored.
     
  20. Black Thumb

    Black Thumb Yah Mo B There

    Location:
    Reno, NV
    The single edit of Jefferson Starship's "Miracles" lost the line "I had a taste of the real world when I went down on you, girl.", but you'd still hear it when someone played the album version.
     
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  21. Baba Oh Really

    Baba Oh Really Certified "Forum Favorite"

    Location:
    mid west, USA
    The Doors "Break on through" (She gets HIGH!!!)
     
  22. impalaboy

    impalaboy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boise, Idaho
    Yeah, what took so long with this song? I can (maybe) understand why the clean version was played 40+ years ago...but come on!
     
  23. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    I was still in my crib at the time, so I can't really say how many radio stations took offense at the notion of Roger Daltrey's dad being Black, and played this version.

     
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  24. The Elephant Man

    The Elephant Man Forum Resident

    This instance was because the multiple 'She gets high' lines were mixed out of the original version of the song until the early 2000's (can't remember which year) when The Doors' catalogue was remixed by Bruce Botnick. From that point on it seems like the new version has taken the place of the original.
     
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  25. rnranimal

    rnranimal Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    In the mid-90s, the local rock station would play a version of "Walk on the Wild Side" where Candy wasn't losing her head. I don't know the current status.
     
    Fullbug likes this.
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