Rockin' in the free world? : popular music and censorship in the United States

This thesis seeks to identify the general patterns of censorship of popular music in the United States from the 1950s until today. It looks at who the censors tend to be, and the methods used in order to silence artistic expressions. Furthermore, it sets out to identify the general themes that tend to get censored, and the reasons why. It also looks at the consequences of music censorship. These patterns are identified by looking at successful and failed attempts at censoring popular music. What becomes apparent in the paper is that, overwhelmingly, it is conservatives who have called for censorship of artistic expressions. Most artistic expressions in popular music tend to be liberal, and conservatives are usually patriotic traditionalists who emphasize family values and morals. After the introduction of the democratic idea, censorship has tended to be bottom-up. This means that it usually has been grass-root organizations, especially in the form of interest groups, who have put pressure on the government to enact censorious measures in order to ‘protect’ the community. The themes targeted by censors of popular music fall into five main categories, namely sex, drugs, politics, religion, and violence. Furthermore, this paper identifies two major arguments for censorship, namely obscenity and causality. The obscenity argument emphasizes that anything deemed offensive should not be allowed into the mainstream, because it may upset the general public. The causality argument emphasizes that artistic expressions may be the cause of unwanted behavior among its listeners, such as promiscuity or violence. However, no conclusive scientific evidence has been gathered to justify this assumption. Rather, artistic expressions tend to be an effect of society, not a cause. The consequences of censorship are diverse. They may restrict people from hearing the music, or it may create such controversy that people actively seek it out, simply out of curiosity. Most importantly, censorship infringes on an individual’s constitutionally secured right to freedom of expression