Reevel Sangi Mayi - Censorship

Censorship is a governing body which can stop the publications of a product or text. Censorship of music can stop a song or video from being broadcasted on radio or television.

Censorship in music
An example of censorship in music used was in the 1940 with George Formby's song When I'm Cleaning Windows. This was banned from the radio as hte lyrics were seen as offending.
The lyrics were :
The blushing bride she looks divine
The bridegroom he is doing fine
I'd rather have his job than mine
When I'm cleaning windows
Governing body forced Cole Porter to change the lyric of "I Get A Kick Out Of You", which was a hit for Frank Sinatra.
His original version stated "I get no kick from cocaine". However the cleaned up version was” I get perfume from Spain”
Top of the pops banned the video for the song, ‘Fight for your right to Party” as it showed the band members trashing a party. They banned it as it portrayed anti social behaviour.

Self Censorship
Some institutes and artist chose to censor there own lyrics even if the govern bodies do not in order to avoid negative publicity. This is sometimes due to the timing of events outside of their control, such as how the September 11, 2001 attacks affected audiovisual entertainment. Micheal Jackson’s Greatest hits album was delayed until after his 2005 trial, it is not known if a guilty verdict would have further changed the timing of the release.
When censoring they are various methods here are some examples:
• Blanking; when the volume is muted for all or part of the word.
• Bleeping; playing a noise, usually a "beep", over all or part of the word.
• Resampling; using a like-sounding portion of vocals and music to override the offending word.
• Resinging; removing the word or part of the word and keeping the instrumental part of the song.
• Backmasking; taking the offending word and reversing the audio, sometimes the whole audio is reversed (often to simulate a 'backspin' sound), but more usually only the vocal track is reversed.
• Repeating; repeating the word just said before the explicit word was used.
• Skipping; deleting the word from the song without a time delay.
• Echo; instead of saying a word, it echoes the last word(s) said in the line.
• Disc scratching; in hip hop, scratching on the word, making it sound like another word, or make the word said faster or slower.
• Distorting; Usually in Hip-Hop, more offensive words such as "shit" or else is distorted.

The governing bodies
BBFC is an independent organisation that exists to regulate and classify the content of films shown in cinemas and released on video.
Ofcom is an independent organisation created by the government to control and govern what is broadcasted on TV and Radio