Coup d'etad a la civilized world?
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Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
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SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Stopped reading that article when the author described the BBC as a 'possible centre of resistance' to tory government 
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
the nearest the bbc have come to resistance is allo alloStopped reading that article when the author described the BBC as a 'possible centre of resistance' to tory government
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Here's a more detailed look at BBC resistance:
How the BBC betrayed the NHS: an exclusive report on two years of censorship and distortion
How the BBC betrayed the NHS: an exclusive report on two years of censorship and distortion
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
I say we march on Parliament and squat the place. Howzat?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
and no one can forget the craven way the bbc banned a wide range of records with even a tangential relevance to war in the run up to and during the first gulf war (1991)
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
I think you're thinking of this chap:
...who is at present only a junior tory press officer.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Wouldn't even let Massive Attack call themselves Massive Attack. Because the word 'attack' is way more offensive than the actual thing it refers to.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Meanwhile, why not watch the smart bombs landing live on TV?
andysays
Love and solidarity
My (admittedly vague) recollection of this was that it was their record company or similar who recommended that they do this, rather than the BBC censoring them.
More widely, I'd be interested to see the claim that
backed up with something of substance.
This is not to say that individual BBC presenters or producers didn't make individual decision themselves not to play certain records, but the BBC as an organisation doesn't really do this in any formal sense - it doesn't need to.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
It happened andy.
andysays
Love and solidarity
Which one happened, the Massive one or the wider one, and does anyone have anything to corroborate (not saying I don't believe you, just that these things are subject to chinese whispers-style distortion, and I think it's important to be accurate).
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
The New York Times
February 24, 1991, Sunday, Late Edition - Final
POP VIEW;
Caution: Now Entering The War Zone
BYLINE: By Jon Pareles
SECTION: Section 2; Page 25; Column 1; Arts & Leisure Desk
LENGTH: 1232 words
You've seen the timeworn 1960's image: Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock in 1969, playing "The Star-Spangled Banner" with screaming siren notes and blasts of feedback that suggested the chaos and carnage of Vietnam bombing raids.
Now that image has an unironic 1990's counterpart: Whitney Houston's "Star-Spangled Banner," sung live at the Super Bowl as the war against Iraq entered its second week. A full orchestra accompanies Ms. Houston's sinuous, sultry voice, which makes the national anthem voluptuous; under the last note is the whoosh of F-16 jets flying overhead.
The video clip ends with a view of those jets, symbolically streaking toward the Persian Gulf. By the sound of his "Star-Spangled Banner," Hendrix saw terror as well as power in weapons technology. But in the 1990's, after "Top Gun" and numberless action movies, warplanes have been recast as sexy and exhilarating. In the video clip, they complete the montage that ABC Sports made of Ms. Houston, unsmiling soldiers and more flag-waving than a year of semaphore school. Crowd members hold up banners -- "Go U.S.A." -- as if the Super Bowl were a pep rally. Profits from the video clip and from the single are to be donated to the American Red Cross's Gulf Crisis fund. Meanwhile, the packages plug Ms. Houston's current album; pop marketing goes on.
American pop music's response to the war has been muted and anything but unanimous in its first month. Reports from the Persian Gulf suggest that heavy metal and rap are keeping up aggressive spirits among the young forces; El Diario reported that Hispanic soldiers wanted more salsa on Armed Forces radio. On the home front, although the Government has not been censoring songs -- unlike the British Broadcasting Corporation, which has banned the likes of Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly" and John Lennon's "Imagine" for the duration -- performers have kept their heads down.
After a decade in which benefit records and messages of compassion have been as close as most mainstream performers get to politics, few musicians want to address potentially divisive issues of war and peace.
Most of the pop-music sphere, including radio stations as well as musicians, has followed the tone set by the Government: somber, angry at Saddam Hussein, convinced that war was the only possible response and concerned about the troops. That's the tone of a forthcoming all-celebrity single (with performers from Mike Tyson to Billy Crystal to Tiffany), "Voices That Care," which is to benefit the Gulf Crisis Fund and the U.S.O.
But with a little prompting from radio stations, many of which have mixed news sound bites in instrumental passages, the pop public has drafted pre-existingsongs for wartime service. The songs that have benefited from the state of war, notably the Bette Midler hit "From a Distance," Johnny Cash's "Going by the Book" and Styx's "Show Me the Way," have been wistful and fatalistic -- an uncertain search for justification.
Hendrix made his wordless statement after years of a fruitless war, when a huge antiwar movement was established; in the Vietnam War's early stages only a few protest singers denounced it. Right now, patriotism and jingoism are ascendant as pop culture comes to terms with the war. Along with "The Star-Spangled Banner," radio stations have revived Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A.," and Billboard's regular reports on radio promotional campaigns show all sorts of variations on flag-waving.
In concert, performers who mention the war at all have been drawing applause by insulting Saddam Hussein or simply saying things like "God bless the troops" -- except for one oh-so-tasteful act that announced, "They're out there fighting so we can party tonight!" Neil Young, taking no chances, played Madison Square Garden on a stage set with both peace signs and a yellow ribbon, singing Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind." Sting kept mum last Friday at the Beacon Theater, but drew an unprompted wave of applause with words from "Fragile": "Nothing comes from violence, and nothing ever would."
Opposition to the war is generally couched and understated, even among performers whose vaunted ecological consciousness might have them thinking about the role of oil consumption in the conflict. Perhaps the mild dissents are a response to polls that show more than 70 percent of Americans supporting current policy. (The racial gap is wider than the generation gap, with significantly fewer blacks than whites supporting the war; antiwar raps are probably on the way.)
Sean Ono Lennon and the born-too-late hippie songwriter Lenny Kravitz put together a group-talked update of John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance" that includes M.C. Hammer, Peter Gabriel, Bonnie Raitt, L.L. Cool J. and Tom Petty, attaching the refrain to lyrics about everything from AIDS to environmental worries; perhaps both problems would have been alleviated by the vanished peace dividend. During the first day of the war, "Give Peace a Chance" was played hourly on MTV, and it went on to draw many listener requests through the first week; now, its exposure is tapering off.
Randy Newman (who appears on "Give Peace a Chance") had a song sent to radio stations called "Lines in the Sand," a Stephen Foster-tinged hymn to the troops that can be interpreted as supportive or quietly despairing. Only Jello Biafra, the former Dead Kennedys lead singer, has rushed out an unequivocal denunciation of the war, a single summed up in its title, "Die for Oil, Sucker."
But the pop audience, nudged by radio stations, has endorsed existing songs that events caught up with. Mr. Cash's "Going by the Book," recorded before the war began, gives a fundamentalist view, finding echoes of biblical prophecy in "rumors of war from the East" and a "rumble in the desert like thunder gettin' closer." By inserting snippets of news reports, many radio stations have made it seem that the song is about the inevitability of war with Iraq.
Styx offers more comfort by making global questions a matter of personal involvement. Styx's song "Show Me the Way" is about the singer's struggle to find faith, but A & M Records' "Desert Shield Mix," widely played on radio stations, invites listeners to overcome private misgivings -- a little girl's voice says, "I want my daddy to come home!" -- and join a nearly holy war. "Give me the strength and the courage to believe," the singer belts, just before a newswoman announces the approval of a Congressional resolution backing the use of force against Iraq.
Yet "From a Distance," written by Julie Gold in 1986, has become the most popular anthem for the first weeks of the war, and it's anything but gung-ho. Every verse emphasizes distance, as if the song (recorded before Iraq invaded Kuwait) somehow recognized the sense of insulation that has been enforced by military censors on all sides. In its climactic verse, the hymnlike ballad confesses, "Even though we are at war / I just cannot comprehend what all this fighting is for."
"The Star-Spangled Banner" memorializes "bombs bursting in air," and the quiver in Ms. Houston's voice finds seductiveness in the rockets' red glare. But so far, despite the gleaming high-tech weapons paraded on the nightly news, the pop public hasn't joined her. For the moment, it is keeping its distance and hoping the worst will be over soon.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
January 26, 1991 Saturday
War affects radio playlists
BYLINE: CP
LENGTH: 314 words
Canadian Press
An AM radio station in Moncton, N.B., banned two songs from its playlist
this week after about 25 listeners complained the music was inappropriate
during the Persian Gulf War.
The songs are a new version of John Lennon's Give Peace a Chance, by
his son Julian Lennon and others, and In the Air Tonight, by Phil
Collins, said CKCW program director Mike Allard.
While young listeners often request the Lennon song, some older
members of the audience complained it is an insult to soldiers fighting
in the Persian Gulf, said Allard.
One offended listener was a former Second World War bomber pilot who
said In the Air Tonight brought back unhappy memories for him and other
veterans.
Allard said the ban was simply a reaction to listeners' wishes. "The
fact that we don't play a song won't hurt anybody."
Meanwhile, the BBC in Britain has banned 67 songs from its playlists,
including the Lennon and Collins songs. The list also includes Big
Country's Fields of Fire, Light My Fire by the Doors and John Lennon's
Imagine and Give Peace a Chance.
"We feel it is right and proper to be sensitive about the music we
play at this time," said Julia Shipston, a spokesman for the BBC's
regional broadcasting division.
The BBC has also advised deejays against playing Yusuf Islam's song
I'm Gonna Get Me a Gun. Islam, formerly the pop singer Cat Stevens, is
now a British Muslim leader. He flew to Iraq last September to lend his
support to Saddam Hussein.
Concern at offending Arab or Jewish groups led the BBC to include the
songs Walk Like an Egyptian, by The Bangles, and Desmond Dekker's The
Israelites.
Shipston said the list was sent to local radio managers in an advice
note to remind them of "the need for care." It was not a mandatory rule,
she added.
Other songs on the list are Abba's Under Attack, Cher's Bang Bang,
Eric Clapton's I Shot the Sheriff and I Just Died in Iran Tonight by
Cutting Crew.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
two articles cited, neither of which you have acknowledged.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Yeah well you can prove anything with facts can't you?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
i can. not sure about you tho.
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
I remember it happenning.
andysays
Love and solidarity
Thanks to butchersapron for providing links to back the claims up, which is all I was asking for. Not entirly convinced by a wiki ref to a book which we can't access, but I guess it will have to do.
No thanks at all to Pickman's model and SpookyFrank for being snide sarcastic cunts
No thanks at all to Pickman's model and SpookyFrank for being snide sarcastic cunts
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
i think you'll find i posted two articles of substance answering your question. if you can't manage to be courteous in defeat, could you at least manage to be quiet?
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
You're quite welcome.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
The list was published in the news statesman and nme+MM at the time. I recall it clear as day. Here's the BBC confirming it. And again.
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