Apparently if you're intimately linked to Lance Armstrong then you can get anything past MTV!
Of course, people who grew up watching MTV will probably remember that this Viacom-owned music station has made a number of hypocritical editing decisions when it comes to the songs they play. A great example is the song "Scooby Snacks," which featured the memorable chorus: "Running around robbing banks all whacked on Scooby Snacks." When MTV got a hold of the song they edited out the words "Scooby Snacks," citing that it had to do with the drug reference (not a trademark problem). Unfortunately, like Rock Band, this no-drugs position seems to have gone out the window once a bigger artist refused to edit a song. In Sheryl Crow's song from the exact same year (1995) she states: "Well, OK, I still get stoned/I'm not the kind of girl you'd take home." MTV had no problem with that lyric and left it in, and thus history repeats itself.
Unfortunately it's not just drugs that Harmonix has a problem with, they also are going through their the songs and taking out other "offensive" words. For example, in the Garbage song "Why Do You Love Me?" Shirley Manson sings that "now I've held back a wealth of shit I think I'm gonna choke." The
Unfortunately Shirley Manson isn't given the same luxury as Sheryl Crow as her band's song was edited by an MTV-owned company!
word "shit"? Completely edited out of the song. Same with the Coheed & Cambria song "Welcome Home," which features the lyric: "Well you're just as I presumed, a whore in sheep's clothing/Fucking up is all I do and if so here we stop." Just like the Beastie Boys, Coheed & Cambria's lyrics are edited and there's an awkward pause for the singer.
What's even more interesting are the lyrics that aren't edited in any way. In the song "Run To The Hills" (as made famous by Iron Maiden) the lyrics "Raping the women and wasting the men/The only good injuns are tame" have been left in. Not only does the line talk about raping women and killing men, but it also refers to Native Americans as "injuns" ... which isn't exactly the most politically correct statement. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying these lyrics should be edited, I understand that these lyrics reference things that happened in our history and probably shouldn't be offensive. However, it's frustrating to hear lyrics like this and know that Joe Strummer can't say "hard drugs" without being edited.
The problem is that most of these tracks we are talking about are available ONLY as downloadable content. We're paying $2 a
Ironically Rock Band is linked with the "hard drug" known as Ecstesy
song (twice the price of an iTunes track) for something that is cleaned up and edited. These songs don't need to be rated "T", they could just as easily be rated "M" and nobody would know the difference. We're paying for the privilege to download the songs we want to listen to and play, if we're putting out our own money then we should not be forced to download edited tracks. I wouldn't be opposed to Harmonix giving us a choice between edited or not, but we shouldn't pay for edited content. Having an M-Rated downloadable track isn't going to affect the T-Rating on the front of the box, since none of those songs are obscene.
In fact, maybe it's the ESRB that I should be pointing my finger at. After all, it seems clear that Harmonix (and every other company that ends up editing profanity out of music) is just doing this to appease the ESRB (and keep a family friendly rating). But would these songs
You may not want him as your President, but Mike Huckabee would be the one person who would want to play all of the bass parts in Rock Band!
even be rated "M" for one small use of what some deem offensive? Is a song really going to get an "M" rating for referencing "drugs" or "shit" or something like that? If that's the case then something is broken at the ESRB. This is a T-Rated game, not E for Everybody, to think that a teenager hasn't heard words like "drug" or "shit" is to be living in a dream world where there is no divorce, everybody has a job and kids wait until marriage to have sex. But that world isn't reality ... and it's not the world of rock music. Let's not forget, the saying is "sex, drugs and rock 'n roll" (in that order).
What Harmonix is doing is the same thing Wal-Mart does, they make sure the music they sell won't offend anybody. They've forced numerous bands to either edit their songs or not be stocked in the nation's largest retailer. Unfortunately far too often the record labels give in knowing that without Wal-Mart's support their album won't sell as many copies as they want, which means that certain music listeners are forced to listen to "Waif Me" instead of "Rape Me." But at least in the Wal-Mart case you have a choice, you don't have to shop at Wal-Mart; you can just as easily go and buy a CD online or at one of the other record stores. But you can't do that with Rock Band, so in essence all we have is Wal-Mart. That's not a good thing
Maybe Harmonix is not has evil as Wal-Mart, but it still sucks that we're buying music with edited lyrics!
and I'm sure Harmonix would be horrified to learn that there are websites online that are comparing them to this nefarious retail chain. Or maybe Wal-Mart would be horrified to be compared to Harmonix. Either way, it's not a good situation for anybody involved.
Getting back to the Weezer song that started this all, thankfully El Scorcho was not edited. The word "Goddamn" was left intact, despite the fact that in past Harmonix games they've edited out that word. So while this one moment of potential censorship has been averted, the point still remains that it's hard to tell what you're going to get when you pay your $2 for a brand new Rock Band song. This song could have just as easily been edited, and given some of the other things they've censored (the word "drug" comes to mind) I'm a little surprised Weezer was left untouched.
Sadly Harmonix has yet to address this and none of the other media outlets seem to want to touch it, so until people start to complain about edited music nothing is ever going to happen. Let Harmonix know that you are paying for these songs and you don't want the lyrics edited in any way. Nobody is asking you to drive to the company's Boston office, but if we let them know what we think they may try and find a way to compromise. Or maybe they won't, we won't know if we don't try. Oh, and by the way, this article has a lot of profanity ... so you might want to think twice about reading it. Oops, too late.
