Well, ladies and gents, we can now move ahead toward a time of economic prosperity and racial harmony, because Barack Obama has been sworn into office. What's that? You're still unemployed and your boss keeps referring to you by prejudiced terminology? Oh, bummer. Guess one man can't change everything.
But even if you haven't been swept up in Obama-as-Messiah fever (ironic given his presidency signals an end to high government as guise for holier-than-thou demagoguery), we can all agree it was pretty sweet to see George W. Bush (and don't call him Prez) sent off on that helicopter one last time.
Not as sweet as seeing the likes of Mike Myers and Cameron Diaz get sliced and diced by the Razzies of course. So without any last-minute presidential pardoning, here are the top 5 things we learned this week.
5. Katy Perry may pretend she likes to kiss girls and is preciously cute when calling other people gay, but apparently she'll settle for nothing but the straight dish when tabloids report on her sex life, or lack thereof.
4. Britney Spears is somehow being raked over the coals for the suggestive phonetic pronunciation of her new single. Meanwhile, no one raised an ounce of cain over Van Halen's non-too-subliminal epithet placement within the titular acronym of their 1991 album. Guess parents were less afraid of Sammy Hagar gettin' their teenage tots in a heated lather.
As we reported yesterday, Britney Spears was being rushed back into the emergency room. But this time it was her music studio and not a psychiatric ward, to do some last-minute surgery on her new single, "If You Seek Amy." Apparently, the title was subversively intended to sound like something a good deal naughtier when pronounced phonetically, sparking commercial radio's refusal to air the track, and thus its impending resurrection as the nonsensical "If You See Amy."
Of course, Mrs. Spears is just the latest in a long line of illustriously censored songs. This differs, of course, from a mere lyric being bleeped out, which would canvas nearly every hip-hop single of the last two decades; cover art being airbrushed, a la the Black Crowes' Amorica; or a song's complete and controversial removal from all pressings, as in the case of Body Count's "Cop Killer."
But the guiding forces are generally the same, and at their minimum incorporate the following: conservative media, righteous protest groups and puritanical retail chains. All of the above have upheld the time-honored tradition of illogically inciting teen-baiting scandal and sensationalism around something that would otherwise pass through the bowels of our cultural intake like a harmless blast of fiber.
So while there are no doubt several more worthy of inclusion, here are five risque, and subsequently retitled, songs that either awkwardly sapped the song of its original appeal, or in some cases just made us laugh at the stick up censor-happy advocates' asses.
5. Akon featuring Snoop Dogg, "I Wanna Fuck You" Re-Titled As: "I Wanna Love You" Degree Of Silliness: Absurd, But Understandable Granted, if you're going to release a single that graphically refers to copulation, you're probably well-prepared to acquiesce and record a modified version. But "I Wanna Love You" presents a dual-edged dilemma: 1. Particularly when paired with the video, and for anyone familiar with either man's careers, it rings transparently disingenuous as a romantic offering. 2. It presents "love" in this instance as an action verb, and it ultimately winds up feeling as if its missing a double modifier, like perhaps a "make" before "love" and a "to" prior to "you" for clarification. Because to suggest "love" in its most sentimental form is both in blatant contrast to where Akon places emphasis on the lyrics and awkwardly juxtaposed against the content of the verses.
4. Crass, "Reality Asylum" Re-Titled As: "The Sound Of Free Speech" Degree Of Silliness: Silly In An Ominous Big Brother Kind Of Way In 1978, punk upsetters Crass were releasing their Feeding Of The 5000 EP. Only problem was the pressing plant was offended by its Jesus-eviscerating lyrical content and refused to finish the job. So in a truly anarchist spirit that would be total anathema to most mainstream cowtowers, the boys simply filled the space with white noise, rechristening it (pun very much intended it) "The Sound Of Free Speech," an ironic fuck you to the bullying of opposing points of view that still resonates influentially today.
Just when Britney Spears thought she was a woman, no longer a girl, her raunchy little number "If You Seek Amy," which both spells out something naughty when phonetically articulated and contains some un-teen-friendly lyrics, has been prohibited by most radio stations. And hence, she is quickly re-recording a more agreeable, if sensually neutered, version titled "If You See Amy."
For one thing, I felt like the guy in Mallrats who couldn't see the 3-D sailboat on my first attempt to decode the track's sneakily suggestive intent. So from that vantage point, Spears' sales will benefit from the classic, "Kids now realize there's something taboo where it would have gone over their heads before" trick.
And besides that, it will now enter the pantheon of pop hits absurdly, and patronizingly, tweaked for PG parental approval, like Akon and Snoop Dogg's hilariously reworded "I Just Want To Love You."
Poor, poor Britney. All that time and money spent resurrecting her tattered career and forging her newfound matured independence, only to be dramatically reminded that she's about as self-determined an artist as a prison laundry operator.
