M.I.A.’s awesome day of topping critics’ polls was ruined early thanks to someone putting a version of the sandwich-filled video for her hazy single “Paper Planes”–which samples the Clash, a cash register, and some gunshots–with an altered audio track up on YouTube this morning. You can probably guess which sample of the above three was removed for the edited version, which happened to be the “MTV edit” of the clip (hint: it wasn’t the cash register). (The “official,” uncensored version is above.) That sleight of sound pissed off M.I.A. so much, she decided to take to her blog and call all-caps shenanigans on MTV, David Letterman, lazy bloggers (oh snap!), and anyone else who might get in her way: MORE »
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M.I.A. Last Artist On Earth To Find Out About American MTV’s Squeamishness Regarding Firearms
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50 Cent’s Martyr Complex Overshadows His Kinda-Valid Point
50 Cent is telling anyone who’ll listen that he’s pissed off at MTV and BET for forcing a name change on his new single, the Akon collaboration/best track on Curtis “I Still Kill,” in order for it to get airtime on the two stations’ video shows. MORE »
bleepwatch
I almost forgot to mention that Maura chimed in from her vacation to let us know that Chicago radio is bleeping out the word “Uranus” from the family-friendly edit of R. Kelly’s “Sex Planet,” proving that R. can even make radio programmers nervous over something as innocuous as a large ball of gas. MORE »
bleepwatch
I almost forgot to mention that Maura chimed in from her vacation to let us know that Chicago radio is bleeping out the word “Uranus” from the family-friendly edit of R. Kelly’s “Sex Planet,” proving that R. can even make radio programmers nervous over something as innocuous as a large ball of gas. MORE »
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Limp-Dick MTV Censors Worry That You Can’t Handle Genitalia
Eagle-eyed Idolator reader shelo noted in in the comments section of today’s entry on an MTV article about kids who were on the covers of famous alt-rock albums that MTV had snipped off the little Nirvana baby’s wang for their accompanying graphic. MORE »
videodrone
For those of you keeping score: MTV2 didn’t cut the word “murder” from a 2-ish a.m. viewing of Chamillionaire’s video for “Hip Hop Police”–despite its dropping the same word from “Teenagers” by My Chemical Romance approximately 24 hours earlier. MORE »
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God May Have Given Rock And Roll To You, But AT&T’s Blueroom Wants To Take The “Profanity” Away
The controversy over AT&T’s blueroom chopping out some anti-administration rhetoric from Pearl Jam’s performance of “Another Brick In The Wall” at Lollapalooza heated up over the weekend, with Chicago Sun-Times critic Jim DeRogatis tying the incident into his tireless complaining about Lollapalooza’s overwhelming corporate sponsorship, the Daily Swarm scouring message boards for incidents of the sound dropping out on other blueroom performers, and Wired’s Listening Post blog finding that there was no “editing for content” clause in the release handed out to performers. One question that remains, though: Why is AT&T censoring for content in the first place, when its site makes no mention of the fact that live content is pre-screened before being beamed to the world? MORE »
bleepwatch
MTV’s standards for Sean Kingston’s “Beautiful Girls” seem to shift each time the song is played: Kingston’s performing live on TRL right now, and “suicidal” is coming out of my speakers, untouched by any censor’s hand. Also, uh, it’s quite obvious that dude is a more than a bit pitch-challenged. MORE »
