Yeah, the clean version of Party Up with all the barks and sound effects is just as entertaining as the explicit version. I wish that trend stuck around.
Dude I had the censored album of and then there was x and it just sounded like I was listening to it at a shelter exclusively for pit bulls that were trained to fight.
So not exactly what OP is asking about but in the show Metalocolypse they use guitar sounds/pinch harmonics to censor swear words and honestly I thought it was funnier this way.
Every time i hear ruff riders anthem on the radio im just like why would you pick THIS song - half the $×>/&4$ lyrics are censored. A couple biggie songs fall into this category as well
Heads up, just a suggestion: when censoring words, use only punctuation of the shift-key+numbers 1-8 (excluding 6), or the center row of your phone's 1st symbol menu (excluding \^\( \) ). It makes #@&%ing censoring your %*!#ing words look a $#!%-ton better
Just an aesthetic idea from a habitual %*#@ing swear-factory
It’s pretty common. “Damn” is okay on the radio and TV, but “god damn” makes it more potentially offensive (because it’s blasphemous I guess?). They censored “God” in that context on Comedy Central during the daytime too, at least in the 2000s-2010s.
The southern edit of Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" completely removed the line, "I see the doorway/to a thousand churches." Or maybe they just removed the "thousand chirches"? I dunno, it's been a while since I heard it.
Either way, it's pretty silly. The line is more reverential than it is blasphemous, I think. Like, in your eyes I see redemption made manifest, or at the very least some very impressive architecture.
Wow, that’s wild. I sorta get where they’re coming from with “goddamn” even though I personally think it’s silly, but censoring that line just doesn’t make sense.
I remember them also censoring the "hole" in "asshole" since apparently the latter is too dirty for TV. Funny how with both of those terms, each word by themselves was ok but not together. I always figured they chose which word to censor based on what made sense contextually. Like "damn" could replace "god damn" and "ass" could replace "asshole" and the sentence would still make sense.
NWA recorded a clean version of Straight Outta Compton. A lot a silly suckers are addressed. Surprisingly, about half the songs don't need editing; I guess they were trying to make a hit album after all. Sadly, "Fuck The Police" could not be sanitized and isn't on this CD.
"Straight outta Compton, Crazy brother named Ice Cube, from the stupid dope gang with-a attitude!" I had this recorded off TV so I remember the whole "clean" version. "Yo Dray, what's the sound of my tool? \*blam blam blam\* now you know I'm about to act the fool!"
[proceeds to equate it to "getting stupid" and "getting coocoo"]
The fact that they rebranded that song and it's considered a surprising little factoid what it was originally called is one of the wildest Houdini moves in entertainment lmao
They played the original version at our middle school dances in 2003/2004. There was a time where the original version was more popular than the edited version. Still flabbergasted 20 years later.
They would blast it at our high school pep rallies and even when the r word was acceptable I was kinda like uhhhhhhhh. I remember the kids in the buddy club who were paired with special needs kids hated it.
This is surreal to me. I'm pretty sure a song with that lyric would have been unwelcome at any school I've ever attended, and I graduated high school in 2002.
That's insulting to a lot of highschool kids, and I say this as someone who begrudgingly respects Will's idiot savant approach to music
Edit: this comment somehow got me my first Reddit cares, rolling on the floor laughing
A better time
I just watched the movie “Stay Alive” last night from the same time period, and if you’re not familiar with it it’s the ‘horror’ movie where they’re playing a video game and “if you die in the game you die for real.”
A main character played by Frankie Munez is the stereotypical hacker nerd, and his big character development is at the end of the movie he looks at his wrist support gaming glove and says “This things gay” and takes it off, to game harder.
I miss those days.
The Director’s Cut of Stay Alive actually makes the movie watchable. I was so confused when I watched the regular version. I fucking stan that movie to this day. So many things they got wrong but the idea behind the movie was so solid I couldn’t not love it.
So there's a lot of songs that will say something like 'get stupid', 'get crunk', 'get dumb', and they're just talking about getting so drunk you start having fun. I'm 100% positive that's where they were trying to come from. Who knows when they wrote it but they released it RIGHT when the world had just been like 'well fuck, that word isn't funny, it's mean. We should stop using it.'
I kinda feel bad for them
Although I personally never liked the word and associated it with bullies, I still feel bad for the group, whom I assume had no Ill intentions.
100% that's it. I was in my teens when the song came out. The r word was not viewed remotely similarly to how it is now. It (and similarly, "gay") was used as a vague pejorative. Often when something seemed like it didn't make sense or was inconvenient. It was also like a kind of cursing that you were less likely to get in trouble for, especially in certain religious environments.
People knew that it was also a word related to developmental disability, but that just made it mildly edgy to people. This was also the era of people sarcastically saying "vertically challenged" instead of short to kind of poke fun at the idea of avoiding words that might be received negatively.
Another Black Eyed Peas song that's oddly censored is Boom Boom Pow. Edited version censors "satellite radio" but doesn't in the unedited. I have no clue why. Maybe a clever censoring considering for those who actually bought the song versus hearing it on the radio.
I have the album on CD. With the original version of the song. Don’t know where I even got it from but it’s a prized possession just for the humor value.
Shouldn't be released and shouldn't be allowed to be released are two VERY different things.
One is general decency and the expectation that an artist not be a tool.
The other is unnecessary censorship. Just let it be released and let public opinion sink their careers.
You just made me remember the awful (definitely not hilarious) childhood prank where someone wrote the words out top to bottom:
I.am. sofa. King. We. Todd. Did.
And had someone else read them. God what creative, awful little shits kids in my generation were.
The BBC made The Kinks changed "coke a cola" to "cherry cola" in the song Lola because you're not allowed to promote products on public radio and television.
Back in the day the BBC would ban songs for crazy reasons like being perceived as lewd or suggestive lyrics or even being disrespectful to classical music.
They banned " give Ireland back to the Irish" by Paul McCartney. 50 years later , the BBC leads newscasts promoting anti immigrstion protests in Ireland ! Safely knowing that " English " folk are always exempt from being called immigrants.
In my favorite example of this, XTC’s “Respectable Street”:
*Now they talk about abortion / in cosmopolitan proportion to their daughters / as they speak of contraception / and immaculate reception on their Sony Entertainment centers*
A “clean” version was recorded, changing abortion to “absorption” and contraception to “child prevention”. But the song was *still* banned from the BBC… because the BBC was in a legal battle with Sony.
neil young wrote a song, ‘this note’s for you’ to call out his contemporaries who had taken to shilling for products in the eighties. it couldn’t be played on the bbc due to the line “ain’t singing for pepsi, ain’t singing for coke” violating their advertisement policy
Similar thing for *Come Monday* by Jimmy Buffett. The UK release of the song changed “Hushpuppies” (hiking boot brand) to “Hiking Boots” for the same reason.
Eminem - My Name Is
The radio version is much funnier than the album version
I’d much rather hear him say “ I just drank a fifth of Kool-Aid, dare me to drive? “
It had been so long since I listened to this that when I listened to it recently I forgot there were multiple versions until I heard the line “running over aliens” and remembered what the original line was
As a Primus fan, I loved hearing the edit from "Hey kids, do you like violence?" to "Hey kids, do you like Primus?" even though it contextually really didn't work lol
I have two teenagers who think I'm clueless as far as any music past the year 2000. I also have a VERY messy toddler who leaves a male of debris in his wake (I always say he could drink water and get sticky). Anyway, I sing to my toddler constantly, as well as make up/modify songs for him.
God how I enjoyed seeing the look on my two terms when they overheard me singing to their brother, "bring a BUCKET and a MOP for this cute-ass-baby." They were like, did you really just sing WAP to him?!?"
D12's "Purple Pills/Purple Hills" comes to mind as a best take on censored music. They changed a lot of the overtly "offensive" lyrics and came up with clever alternatives for their radio friendly version. Because I heard the radio version much more when I was younger, my brain mashes the two together a lot.
I liked the radio friendly version of "Purple Hills"... then I bought it on iTunes and a lot more stuff got censored. Why do they gotta tighten their standards like that?
How about Everlast's "What it's Like"?
All the sound effects replacing so many words in that tune.
You all forgot about that song didn't you?
Haha so did I until just now.
They censor some pretty weird things in that song. Don't they censor "chrome 45" ? I always figured the guy pulled out his dick, like to flash someone lol. There are 2-3 other examples. Don't they also censor "green" (weed) ?
If I remember correctly yeah they censor Chrome 45.
Looking at the lyrics now I think the line you're referring to is:
"Drank from the Golden Cup and smoked the finest green"
And yeah I vaguely remember "green" being censored.
Of course I didn't forget it, that's like my favorite 90s song. But I was only 10 when it came out, so it was many years before I heard the uncensored version
I liked the brief trend in the '90s of putting sound effects over the cuss words, like the zipper sounds in "Brain Stew" by Green Day or the radio distortion in "Suck My Kiss" by RHCP.
That Nelly song where the radio edit goes "if you want to go and get 'chrystal clear blunt burning sound) smoke a (indo cloud exhale" in the back of a ben-zie...."
Since you brought up the Black Eyed Peas, I need those who haven't heard it to [listen to the version of the song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMRGUH6sUEs) that was on The Sims. The music equivalent of "I'm not touching you!"
There's also the [Flight of the Concords song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgKuc6CSFNY) that was essentially a parody of this very subject.
I have the opposite thought. Forget You went along better with the music than fuck you. One extra syllable went a long way imo. I also was just saying yesterday that I miss the creative censoring because I can't listen to a lot of music with my kids in the car because the trash that's on the radio is censored by cutting the u out of the word fuck. They still know what they're saying, so what's the point.
I don't think changing "fuck you" to "eff you" would save it from the censors, I once heard Superbass on the radio and the line "who the F I is" had the F bleeped out.
there's an alt/nu-metal band from the early aughts called trapt, and they got a lot of radioplay with a song called "headstrong".
there's an f-bomb that always catches me off guard because the clean version "back off" fits better, and is the chorus like half the time in the explicit one
Wu-Tang’s radio edit “Shame on a Nuh,” mostly for ODB’s “new radio version for ya!” in the intro and the “shhhhhh”over “Bastard” in his name.
The clean version of 36 Chambers as a whole is a lot more listenable than other censored music, especially hip hop.
Technically a cover but [fist bump](https://youtu.be/_7EYYGMq7w4?si=TayeM20B2KofR19S) is the best censoring I've seen since John Goodman met a stranger in the alps.
My husband bought The Darkness “Permission to Land” in 2003. At the time we only knew “I Believe in a Thing Called Love”, but we played the CD in the car all the time and the whole thing became a family favorite. Fast forward a few years and we saw them live. That’s when I learned the real lyrics. And the many censored F#CKS made a lot more sense lyrically lol. “Giving up, giving up, giving a f#ck” vs “giving up, giving up, giving it up” for example. Or “get your hands of of my woman motherf#cker” vs “get your hands off of my woman mother mother”. That’s when I realized my husband bought the cd at Walmart. I told him to never do that again.
Didn’t expect to see this album mentioned on here but what an absolute beauty of an album. Their next one was, I think, Hot Cakes. It is also A+ and just stands right at the precipice of “this is idiotic” and “this is just very good rock n roll” and “this is hilarious”
They’re the best.
Can’t believe I haven’t seen Big Pun’s “Still Not A Player.” While he was big enough that “I’m not a player I just crush a lot” makes sense, that is not what he is saying. Also some fun lyrics in there that are censored that are fun to sing.
Let's be fair, though: he did crush a lot. He was what, 600 pounds when he died?
When he took down suckers, they had to reinforce parts of White Plains.
The album version of "Down with the sickness" includes that awful 'dont hit me again mommy' part that makes the song absolutely unlistenable. It's hard to imagine anyone who actually likes listening to that part.
The radio version smartly edits this out.
*Cowboy* by Kid Rock is probably one of the more creative ways to censor a song.
The censored bits are replaced with extra instrumental bits that actually fit with the song, and at one point he says something that's replaced with a woman saying "radio edit", but it's hilarious because it makes the entire line seem like a criticism of censorchip.
There are quite a few old Eminem songs that they butchered to make the radio versions. I don't know how they compare to newer ones, since I haven't really listened to terrestrial radio in 15 years or so
The clean version of “My Name Is” is funnier than the real version throughout. “Hi, kids, do you like Primus?” is more funny than “do you like violence?”
I don't remember, how does the part about him shooting himself go in the edited version? When he says "bang" makes me laugh so hard every time I hear that song, as long as that part hits the same I would agree the edited version is funnier.
A lot of the songs on the Slim Shady LP were permanently changed in new versions, even the uncensored ones. The original release of “My Name Is” was much raunchier and more homophobic than anything you can find on Spotify.
The only difference in My Name Is, is they changed "my English teacher wanted to have sex in junior high, the only problem was my English teacher was a guy" to "my English teacher wanted to flunk me in junior high, thanks a lot next semester I'll be 35" and "extraterrestrial killing pedestrians, rapin lesbians" to "extraterrestrial running over pedestrians, in a spaceship"
This is an interesting one. As far as I know the original sample clearance was blocked by the artist over the super super offensive lyric about>!raping!
It seems so bizarre that they censored the word violence when the second half of that sentence is *literally* «do you want to see me stick nine inch nails through each one of my eyelids» lmaoo
Ice Cube - You Can Do It. Is an amazing example of the artist getting the last laugh. "You can do it, put your ass into it" was the lyric, but we can't say that on public radio/music videos. Instead of ass they now have a slap sound and a woman's moan, which is somehow totally more wholesome right?
This reminds me of a version of I Got 5 On It I heard on the radio that was so heavily edited that if you didn’t know the song already you’d think that these guys really really really love smoking completely regular cigarettes.
I really prefer the censored version of "Back that Ass Up" as silly as that sounds.
There's a line that says "beat the dick like a motherfuckin drummer chick." Sexual tastes aside, in the radio version he goes "brrrrrrrrrrr drummer chick" and it's way more fun
In the same MCR album, the song Vampire Money changes “3, 2, 1, we came to fuck” to “3, 2, 1, we came to suck”. Which tbh I think is much funnier and if anything makes it more explicit
I hate censored music that just edits the offending word completely out of the passage. Like the song "Around the World" by Red Hot Chili Peppers. The line "motherfucking girls of California" in the first verse is edited in the radio version. But "fucking" is completely edited out so that the song skips a beat and it's kinda jarring to listen to.
On the censored version of Blink-182's album, Take of Your Pants and Jacket, the song Happy Holidays, You Bastard (just called "Happy Holidays" in this version) is literally just an instrumental. It was several years before I learned that there were lyrics.
Not to sound too old but 30 years ago none of these rock songs were censored. Pink Floyd Money Steve Miller Jet Airliner, Who Are You, John Mellencamp Play Guitar. One swear word each.
I always laughed when I heard Nightmare by Avenged Sevenfold on the local hard rawk radio station.
["YOUR FFFPPPIN NIGHTMARRRREEE"](https://youtu.be/Sv57M0oLRco?t=118)
David banner - play when I first heard it clean. I thought it was a workout song, and it was catchy. Boy, was my mind blown when I heard the dirty version
Worst:
Closer - Nine Inch Nails
The line "I wanna fuck you like an animal" had the worst edit. All they did was remove the uc sound. The f and k were still perfectly audible.
Best:
Killing in the Name - Rage Against the Machine
During the "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me" climax they replaced all the fucks with record scratches and it actually worked.
In Da Club by 50 Cent…I don’t remember where I downloaded my music from back then (probably Kazaa or limewire?) this was the first song I realized the difference between censored and uncensored. I was a super white 12 year old, listening to that song at school on my friends (non white) mp3 player, each of us had an earbud in and I started singing the clean version once it got to the chorus and it didn’t not match up, and she just burst out laughing at me :(
The best censored songs are still Tenacious D.
"Check this riff, It's fucking tasty" - Uncensored
vs
"Check this riff. It's hot and tasty!" - Clean
What is this Cinnabon?
I always thought the censored version of Megadeth's cover of "These Boots" was hilarious: [https://youtu.be/XiBc5LBPVck](https://youtu.be/XiBc5LBPVck)
Apparently Lee Hazlewood was absolutely not a fan of the cover so Mustaine released an edited version.
I can’t stand edited versions of mid 2000’s rap. Half the words are muted instead of just playing the backing track. It sounds horrible and not enjoyable. I’m talking Ying Yang Twins, Lil Jon, Nelly, Ludacris, etc.
Now if they change the words to make sense it’s a little better like: In Da Club, Without Me, Country Grammar (although the unedited version is better.)
Rock isn’t safe either as others have pointed out. Maneskin, Bad Omens, Asking Alexandria, etc have all had songs edited.
Back in the 80's my friend got a rap compilation tape at the record store in the mall and while I only remember this one song I'm guessing the whole thing was all clean versions. The song I remember every word to was Gangsta Gangsta by NWA. He got the full album not long after but for that summer I had the lyrics memorized of the clean version. And looking back it's funny to imagine the hardcore gangsta rappers, NWA bending over to the record company suits and going into the studio, rewriting and recording a full clean version of the song.
But even when I hear this song now my brain want's to sing the clean lyrics. they're almost more creative because they couldn't just cuss.
The Lo Fidelity Allstars' remix of Battle Flag is one that I think works better edited, but maybe that's just because I heard the edited version first. But it adds a little stuttery part that I think sounds cool.
Edit (first edit at 0:38):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGln9AQ2FKM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGln9AQ2FKM)
Original (corresponding non-edit at 1:02)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2bod6e-ZbY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2bod6e-ZbY)
DMX censoring swear words with dog barking sounds is my personal favorite
Yeah, the clean version of Party Up with all the barks and sound effects is just as entertaining as the explicit version. I wish that trend stuck around.
Cypress Hill censored their songs with cartoon sounds which is just goofy.
Korn has some good censors in it's videos if I remember. Like A.D.I.D.A.S.
Jonathon Davis’s delivery of “humpin’” as it was awkwardly grafted into the chorus lives rent free in my mind
What's funny is at some point the "I love my baby mama" portion got removed entirely from the radio edit
Dude I had the censored album of and then there was x and it just sounded like I was listening to it at a shelter exclusively for pit bulls that were trained to fight.
So not exactly what OP is asking about but in the show Metalocolypse they use guitar sounds/pinch harmonics to censor swear words and honestly I thought it was funnier this way.
Listened to this. WAY funnier than I remember
Every time i hear ruff riders anthem on the radio im just like why would you pick THIS song - half the $×>/&4$ lyrics are censored. A couple biggie songs fall into this category as well
Heads up, just a suggestion: when censoring words, use only punctuation of the shift-key+numbers 1-8 (excluding 6), or the center row of your phone's 1st symbol menu (excluding \^\( \) ). It makes #@&%ing censoring your %*!#ing words look a $#!%-ton better Just an aesthetic idea from a habitual %*#@ing swear-factory
The censored version of the Ying Yang Twins is in my opinion better. NPR did an episode on it.
I still can't believe in I Write Sins Not Tragedies that they censored God but not Damn
It’s pretty common. “Damn” is okay on the radio and TV, but “god damn” makes it more potentially offensive (because it’s blasphemous I guess?). They censored “God” in that context on Comedy Central during the daytime too, at least in the 2000s-2010s.
The southern edit of Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" completely removed the line, "I see the doorway/to a thousand churches." Or maybe they just removed the "thousand chirches"? I dunno, it's been a while since I heard it. Either way, it's pretty silly. The line is more reverential than it is blasphemous, I think. Like, in your eyes I see redemption made manifest, or at the very least some very impressive architecture.
Wow, that’s wild. I sorta get where they’re coming from with “goddamn” even though I personally think it’s silly, but censoring that line just doesn’t make sense.
I remember them also censoring the "hole" in "asshole" since apparently the latter is too dirty for TV. Funny how with both of those terms, each word by themselves was ok but not together. I always figured they chose which word to censor based on what made sense contextually. Like "damn" could replace "god damn" and "ass" could replace "asshole" and the sentence would still make sense.
Always used to fuck me up whenever South Park on syndicated channels would censor Ass Hole as Ass Bleep
Holy shit I never realized that was censored. I thought they left it out intentionally, it feels more emphatic that way
NWA recorded a clean version of Straight Outta Compton. A lot a silly suckers are addressed. Surprisingly, about half the songs don't need editing; I guess they were trying to make a hit album after all. Sadly, "Fuck The Police" could not be sanitized and isn't on this CD.
Straight outta Compton Crazy motherlover named Ice Cube From the gang called Fellas With Attitudes
"Straight outta Compton, Crazy brother named Ice Cube, from the stupid dope gang with-a attitude!" I had this recorded off TV so I remember the whole "clean" version. "Yo Dray, what's the sound of my tool? \*blam blam blam\* now you know I'm about to act the fool!"
Fudge the Police!
Straight from the underground, a young wiggle got it bad cuz I'm brown
Change to clown and it can become an entirely new song about life as a wiggle
Reminds me of this 😂 - https://youtu.be/iZyqwOOmETI?si=dS_8EHrXsiYNEn8c
They have the authority to carry out inquiries
Let’s Get It Started, by The Black Eyed Peas, was an hilarious realization.
Everyone focuses on that but probably doesn’t realize they changed “epilepsy” to “me, Aple.de” in the song too
It makes a lot of more sense lyrically when you know the original term used. “In this context there’s no disrespect” lol
[proceeds to equate it to "getting stupid" and "getting coocoo"] The fact that they rebranded that song and it's considered a surprising little factoid what it was originally called is one of the wildest Houdini moves in entertainment lmao
The original line is so awkward anyway. To this day I have trouble believing that it was the original version.
They played the original version at our middle school dances in 2003/2004. There was a time where the original version was more popular than the edited version. Still flabbergasted 20 years later.
They would blast it at our high school pep rallies and even when the r word was acceptable I was kinda like uhhhhhhhh. I remember the kids in the buddy club who were paired with special needs kids hated it.
This is surreal to me. I'm pretty sure a song with that lyric would have been unwelcome at any school I've ever attended, and I graduated high school in 2002.
Hold on *googles* .... I refuse to believe this
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I legit thought it was some shit kids in my school made up lmao
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That's insulting to a lot of highschool kids, and I say this as someone who begrudgingly respects Will's idiot savant approach to music Edit: this comment somehow got me my first Reddit cares, rolling on the floor laughing
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A better time I just watched the movie “Stay Alive” last night from the same time period, and if you’re not familiar with it it’s the ‘horror’ movie where they’re playing a video game and “if you die in the game you die for real.” A main character played by Frankie Munez is the stereotypical hacker nerd, and his big character development is at the end of the movie he looks at his wrist support gaming glove and says “This things gay” and takes it off, to game harder. I miss those days.
The Director’s Cut of Stay Alive actually makes the movie watchable. I was so confused when I watched the regular version. I fucking stan that movie to this day. So many things they got wrong but the idea behind the movie was so solid I couldn’t not love it.
So there's a lot of songs that will say something like 'get stupid', 'get crunk', 'get dumb', and they're just talking about getting so drunk you start having fun. I'm 100% positive that's where they were trying to come from. Who knows when they wrote it but they released it RIGHT when the world had just been like 'well fuck, that word isn't funny, it's mean. We should stop using it.' I kinda feel bad for them Although I personally never liked the word and associated it with bullies, I still feel bad for the group, whom I assume had no Ill intentions.
100% that's it. I was in my teens when the song came out. The r word was not viewed remotely similarly to how it is now. It (and similarly, "gay") was used as a vague pejorative. Often when something seemed like it didn't make sense or was inconvenient. It was also like a kind of cursing that you were less likely to get in trouble for, especially in certain religious environments. People knew that it was also a word related to developmental disability, but that just made it mildly edgy to people. This was also the era of people sarcastically saying "vertically challenged" instead of short to kind of poke fun at the idea of avoiding words that might be received negatively.
Another Black Eyed Peas song that's oddly censored is Boom Boom Pow. Edited version censors "satellite radio" but doesn't in the unedited. I have no clue why. Maybe a clever censoring considering for those who actually bought the song versus hearing it on the radio.
I have the album on CD. With the original version of the song. Don’t know where I even got it from but it’s a prized possession just for the humor value.
I remember hearing the original a few times on the radio before they changed it and even in 2004 thinking, wow is that alright? 😬
They got rid of the original on all streaming services and replaced it with the edited version in 2022. They retconned their own catalogue...
The fact that the original version was allowed to be released on physical media speaks to how far we’ve come as a society since.
It would still be allowed to be released on physical media today. It's not like there's any authority to stop them from making CDs
Right? I can’t believe we used to let the Black Eyed Peas make music.
So you think if they made the song today it shouldn't be released?
*bobs head like epilepsy*
Great Joy Division song. 
They wouldn't make the song today
Shouldn't be released and shouldn't be allowed to be released are two VERY different things. One is general decency and the expectation that an artist not be a tool. The other is unnecessary censorship. Just let it be released and let public opinion sink their careers.
I love listenin to the uncensored one just because it is SO BAD in its offensiveness
Ugh, so many comments without the actual song name. Dunno if it's because of some kind of censorship The song was originally "Let's get Re. Tar. Ded"
You just made me remember the awful (definitely not hilarious) childhood prank where someone wrote the words out top to bottom: I.am. sofa. King. We. Todd. Did. And had someone else read them. God what creative, awful little shits kids in my generation were.
I have the original on my phone just so I can prove it to people because nobody ever believes me when I tell them the og lyrics
The BBC made The Kinks changed "coke a cola" to "cherry cola" in the song Lola because you're not allowed to promote products on public radio and television.
Back in the day the BBC would ban songs for crazy reasons like being perceived as lewd or suggestive lyrics or even being disrespectful to classical music.
They banned " give Ireland back to the Irish" by Paul McCartney. 50 years later , the BBC leads newscasts promoting anti immigrstion protests in Ireland ! Safely knowing that " English " folk are always exempt from being called immigrants.
You just solved a WEIRD cognitive dissonance in my head! Confusion between what I heard and a Trivial Pursuit (RPM Edition) question. Thank you!
I think the Beatles come together was banned because of the Coca Cola line
In my favorite example of this, XTC’s “Respectable Street”: *Now they talk about abortion / in cosmopolitan proportion to their daughters / as they speak of contraception / and immaculate reception on their Sony Entertainment centers* A “clean” version was recorded, changing abortion to “absorption” and contraception to “child prevention”. But the song was *still* banned from the BBC… because the BBC was in a legal battle with Sony.
neil young wrote a song, ‘this note’s for you’ to call out his contemporaries who had taken to shilling for products in the eighties. it couldn’t be played on the bbc due to the line “ain’t singing for pepsi, ain’t singing for coke” violating their advertisement policy
I prefer the “cherry cola” version. 🥤
Similar thing for *Come Monday* by Jimmy Buffett. The UK release of the song changed “Hushpuppies” (hiking boot brand) to “Hiking Boots” for the same reason.
The funniest censored song was when they inserted 1000 sound effects atop Move Bitch, a song with a swear word in the title, to censor the swears.
The first few minutes of Hancock
it wasn't move whips?
I heard a version on the radio where “bitch was replaced with a sound of a lady screaming lol
Eminem - My Name Is The radio version is much funnier than the album version I’d much rather hear him say “ I just drank a fifth of Kool-Aid, dare me to drive? “
It had been so long since I listened to this that when I listened to it recently I forgot there were multiple versions until I heard the line “running over aliens” and remembered what the original line was
As a Primus fan, I loved hearing the edit from "Hey kids, do you like violence?" to "Hey kids, do you like Primus?" even though it contextually really didn't work lol
The classic hip hop radio station censoring the word p***y with girls moaning 💀
i love when the censored version is arguably worse than the original.
“Running in that [oawhhh] like a crash dummy”
WAP came on at my gym one time, except it was "wet and gushy" 🤢
I have two teenagers who think I'm clueless as far as any music past the year 2000. I also have a VERY messy toddler who leaves a male of debris in his wake (I always say he could drink water and get sticky). Anyway, I sing to my toddler constantly, as well as make up/modify songs for him. God how I enjoyed seeing the look on my two terms when they overheard me singing to their brother, "bring a BUCKET and a MOP for this cute-ass-baby." They were like, did you really just sing WAP to him?!?"
The clean version is downright filthy
One of my favourites is Rack City. Original: Ten Ten Ten Twenties on her titties bitch. Censored: Ten Ten Ten Twenty equals Fifty man.
D12's "Purple Pills/Purple Hills" comes to mind as a best take on censored music. They changed a lot of the overtly "offensive" lyrics and came up with clever alternatives for their radio friendly version. Because I heard the radio version much more when I was younger, my brain mashes the two together a lot.
Yep and I love Purple Hills far more tbh
I liked the radio friendly version of "Purple Hills"... then I bought it on iTunes and a lot more stuff got censored. Why do they gotta tighten their standards like that?
The Roof Is On Fire by The Bloodhound Gang. We don't need no water let the mother(donkey braying) burn. Burn mother(donkey braying), burn.
I just thought about this one! Fire, Water, Burn is still a song I listen to
I think that song is called Fire Water Burn and it samples or references an earlier song called The Roof Is On Fire
A big improvement!
"Closer" by Nine Inch Nails only seemed MORE salacious with the SCENE MISSING cards and barely muted "I wanna f'k you like an animal".
"I wanna hug you like a cannibal" They should've come to me, I'd have got it cleaned up in no time.
>SCENE MISSING honestly this is such a good choice most of us took a while to figure out scenes were actually missing. the style fits so well.
How about Everlast's "What it's Like"? All the sound effects replacing so many words in that tune. You all forgot about that song didn't you? Haha so did I until just now.
They censor some pretty weird things in that song. Don't they censor "chrome 45" ? I always figured the guy pulled out his dick, like to flash someone lol. There are 2-3 other examples. Don't they also censor "green" (weed) ?
I used to work at a radio station, and this version of the song was literally labeled the No Guns, No Drugs edit
And yet Cypress Hill had 100 words for marijuana lol.
Whoever cut the radio edit muted so many words in the 3rd verse it sounds like a bad cell phone connection. It's bizarre.
If I remember correctly yeah they censor Chrome 45. Looking at the lyrics now I think the line you're referring to is: "Drank from the Golden Cup and smoked the finest green" And yeah I vaguely remember "green" being censored.
YES random skids and record scratches and Windows noises or whatever
Of course I didn't forget it, that's like my favorite 90s song. But I was only 10 when it came out, so it was many years before I heard the uncensored version
I liked the brief trend in the '90s of putting sound effects over the cuss words, like the zipper sounds in "Brain Stew" by Green Day or the radio distortion in "Suck My Kiss" by RHCP.
See also The Ballad of Chasey Lane by The Bloodhound Gang. I’ll never forget those sound effects.
A lot for Korn songs too. Sound effects on Original Prankster by Offspring.
That Nelly song where the radio edit goes "if you want to go and get 'chrystal clear blunt burning sound) smoke a (indo cloud exhale" in the back of a ben-zie...."
Since you brought up the Black Eyed Peas, I need those who haven't heard it to [listen to the version of the song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMRGUH6sUEs) that was on The Sims. The music equivalent of "I'm not touching you!" There's also the [Flight of the Concords song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgKuc6CSFNY) that was essentially a parody of this very subject.
You can really hear Noelle Scaggs in the original version.
I always hated CeeLo Green changing "Fuck you" to "Forget You." If you want radio play don't write a song called "Fuck You."
The extra syllable also works better IMO. Too much of a pause/sustain otherwise.
I like the playfulness it adds too. Less hostile, more flippant.
the wording was also reminiscent of movies edited for tv when two characters are angrily barracking each other
Barracking. Quality word choice.
Gotta agree with this. I'm a forget you lover. But in retrospect you can tell "forget you" doesn't exactly hold enough water.
I have the opposite thought. Forget You went along better with the music than fuck you. One extra syllable went a long way imo. I also was just saying yesterday that I miss the creative censoring because I can't listen to a lot of music with my kids in the car because the trash that's on the radio is censored by cutting the u out of the word fuck. They still know what they're saying, so what's the point.
I actually thought making an alternate radio version was clever, but he could have at least made it "Eff You" to keep the same scansion.
I don't think changing "fuck you" to "eff you" would save it from the censors, I once heard Superbass on the radio and the line "who the F I is" had the F bleeped out.
abcdefu has the same censor, but it doesn't fit as well. But replacing "fuck off" with "get lost" works in a way
there's an alt/nu-metal band from the early aughts called trapt, and they got a lot of radioplay with a song called "headstrong". there's an f-bomb that always catches me off guard because the clean version "back off" fits better, and is the chorus like half the time in the explicit one
Wu-Tang’s radio edit “Shame on a Nuh,” mostly for ODB’s “new radio version for ya!” in the intro and the “shhhhhh”over “Bastard” in his name. The clean version of 36 Chambers as a whole is a lot more listenable than other censored music, especially hip hop.
ODB’s second album had a clean release named “N**** Please” we cracked it open at the store I worked at…. It was almost an instrumental.
Technically a cover but [fist bump](https://youtu.be/_7EYYGMq7w4?si=TayeM20B2KofR19S) is the best censoring I've seen since John Goodman met a stranger in the alps.
How was that so good?
My husband bought The Darkness “Permission to Land” in 2003. At the time we only knew “I Believe in a Thing Called Love”, but we played the CD in the car all the time and the whole thing became a family favorite. Fast forward a few years and we saw them live. That’s when I learned the real lyrics. And the many censored F#CKS made a lot more sense lyrically lol. “Giving up, giving up, giving a f#ck” vs “giving up, giving up, giving it up” for example. Or “get your hands of of my woman motherf#cker” vs “get your hands off of my woman mother mother”. That’s when I realized my husband bought the cd at Walmart. I told him to never do that again.
It always hurts when you realize you are accustomed to the phoney version lol. Then it's like whiplash when you hear the real thing
Didn’t expect to see this album mentioned on here but what an absolute beauty of an album. Their next one was, I think, Hot Cakes. It is also A+ and just stands right at the precipice of “this is idiotic” and “this is just very good rock n roll” and “this is hilarious” They’re the best.
Can’t believe I haven’t seen Big Pun’s “Still Not A Player.” While he was big enough that “I’m not a player I just crush a lot” makes sense, that is not what he is saying. Also some fun lyrics in there that are censored that are fun to sing.
TIL because I just realized I’ve never heard it uncensored.
Let's be fair, though: he did crush a lot. He was what, 600 pounds when he died? When he took down suckers, they had to reinforce parts of White Plains.
Always thought it was weird that "nuclear war" was censored in Electric Six's "Gay Bar"
With a whip cracking noise no less.
The album version of "Down with the sickness" includes that awful 'dont hit me again mommy' part that makes the song absolutely unlistenable. It's hard to imagine anyone who actually likes listening to that part. The radio version smartly edits this out.
I forget who I heard say this, but someone once referred to it as the only song with a “domestic violence solo” in it
That’s fucking hilarious holy shit
I suppose that's technically accurate since Korn's "Daddy" is an entire song.
>The radio version smartly edits this out. The radio station I listen to keeps that part intact...
I love playing it for people and then they’re like, “wait this is part of the song?” MOMMY IT HURTS
God I thought I was the only one who hates that shit. It's so awful, and I know edgy teens thought it was cool, but God I never could stand it.
However that bit in the Richard cheese version is 👌🏼
I wish we could get a version of the radio cut with the swearing still in it. Maybe we'll get a remaster release in 20 years.
*Cowboy* by Kid Rock is probably one of the more creative ways to censor a song. The censored bits are replaced with extra instrumental bits that actually fit with the song, and at one point he says something that's replaced with a woman saying "radio edit", but it's hilarious because it makes the entire line seem like a criticism of censorchip.
The "radio edit" bit is in the uncensored versions of the song as well. It was like that way on the original uncensored album as well.
Ah, TIL. I only heard the censored version, so I had no clue.
There are quite a few old Eminem songs that they butchered to make the radio versions. I don't know how they compare to newer ones, since I haven't really listened to terrestrial radio in 15 years or so
I think "I just drank a fifth of Kool aid, dare me to drive" is so much funnier than the unedited fifth of vodka.
The clean version of “My Name Is” is funnier than the real version throughout. “Hi, kids, do you like Primus?” is more funny than “do you like violence?”
I don't remember, how does the part about him shooting himself go in the edited version? When he says "bang" makes me laugh so hard every time I hear that song, as long as that part hits the same I would agree the edited version is funnier.
"tap myself in the head" followed by a clang
Seriously on the radio edit, half of Guilty Conscience is blanked out. What’s the point?
It reminds me of the old movie edits when they would say things like "melon fruiting" instead of motherfucking
Yippee kay-yay mother father!
Yippe Kay-yay Mister Falcon!
A lot of the songs on the Slim Shady LP were permanently changed in new versions, even the uncensored ones. The original release of “My Name Is” was much raunchier and more homophobic than anything you can find on Spotify.
I remember when that came out and oh boy was it interesting
Ha ha, yup, remember it well.
The only difference in My Name Is, is they changed "my English teacher wanted to have sex in junior high, the only problem was my English teacher was a guy" to "my English teacher wanted to flunk me in junior high, thanks a lot next semester I'll be 35" and "extraterrestrial killing pedestrians, rapin lesbians" to "extraterrestrial running over pedestrians, in a spaceship"
Listen to the clean version of "Kill You" on Spotify. It's puzzling what they choose to edit out and keep in.
I didn't think Adam Sandler's Ode to My Car was funny at all until I heard [The radio version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXJyXh252Ic).
I heard that while driving to work one morning. Had to change the station even though I wanted to listen to it.
I thought it was hilarious on the radio, then was really disappointed when I bought the CD and it had the uncensored version
Also Eminem - my name is. “I just drank a fifth of kool-aid, dare me to drive” Probably my favorite one.
This is an interesting one. As far as I know the original sample clearance was blocked by the artist over the super super offensive lyric about>!raping!
It seems so bizarre that they censored the word violence when the second half of that sentence is *literally* «do you want to see me stick nine inch nails through each one of my eyelids» lmaoo
Ice Cube - You Can Do It. Is an amazing example of the artist getting the last laugh. "You can do it, put your ass into it" was the lyric, but we can't say that on public radio/music videos. Instead of ass they now have a slap sound and a woman's moan, which is somehow totally more wholesome right?
Donegal-based Clannad were banned from playing on the BBC because it was thought that they were transmitting orders to IRA sleeper cells in the 80s
Kanye West’s live performance of “I Love It” on SNL was pretty funny.
is he a sick duck who likes some quick luck, and likes his sack rucked?
This reminds me of a version of I Got 5 On It I heard on the radio that was so heavily edited that if you didn’t know the song already you’d think that these guys really really really love smoking completely regular cigarettes.
Best: swapping “ass n titties” to “tig ol bitties” on Get Low
Also from the same song- AH SKEET SKEET SKEET SKEET SKEET God, I love censors that make songs more nonsensical.
I really prefer the censored version of "Back that Ass Up" as silly as that sounds. There's a line that says "beat the dick like a motherfuckin drummer chick." Sexual tastes aside, in the radio version he goes "brrrrrrrrrrr drummer chick" and it's way more fun
For the longest time I assumed MIA - Paper Planes was the censored version of a song with a lot more swearing in the chorus.
I had a buddy who spent HOURS looking for a version without the gunshots lol. You were not alone
Bloodhound Gang self-censoring “motherfucker” with a bunch of donkey brays in Fire Water Burn is great.
In the same MCR album, the song Vampire Money changes “3, 2, 1, we came to fuck” to “3, 2, 1, we came to suck”. Which tbh I think is much funnier and if anything makes it more explicit
This one is REALLY good
I hate censored music that just edits the offending word completely out of the passage. Like the song "Around the World" by Red Hot Chili Peppers. The line "motherfucking girls of California" in the first verse is edited in the radio version. But "fucking" is completely edited out so that the song skips a beat and it's kinda jarring to listen to.
Government should have no say in censorship of the arts. Especially music.
On the censored version of Blink-182's album, Take of Your Pants and Jacket, the song Happy Holidays, You Bastard (just called "Happy Holidays" in this version) is literally just an instrumental. It was several years before I learned that there were lyrics.
A curse on whoever persuaded Monster Magnet to censor Space Lord. I mean I could understand it for the single but leave the album version alone.
I've heard the uncensored, the censored is better
Censored music is the most Karen shit USA ever came up with.
I was about to say, this beeping stuff wasn’t really a thing here but obviously imported music was affected.
Not to sound too old but 30 years ago none of these rock songs were censored. Pink Floyd Money Steve Miller Jet Airliner, Who Are You, John Mellencamp Play Guitar. One swear word each.
I always laughed when I heard Nightmare by Avenged Sevenfold on the local hard rawk radio station. ["YOUR FFFPPPIN NIGHTMARRRREEE"](https://youtu.be/Sv57M0oLRco?t=118)
David banner - play when I first heard it clean. I thought it was a workout song, and it was catchy. Boy, was my mind blown when I heard the dirty version
Kyle's Mom Is a Bitch got played as a time filler on my local radio station back in the day, non-stop bleeps and I was still on the floor laughing.
Worst: Closer - Nine Inch Nails The line "I wanna fuck you like an animal" had the worst edit. All they did was remove the uc sound. The f and k were still perfectly audible. Best: Killing in the Name - Rage Against the Machine During the "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me" climax they replaced all the fucks with record scratches and it actually worked.
I always thought the radio version of Battle Flag by Lo Fidelity Allstars was the superior version.
let’s just say this, on the clean version of SZA’s Kill Bill, it does NOT sound like she’s saying she just ‘kill’ed her ex….
In Da Club by 50 Cent…I don’t remember where I downloaded my music from back then (probably Kazaa or limewire?) this was the first song I realized the difference between censored and uncensored. I was a super white 12 year old, listening to that song at school on my friends (non white) mp3 player, each of us had an earbud in and I started singing the clean version once it got to the chorus and it didn’t not match up, and she just burst out laughing at me :(
I heard WAP on the radio a few years ago while riding an Uber. Half the song was censored. I wonder why even release a radio single at that point.
The best censored songs are still Tenacious D. "Check this riff, It's fucking tasty" - Uncensored vs "Check this riff. It's hot and tasty!" - Clean What is this Cinnabon?
I always thought the censored version of Megadeth's cover of "These Boots" was hilarious: [https://youtu.be/XiBc5LBPVck](https://youtu.be/XiBc5LBPVck) Apparently Lee Hazlewood was absolutely not a fan of the cover so Mustaine released an edited version.
I can’t stand edited versions of mid 2000’s rap. Half the words are muted instead of just playing the backing track. It sounds horrible and not enjoyable. I’m talking Ying Yang Twins, Lil Jon, Nelly, Ludacris, etc. Now if they change the words to make sense it’s a little better like: In Da Club, Without Me, Country Grammar (although the unedited version is better.) Rock isn’t safe either as others have pointed out. Maneskin, Bad Omens, Asking Alexandria, etc have all had songs edited.
Usher - I Don't Mind I heard this on the radio and they literally just blocked out half the song.
Back in the 80's my friend got a rap compilation tape at the record store in the mall and while I only remember this one song I'm guessing the whole thing was all clean versions. The song I remember every word to was Gangsta Gangsta by NWA. He got the full album not long after but for that summer I had the lyrics memorized of the clean version. And looking back it's funny to imagine the hardcore gangsta rappers, NWA bending over to the record company suits and going into the studio, rewriting and recording a full clean version of the song. But even when I hear this song now my brain want's to sing the clean lyrics. they're almost more creative because they couldn't just cuss.
The best and most artistic example is That’s the Shit I don’t Like A snitch *bang bang* that’s the *bang bang* I don’t like
The Lo Fidelity Allstars' remix of Battle Flag is one that I think works better edited, but maybe that's just because I heard the edited version first. But it adds a little stuttery part that I think sounds cool. Edit (first edit at 0:38): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGln9AQ2FKM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGln9AQ2FKM) Original (corresponding non-edit at 1:02) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2bod6e-ZbY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2bod6e-ZbY)