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jebsib
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| Posted: 13 January 2020 at 6:24pm | IP Logged
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This week's #1 song is Roddy Ricch's "The Box", currently unavailable
commercially in a Clean Version and jam-packed with expletives and N-Words.
While there have been coarse / vulgar hits for decades, does anyone know the
first commercial hits that actually had out-and-out swear words?
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PopArchivist
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| Posted: 13 January 2020 at 6:37pm | IP Logged
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jebsib wrote:
While there have been coarse / vulgar hits for decades, does anyone know the
first commercial hits that actually had out-and-out swear words? |
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A Boy Named Sue had no explicit version, just a clean release until the Live album it came from came out decades later unedited. It contained son-of-a-bitch in the lyrics censored. That was 1969.
If I recall the Isley Brothers Fight The Power contained the first true curse word "bullshit", which was censored out for the radio in the 70's but available on the LP Version.
There were other instances of changed lyrics like Lou Christie's Rhapsody In The Rain in the 60's, but if your talking about vulgar/offensive language, I can't recall any before the Isley Brothers hit.
Unless you want to count John Lennon's use of the N Word in his 1972 song, which due to its use of an offensive racial epithet and what was perceived as an inappropriate comparison of women's rights to the oppression of African-Americans, most radio stations in the US declined to play the record.
Either way if you want to discount Bitch go right ahead. Apparently radio was okay with playing Elton John's The Bitch Is Back and Neil Sedaka's Bad Blood without edits. Almost forgot 1976's Hurricane Part 1 by Bob Dylan as a special mention....
Edited by PopArchivist on 14 January 2020 at 11:18am
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PopArchivist
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| Posted: 13 January 2020 at 6:54pm | IP Logged
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jebsib wrote:
This week's #1 song is Roddy Ricch's "The Box", currently unavailable
commercially in a Clean Version and jam-packed with expletives and N-Words.
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The last time this happened was Eminem's Killshot in 2018. No clean version exists for it. If it is popular enough, Promo Only might issue an edit of it. Or it might make it to the next NOW cd. I can tell you that even if it isn't lossy I've personally been able to match up an explicit with a clean if need be.
I checked Tidal, Qobuz and 7Digital and they all have the explicit album track....
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aaronk
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| Posted: 13 January 2020 at 7:42pm | IP Logged
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“Money” by Pink Floyd was from 1973, and commercial copies also
contain the word “bullshit.”
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jebsib
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| Posted: 14 January 2020 at 10:54am | IP Logged
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Amazing how the culture has shifted. How long before we get a #1 hit with one
of the "Big 2" words in the title?
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eriejwg
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| Posted: 14 January 2020 at 11:11am | IP Logged
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Ironically, I emailed the programmer at Promo Only
yesterday about this song and the huge increase in spins
this week. He initially serviced to POOL the promo [clean]
version, then last night, they uploaded a PO Clean Edit.
Top Hits U.S.A. hasn't even serviced the song at all.
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PopArchivist
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| Posted: 14 January 2020 at 11:21am | IP Logged
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aaronk wrote:
“Money” by Pink Floyd was from 1973, and commercial copies also
contain the word “bullshit.” |
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Aaron,
Did radio back then even censor John Lennon's Woman is the N... Of The World? Or was Money in 1973 the first true censored top 40 hit?
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eriejwg
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| Posted: 14 January 2020 at 11:25am | IP Logged
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No radio station in my area played that John Lennon song
in 1972.
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John Gallagher
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Hykker
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| Posted: 14 January 2020 at 2:22pm | IP Logged
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PopArchivist wrote:
Or was Money in 1973 the first
true censored top 40 hit? |
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As noted, it was only censored on the mono side of promo
copies. Stock copies and the stereo side of the promo
were left intact.
A couple censored songs from the early 60s...
"Greenback Dollar" - Kingston Trio ("damn" was replaced
with a guitar strum)
"My Boomerang Won't Come Back" - Charlie Drake (original
had the line "practiced until I was black in the face",
later issues replaced "black" with "blue")
eriejwg wrote:
No radio station in my area played that
John Lennon song
in 1972. |
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Nor mine. I'd guess most of its chart position came from
sales.
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Paul Haney
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| Posted: 15 January 2020 at 5:51am | IP Logged
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jebsib wrote:
Amazing how the culture has shifted. How
long before we get a #1 hit with one
of the "Big 2" words in the title? |
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Well, Cee Lo Green got pretty close with "F**k You!"
(which did have a clean version "Forget You") and Pink had
"F**kin' Perfect", both of which peaked at #2 on the Hot
100 in 2011.
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Paul Haney
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| Posted: 15 January 2020 at 5:52am | IP Logged
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eriejwg wrote:
No radio station in my area played that
John Lennon song in 1972. |
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There's not a single American radio station survey which
shows that song in the ARSA database.
Edited by Paul Haney on 15 January 2020 at 5:54am
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PopArchivist
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| Posted: 19 January 2020 at 12:02am | IP Logged
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So before the era of numerous explicit hits began right around 1993 to chart on the top 40 and storm up the top 10, is there a definitive top 40 list of songs from 1955-1992 that have a clean radio edit and an explicit to match? I would be curious to see if I missed any.
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"I'm a pop archivist, not a chart philosopher, I seek to listen, observe and document the chart position of music."
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Top 40 Music on Compact Disc : Chat Board
Topic: Explicit Top 40 Hits
