Who determines artistic expression in popular music?
Globalisation shows us the importance of the English language. 92 per cent of all music with interpreted lyrics ('singing' would be too much to ask) published in the world is in English. Many European countries, from which the British Isles have always managed to distance themselves, have also recognised the signs of the times and even the Grand Prix de Eurovision de la Chanson has been renamed the Eurovision Song Contest because no one understands the French language - also because GPdEdlC is less suitable as an abbreviation than ESC. After all, every computer owner is reminded of it on his keyboard.
English and German texts
Now, in contrast to disproportionately few native speakers, an estimated two billion people understand English, which makes regulation imperative. In martial German it is also called censorship.
Something Rio Reiser was already confronted with in the run-up to the release of his song 'König von Deutschland' (King of Germany) and changed his lyric line 'Ronny (meaning Ronald Reagan, then US president) scheißen bei Vivaldi vor die Türe' to '...in die Waden beißen': although the physical effect would be significantly more painful, the guardians of morality did not like the word 'scheißen'. Something Tic-Tac-Toe had less to contend with ten years later with the title 'Ich find dich Scheiße', which was mainly due to the fact that the person listening was denigrated and not a satirical reference to a third person was meant.
The verbal understanding of English song lyrics, on the other hand, consequently forces artists and performers (or rather their producers and managers) to think about what they are presenting to the socially distanced and politically correct community of their audience. Especially, of course, if they want it to be heard and not indexed and banned. Thus,[nbsp]Prince, when he still had a name, sang about his title character 'Sexy Motherfucker' in the play itself as 'You sexy mother- (pling, pling)'. But that's old news. The list of bands, groups and soloists of today is not only prominent, but all-encompassing. Perhaps apart from a few pop bards whose lyrics reflect nothing of living society anyway and would thus be uninteresting to listen to let alone monitor, no one is spared.
Scandal - or English: scandal
The corresponding passages in the songs are no longer beeped out, however, but muted or instrumentally drowned out so that neither the intended content nor the rhythm can become apparent to the inclined listener.
The example of a young artist who calls herself Benee to demonstrate her special claim, and in her song 'Supalonely' has the chorus line 'I'm a lonely bitch' end with 'chick' in order to be played by radio stations, shows how powerfully censorship affects creativity.
And while Doja Cat has a butt free with her provocation and you can't hear her sung about body parts until the second time (there is a 't...' to be heard and you have to think the rest: 'tits and ass' - editor's note) an icon of youth enjoys all freedom:
Ariana Grande floats above it all like a good angel (English: bad bitch). Her title of the eponymous album 'Thank U Next' from 2019 contains the explicit, clearly understandable statement repeated 56 times: I'm so fucking grateful for my ex. Whether you want to translate it poetically or factually, it means nothing other than: I'm so fucking grateful for my ex.
The faecally-blasphemous and non-sex-focused German translator would think it should read 'I'm so fucking grateful for my ex'.
In the first stanza she lists by name some of the qualities of former alleged lovers. Many do - albeit more believably - but why is she allowed to mouth a dirty word where others in the video even get their mouths covered?
This differential treatment (formerly called discrimination, but that is no longer politically correct and above all a foreign word that - like French - no one understands) is evidenced in the case of Demi Levato as the singer of the Clean Bandit song 'Solo': she states clearly at the beginning of each verse in the track, which is about masturbation: 'I wanna fuck, but I'm broken hearted'; but this is left to the listener's imagination (what can be heard is 'I wanna (three quick 'wouh'), but I'm broken hearted').
Further on, Grace Chatto's face is covered with a colourful smoke effect so that one is distracted and does not watch her masturbating with her hand between her legs ('I do it solo').
Soon the texts will be completely omitted because they could be taken offensively, but the imagery will be intensified and animated puppets (of course not with real people, that's not possible anyway because of the contact bans) will show what the preoccupation with our bodies and interpersonal relationships does to us - ugh, that could have been thought of much earlier. Then there is only instrumental music and the speakers are also banned from the radios, someone could say a wrong word 'live'. Then we would have reached the state described in the novel 'Fahrenheit 451', which in the Truffaut film of the same name shows a newspaper in which only pictures can be seen - and that is what we all want.