March 28, 2006 :: Watch your language, [buster]

Yesterday, I turned on one of the local "urban" radio stations. For those of you who know me, you know this is a rare event... I usually stay locked to NPR or some other news radio, or my own CD collection. I rarely listen to any "urban" stuff in the car anymore. I do, however, get to hear some of the newer songs when I am out at lounges, bars, clubs (stripclubs... lol) etc. So I got the opportunity yesterday to hear the radio edits of two songs I'd heard several times before.

I have always felt that when an artist does a radio edit (i.e. replace the naughty words with less-naughty words), it often results in a better song, because it forces them to be more creative. So goes one of the longstanding arguments against cursing in general... mental laziness. And for the record, I do curse, but it's rare enough that my friends laugh when they hear me say things.

So with these two radio edits, one song (in my humble and mostly uninformed opinion) was vastly improved and the other was completely destroyed.

The first song was Young Jeezy's "Go Crazy". In the chorus, the unedited version has some lyrics like: "When they play that new jeezy watch you n****s go crazy". Typical rap boasting and puffery. Doesn't sound all that good. But the "clean" edit is more like: "When they play that new jeezy watch the [dope boys] go crazy". Doesn't look like much written down, but sounds much better. Has a ring to it, as they say. And plus, you can play it in front of your mother and not get lectured or slapped (depending on who your mother is... lol).

The second song was T Pain's "I'm In Love With A Stripper". For the longest, that was the only version of the song I ever heard. Then yesterday, on the radio, I heard "I'm In Love With a [Dancer]". Completely and totally took all the fun out of the song. In the last month or two, I've heard many a joke based on the title or lyrics of this song. Hell, some of you even used them on me after the last episode. But the word "dancer" is so generic that, even though most adults know what the song is about anyway, it sucks the life out of it. It's not funny anymore. The original made me laugh, the radio edit made me change the station.

Besides, when did "stripper" become a bad word for radio?

posted by Rainmayun at 9:39 AM -