Censorship On MTV - Censored Music Videos

Censored Music Videos

MTV has also heavily edited a number of music videos to remove references in lyrics to drugs, sex, nudity, violence, weapons, racism, homophobia, or advertising, and completely edits out the swearwords. MTV will also censor any content that is a concern to copyright holders. Examples of such edits have included:

• The ending of Robbie Williams' song Rock DJ in 2000, had its last part heavily censored, which starts with a naked Robbie Williams stripping off his (prosthetic) skin while dancing until he becomes a skeleton because of gory content
• In the song "Beautiful Girls" by Sean Kingston, the word "suicidal" was altered to "in denial".
• In Michael Jackson's single "They Don't Care About Us", MTV has replaced the words "Jew me" and "kike me" with "do me" and "strike me" in the line "Jew me, sue me... kick me, kike me; don't you black-or-white me". Jackson argued that the song used the words to describe prejudice and that it was poor judgment to select Jewish people as explanatory words.
• "Express Yourself" by N.W.A censored the words "I Have a Dream" (the words were not censored prior to 1993 when it aired on Yo! MTV Raps) when the group goes through the banner with the statement (this particular scene was based on the Shell Oil Company's Shell Answer Man commercials during the early 1980s, in which an automobile drives through the banner with the closing Come to Shell for Answers) while Dr. Dre began rhyming. It was N.W.A's second video ever released on MTV, its first being Straight Outta Compton, which also stirred up controversy as MTV refused to play the video due to the profanity and violent lyrics in the song. An edited version of the song was featured on the video.
• Hawthorne Heights' song "Ohio Is for Lovers" has the word "cut" edited out in the lyrics "Cut my wrists and black my eyes, so I can fall asleep tonight."
• "This Love" by Maroon 5 had the words "coming" and "sinking" edited out of the lyrics due to possible content.
• The song "Teenagers" by My Chemical Romance had the words "gun", "murder", "shirt", and "pay" censored because of the attack on Virginia Tech (in addition to the usual removal of profanities).
• When the music video for "Paper Planes" by M.I.A. was released on MTV, the word "weed" was removed from the second verse, and the gunshot sounds that are heard in the chorus were replaced with cash register sounds in order to remove references to murder. Also, the singer's vocals were edited to take away from the song's mature content. This angered M.I.A. greatly, and she publicly spoke out against the censorship of the song on her Myspace blog. In 2012, another M.I.A. video was censored and edited for MTV. In the "clean" version of the video for "Bad Girls", guns were not shown and the word "blow" was cut out of the line "don't go screaming if I blow you with a bang."
• "We Are All on Drugs" and "Hash Pipe" by Weezer have had censored versions in rotation on MTV. "We Are All on Drugs" had every lyric with the words 'on drugs' altered to 'in love'. This resulted in the lyrics not matching the words mouthed by the music video actors. Also, during part of the video, a newspaper was shown with the song title used as the headline. This was completely censored. Respectively, in "Hash Pipe", the word "hash" was removed. It became popularly alternatively known and introduced as "...pipe" or "Halfpipe" on TRL although the censorship remained the same.
• The song "Hip Hop Is Dead" by Nas was censored when the lines "I'll put an extended clip inside of my AK" were changed to "I'll put an extended ... and ... 'em all day". The lines "murder the DJ" were also changed to "wreck the DJ".
• "45" by Shinedown was heavily edited to remove the lyrics "the barrel of a .45" and "ashes of another life" from the chorus, forcing the title card of the video to refer to the song by the MTV-originated title "Staring Down..." Singer Brent Smith later stated that he felt the editing was not only hypocritical in light of other unedited videos MTV played but that the editing blurred the message of the song and that if they did not wish to play the song as it was written, they should have refrained from playing it at all. Though the edited version of the video was aired a few times without the artists' consent, the song was eventually pulled from the airwaves. This censorship of the Shinedown song is especially perplexing, because, over a half-decade earlier, Depeche Mode's 1997 music video for the song "Barrel of a Gun" was not censored on music video channels or radio; the similarly-worded chorus "I've been staring down the barrel of a gun" caused no concern or controversy for MTV (who frequently played the video in heavy rotation).
• "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-a-Lot has the lyrics "dial 1-900" censored, along with a background sound effect preceding an image of a banana (which could be deemed as a reference to fellatio).
• "Who's Real" by Jadakiss has the word "eights" (referring to 28-inch tire rims) censored.
• "Cradle of Love" by Billy Idol - the first version aired on MTV had scenes from the Andrew Dice Clay film The Adventures of Ford Fairlane featured in the video - Clay's lifetime ban imposed by the network after his September 1989 appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards also prohibits airing all Clay-related media. The only exception to the rule is EMF's music video for the song Unbelievable where Clay's "oh!" exclamation was used throughout the song.
• "Guilty Conscience" by Eminem featuring Dr. Dre contains lyrics like "leave her on the front porch" and "slip this in her drink" that were censored out on MTV, as well as the murder at the end.
• "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" by Katy Perry has the words "ménage à trois" cut out completely without being replaced by other lyrics.
• Songs like "Your Love Is My Drug" by Kesha and "I Need a Doctor" by Dr. Dre have the words "crack" or "cracked" removed.
• "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People was edited to remove references to the song's subject daring people to "outrun my gun" and to run "faster than my bullet", which was misconstrued by some who had not heard the song previously as editing a profanity out rather than a weapons reference.
• In 2012, Rita Ora's "How We Do (Party)" was censored, having the words "Drunk sex", "shot of Jack", "smoking" and "bullshit" removed from the audio.
• The word "drank" in Kirko Bangz's Drank in My Cup is censored.