There really are music police....

I wandered onto Tom Smith's Web site (www.tomsmithonline.com) this morning and found a link to one of the most profoundly stupid things I have ever seen (the report is on Yahoo! Music's news area):

http://music.yahoo.com/music/news/launch/story.html?a=n/music/news/launch/ro ck/20010917/8/p1&b=n/music/news/launch/rock/20010917/8/p2

The short version: national radio station empire Clear Channel (5 stations in Portland, including KEX, KKCW, and Z-100; presumably several in Seattle) has pulled together a list of "musically inappropriate" songs that aren't to be played on the air in the post-WTC-tragedy world. There are 150-odd songs on the list, and "odd" is the word for the choices, which run the gamut from a Barenaked Ladies item to "American Pie" to the Beatles to "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Morning Has Broken" and "Bridge over Troubled Water". (I promise, I am not making this up....)

This is so absolutely **dumb** that it boggles the mind. As it happens, I listen to only one of the 5 CC stations here, and it's not a music-format station -- but this is silly enough that it can't possibly be allowed to pass without comment, and I've already written my morning-drive host. If this is allowed to stand unchallenged, we're all in trouble....

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 = John C. Bunnell
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 = JCBunnell at sff.net


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 "The essence of kittens is in the motion."
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