Censoring Rock and Rap

Looking for information about a particular musician or group? Try the All Music Guide, a wonderful collection of information about every type of music you can think of, including rock and rap. There, you'll find a search engine, biographies, album covers, discographies, and links.

Do you need to quote some lyrics to add punch to a paper? Check out this directory about lyrics from Yahoo.com and you'll be able to track down just about anything. What are some of the ways you can check the accuracy of the lyrics you eventually find?

Arguments about censoring music in the U.S. usually depend upon limiting the First Amendment at some point. Would you like to take a look at this issue in more depth? Well, take a look at this page that explores First Amendment law. How reliable do you find the information at this site? What ways are there to judge the reliability of information you find online?

Here, in etext for your convenience, is the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Do you like using etext? How is it different from the printed page? How is it similar? What do you think the founders of America would have made of rock and rap, by the way?

This page has some information about a book called Bleep! Censoring Rock and Rap Music. What can you learn about the book from the description? What kinds of things would make getting a hold of the book necessary to find out? How do the readings, judging from their titles, differ from the ones found in your text? Does your library have a copy of this book?

Gangster imagery and lore has had an intricate relationship with American art and entertainment. Make some comparisons/contrasts between the movies and rock and rap music by studying this interactive essay from Filmsite.org. Starting from D.W. Griffith's silent The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912), it traces the development of the gangster film through the classics of the 1930s and 1940s to the present day, touching upon great work by Francis Coppola and Martin Scorsese, and covering the Coen brothers and Quentin Tarantino and others.

Fred Bronson's piece in your text, "A Selected Chronology of Musical Controversy" ends in January 1990. Using a search engine like this one, extend this chronology by at least three entries.

In 1985 the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a hearing about record labeling. You have seen the outcome at your local record store. You can click here to read the entire transcript of the hearing. How accurate do you find this information? What are some of the ways you can determine the reliability of this, and other things, you research online?

Visit to the American Library Association's page about banned books. You'll find links to things like the 100 most frequently challenged books, to book burning, and to information about banned books week. Do any of the books you've found surprise you? Explain. What differences, if any, do you find between censoring rock and rap and censoring books?

This is an interactive essay posted by the Recording Industry Association of America, explaining what they are doing about freedom of speech issues. Elsewhere on the sight, you'll also find pages dealing with the major speech issues themselves, and what you might want to do about them.