In Continuum.

Censorship In Abbey Road



I made a mental checklist of the things I needed for the show. A forty odd inch television, check. Air-conditioning, check. A glass of orange juice topped off with chocolate snacks, check. The time: 10.55pm, check. Channel, check. Everything was set and ready for the night I've been waiting for, as Mediacorp finally decided to buy good shows from overseas, a show such as Live from Abbey Road which features a whole bunch of my favorite singers and bands like John Mayer, Norah Jones, Nerina Pallot, Ray LaMontagne, The Killers, Damien Rice...and the list goes on. It's alright that I missed Corinna Bailey Rae in the first week, but I'm sure the rest of the weeks will make up for the loss.

So there I was before the television, and Jamiroquai exploded onto the television with his powerful set. He was intense, his whole body jerking this way and that to the beat of the drums and the guitar solos. I swear, I almost thought he was going to pass out at the end of every song but he stood strong, maintained his poise and ended the set with a brilliant track. Remind me to check out Jamiroquai sometime soon, because this man is disgustingly talented. I've never been a fan of Funk, but I might just try this out. Besides, I've been listening to post-rock from Iceland, I don't think music can get any weirder than that.

Next up, was Damien Rice. I had my orange juice ready, the taste of chocolate rolling about in my mouth. I was excited, despite of the fact that I've already caught glimpses of the video online. But still, watching his performance within the four walls of my monitor is one thing, watching it on a forty odd inch television is another. I changed the ratio aspect to 16:9, and Damien Rice's face expanded to life-size. This is what I call home entertainment! And as the volume was pumped up, I sat back and hummed to the tune of Rootless Tree. Until, the inevitable...

In the back of my mind, I knew that Mediacorp was going to tamper with the song because of the vulgarity in the chorus. To me, the F word really is just an expression really, and it doesn't offend me all that much. But it's probably because of how the army numbed me to these so-called expressions, that's why when listening to Rootless Tree, the words were more like a release of anger and frustration than a pretentious afford to plug the word into the song. But then again, I was sure that Mediacorp doesn't share my ideas about the word, and I was sure that they were going to censor the word out of the song. Talking to Issac about it online before watching the show, we knew that censorship was inevitable, but the big question was 'how' they were going to go around it.

So the song continued, through the first verse and the second, with me singing along to the words until the last line "Like a rootless..." I held my breath, waiting for the censorship to appear. I was expecting a silenced word, or maybe even a 'beep', because those are the traditional kind of censorship on reality shows and the ones on MTV. But of course, Mediacorp being Mediacorp, edited the WHOLE LINE out of the song. So instead of the song running smoothly with a blanked out word, it sounded more like a CD with a spoiled soundtrack. Every time the song reaches the chorus, that line would be totally edited out, and that really pissed me off and took away the beauty of the song.

I think Mediacorp needs to learn that, when you spend money to buy a show like Live from Abbey Road, you don't do your own amateurish editing to the show because that is going to dissatisfy a lot of viewers out there. I'm sure that when you bought the show over from BBC, you never told them anything about lowering the quality of the show by removing a whole line from a song, did you? Personally, if Damien Rice knew about the removal of that line from his song, he wouldn't take it very easily. He might exploded and blow half of Ireland up into smithereens, or the Mediacorp building itself, either way. We've seen his rage at the end of Volcano, so I have no doubts that he is capable of being a weapon of mass destruction. Damien Rice is a force to be reckoned with, and one should not temper with his songs!

Anyway, enough of that. Goo Goo Dolls made me forget the horrendous editing job that Mediacorp so irresponsibly did to the song. Iris was great, but I think it is getting old, with Johnny Rzeznik getting fatter somehow. I can't wait for the next couple of weeks to come, with LeAnn Rimes and Massive Attack next week, I really can't wait. Somebody explain to me again, why is Natasha Beddingfield on the list for performers? They should have included Rachael Yamagata instead, or even Coldplay too. Maybe Natash Beddingfield is cheaper, who knows? Anyway, I certainly hope that none of this poor editing job will happen in the future. It's like a plastic surgery gone wrong really, with the patient left with a crooked nose. It's not pretty.