Media News
Beyoncé's track banned in China
Monday 29 August 2011
Beyoncé's track is one of a hundred on a new list of banned songs released by the Chinese Ministry of Culture on Friday.
Beyoncé wasn't the only VMA winner to have a song banned; Katy Perry had E.T banned, her collaboration with Kanye West which won Best Collaboration and Best Special Effects. Perry's Last Friday Night was also banned.
Lady Gaga's Born This Way was not on this latest list, but only by virtue of already having been banned in a previous list. Gaga did have 6 new tracks banned however: The Edge of Glory, Hair, Marry The Night, Americano, Bloody Mary and Judas. This makes Gaga the most banned artist on the list.
While Gaga's Judas has courted controversy from the get-go with its quasi religious themes, a more surprising appearance on the list was The Backstreet Boys' 1999 hit I Want It That Way.
The Chinese Ministry says that these bans are not related to content, but instead reflect a clamp down on internet music providers who are providing access to songs not submitted to the government for review or censorship. In a statement to CNN the Ministry said: "Our targets this time are online music products that we have not registered or reviewed. They don't necessarily contain illegal content."
Weibo, a Chinese alternative to Twitter (as Twitter is banned in China) has been in a flurry over the bans. One user, KeyboardChan, summed things up nicely "The most ridiculous pick has got to be Backstreet Boy's 'I Want It That Way' from 1999. I have been singing it at karaoke for 12 years - have I been a cultural terrorist for that long?"
Click here for Terms of use
|
Top 10 Most Read
Must Watch TV
-
- The Real Mr & Mrs Assad: Channel 4 Dispatches
Channel 4 Dispatches reveals a portrait of a golden couple who have become global hate figures. The programme shows intimate footage of President Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma as they've never been seen on British television before, and images that help explain why the West bought the idea they were true modernisers. When Bashar took the reins of power after his father's death in 2000, the West was drawn into a hope and belief that Syria would be a new force for change in the Middle East. The Assads were seen as a glamorous couple with modern Western morals and values; he was hailed a reformer, she was the 'Rose of the Desert'. Key leaders and figures in the West welcomed the young couple, convinced that the softly spoken London-trained ophthalmologist and his beautiful British-born former investment banker wife would bring reform and modernisation to a country that had been run by an iron-fisted dictator for nearly 30 years. But it seems the West was duped. Instead of a transparent and progressive leadership, what has emerged during a year-long bloody uprising is evidence of the regime's gross systematic human rights abuses, including widespread killings and torture, while the Assads look on. Channel 4 Dispatches investigates the extent of the Assad family's culpability and the chains of command that link the President and select inner circle to the brutal crackdown.
-
- Afghanistan: The Great Game - A Personal View By Rory Stewart
Afghanistan: one of the most isolated and barren landscapes on earth is a strange place for an empire or superpower to invade. But for three of the greatest powers the world has seen, it became an unlikely target and an enduring obsession. The 19th century British invasions into Afghanistan, immortalised by Rudyard Kipling as "The Great Game", ended in huge loss of life and British retreat, and set a template for the perils of incursion in this mountainous country. In this two-part series, author, journalist and former Deputy Governor during the coalition's occupation of Iraq, Rory Stewart MP travels to Afghanistan to uncover the fears, the paranoia and perceived threats that led three very different Ssperpowers: Britain, Russia and the United States into Afghanistan from the 19th century to the present day.
-
- 56 Up
Michael Apted's landmark documentary series following the lives of ordinary British people from childhoiod to adulthood and old age continues. Over the past six decades, the series has documented the group as they have become adults and entered middle-age, dealing with everything life has thrown at them in between. The series is back to discover what has happened to the group over the last seven years. And one of the original characters has decided to re-join the series after leaving almost 30 years ago.