1 of 1- Hathaway
- Weekend Warrior
Offline - Registered: July 5, 2014
- Posts: 260
Words you can't say on the radio: Marijuana
Whilst driving into Calgary one day I was flipping through the Top 40 stations on the radio dial there. As a side note if the programmers at AMP radio are reading this, do us a favour. Fire all the DJ's and just play music and sweepers. Telling me Katy Perry likes dudes who man-scape at 6 AM rates right up there with stupid contests like burning money. Hows your ratings..oh, LOL, wait.
Anyway, the Alessia Cara song Here (which Beats 1 championed on Day 1) has a line about "clouds of marijuana". On Virgin Radio in Calgary they block out the word marijuana. I know that old white men believe reefer madness is about to hit Canada thanks to our new "He's not ready yet" Prime Minister.
Perhaps Bell Media should reconsider? I mean, given the endless stream of layoffs perhaps Bell should be supporting legal weed. To start, it helps those now terminally unemployed people with dealing with the anxiety of "oh fuck, Irvine was right, this industry is fucked and I don't have a job". Perhaps Bell's Let's Talk should offer those anxious, stressed former staff an ounce of BC Bud to calm their nerves.
The irony is the minute weed is legal, Bell will be climbing over itself to get those new weed dispensaries to advertise on their stations (excludes the weed control board of Ontario).
BTW, if anyone at Bell is reading this. The Weeknd's song - Can't Feel my Face is about cocaine usage and the theme song from a movie in which a woman is sexually assaulted.
Coke": OK
Weed: Bad
- bucky
- Sticker Spotter
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- Registered: March 27, 2014
- Posts: 64
Re: Words you can't say on the radio: Marijuana
don't get your knickers in a knot. the vast majority of radio edits are made at the record company level, stations only play what they get. Sure they could play the album cut, but that would mean purchasing the song, then paying extra SOCAN and/or tariff rights to transfer it from one hard drive to another.
and that would make the suits angry 
Last edited by bucky (December 30, 2015 2:50 PM)
- Hathaway
- Weekend Warrior
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- Posts: 260
Re: Words you can't say on the radio: Marijuana
The cross town rival leaves the word in.
And don't tell me radio has no input . BEPs Boom Boom Pow had the words satellite radio scrubbed from the lyrics. Gonna tell me that wasn't radios influence.
My knickers aren't in a knot. I wear thongs yo
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Thread Starter- bucky
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Re: Words you can't say on the radio: Marijuana
just saying what my experience tells me workin with 9 stations on multiple formats. stations are free to choose, but its not free to do. go back to the 90s with promo discs from record companies. you get what you're given and like it. it's a little better now, but not much.
Always loved stations playing Buckcherry's Crazy Bitch or Puddle of Mudd She Fuckin Hates Me with 3/4 of the chorus muted. Even lately, Headstones had their song muted. Kristy Knight went into a rant about that at 11am. Of course she was fired by Bell in their Great Talent Purge of 2015, but that's another story.
thongs? not true if no pic. 
- Hathaway
- Weekend Warrior
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Re: Words you can't say on the radio: Marijuana
Crazy Bitch or She Fucking Hates me are two entirely different things though. I think it's plausible to imagine you could find a group of young women who disliked the lyrics/video of Crazy Bitch. But do you think you'd find outrage in that same age group against Alessia Cara's "clouds of marijuana"
When Satellite radio came into the mainstream in 2005, corporate radio shit it's fucking pants. One of the outcomes of that was a sudden & rapid increase in radio for young people (especially in Canada). Top 40 and alternative rock suddenly mattered to corporate radio again. Big radio said to the kids "hey, we are here, we're hip with you".
But is blocking out "marijuana" in a song really with the kids? I mean, in the whole scheme of things, it's completely insignificant. But, in the macro scheme of things it shows that big radio is still out of touch WITH that young audience. It's scared shit-less that some conservative soccer Mom might take offence to mentioning weed in a song and complain to the standards council. The kids don't give one single fuck. But we can see who Bell sides with.
The kids aren't stupid. They're way smarter than the kids who sang the Who song "My Generation". They're way more in tune. In an age of marketing and manipulation the only path to being accepted as "real" is to do just that. And Bell is not.
PS. I was sorry to hear about Kristy Knight. KK was part of my radio life from about age 17. First it was Q107 and later 97,7 HTZ FM. She always fit the format. She was a great announcer. And it's one more reason to leave terrestrial radio in the past man.
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Thread Starter- Hathaway
- Weekend Warrior
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- Posts: 260
Re: Words you can't say on the radio: Marijuana
BTW Bucky, you'll have to wait till i get a minute to sign up for Instagram so I can post my thong pics. Then you can heart them!.
It'll be like that "Steal My Sunshine" scene from Mr Robot. I'll even buy a Starbucks girly drink. If you're not aware of Mr Robot, it's a TV show about a hacker by night, security analyst by day. Very good too.
Last edited by Hathaway (December 31, 2015 8:14 AM)
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Thread Starter- Mark Elliot
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Re: Words you can't say on the radio: Marijuana
In 1976 when I arrived at CFRA Ottawa, Elton John's hit song was called "The Bitch Is Back" and all I was allowed to say was "Here's Elton John!"