iain

Sure, put the song on uncensored in a museum or library where people can learn about the context of the song and educate themselves (though I don’t think the context is anything other than using f***** as a derogatory term). This education isn’t going to happen listening to it on Capitalfm. I would argue that a song like Eminem’s Stan, or many other of Eminem’s biggest hits have the same or more cultural significance than this song, and I can guarantee that the same people who are arguing that this should be played uncensored on radio would be complaining in droves if an Eminem song was played uncensored, and their little Ella was subjected to the bad language.

Are there any new releases tonight that are going to do well? It seems last week was the last big Friday for new releases.

I like I Miss You and Baby, and I get what you’re saying about Marina’s vocals being divisive, but let’s not pretend that Julia’s vocals aren’t nails down a chalkboard on occasion.

Clean Bandit finally making some decent progress despite the flurry of Christmas songs.

That BBC article misses the point and just plays into the “snowflake” narrative with respect to FONY. Nobody is saying the song should be banned, just the word should bleeped out on radio.

And the way not to educate people is to have the word “f*****” being played on Radio 1 at 1pm on a Tuesday as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. I would argue that radio censoring the word “f*****” is part of educating people that it’s offensive instead of leaving it in and by doing so normalising it.

And this really is the crux of it. People are not asking for the song to be banned, just that word to be bleeped out when it’s played on daytime radio. The resistance to it is frankly baffling. It’s going to have zero impact to anybody’s life if the word is bleeped out. And as demonstrated multiple times in this thread, the word is incredibly loaded and triggering for many (and no, not all) gay people. I just don’t understand why not having an offensive word in a song seems to cause such an uproar, when literally every other song would be subject to different rules. What is it about this particular word and song that people cling onto that makes them think they can shout “f*****” every Christmas without any comeback? This thread has not been enlightening.

Regardless of when they came about, they both have the intent of dehumanising, belittling and exerting power over minorities and are still used by people today. The origins are obviously different but the intent and impact are generally similar.

Which is ironic because you seem to be horribly offended by my post.

After all the well reasoned, sometimes deeply personal reasons that people have posted on here about why they don’t like the word, to read people still posting “OMG SNOWFLAKES, lets ban EVERYTHING ddd” is disheartening, but I suppose not surprising given the current environment we are living it.

Did you read the article I posted? About somebody’s lived experience with that word, and how charged the word is for them? Are black people dumb for being offended by racist language? Are Jewish people dumb for being offended by anti Semitic language?

No it’s about basic human empathy and decency.

What I think some of this comes down to is empathy, and the point was made in the article I posted on the first page. It’s recognising that whilst the word may not have impacted you personally, a large number of people may have had deeply unpleasant associations with it that don’t need to be brought up whilst listening to the radio over Christmas. It’s deciding whether censoring the word on radio is going to have any impact on your life, and then weighing that against the fact that the word has been used to humiliate and demean a small but significant part of the population for decades. It’s using empathy as the tool to reach your conclusion, rather than trying to justify the word by screaming “but context” or “snowflake” when you read about things like this.

Haha, it took me a while to compose my post and then when I posted it I saw that you had basically posted the same thing before me!

Whether it was or wasn’t intended as a homophobic slur in the context of the song is debatable - when the song was written it was very much a common homophobic slur. The writers of the song were very much aware of the implications, even to the point where they changed it when singing it live in later years. If you’re not in favour of censoring, would you be in favour of hearing racial or antisemetic slurs on Radio 1 during the day, out of interest? The more pressing issue is how it’s perceived at the moment. I can tell you that when you’re a gay guy in a room with a bunch of straight people and they’re singing the lyrics with glee, they aren’t taking the word as anything other than a homophobic slur, which they’re now given licence to say, because, hey, it’s played on Radio 1 at 3pm on a Sunday. As a gay person, it’s exhausting having to continually explain why this word is offensive. But I’m over just “ignoring it”. This is 2018, there really is no excuse for people to pretend not to understand, or even acknowledge, how this word has been used to humiliate and degrade gay people over the last few decades.

And it’s a debate that is still worth having.

The issues with Fairytale of NewYork are very well summarised here. http://theguyliner.com/opinion/dont-f-with-me-at-christmas/ I’d suggest everybody reads it before making ill informed comments.

Kylie back to 12 - every time Radio 2 play the song it moves up a few places for a couple of hours. You can literally tell when Radio 2 last played the song based on her chart position.

Kylie up to 10, 82 and 194.

Kylie is up to 17 and 110 now. Pretty remarkable given that it’s the 5th single from the album and she’s a heritage artist. Lifetime to Repair missed the top 100 on iTunes after her X Factor performance by comparison.

Not sure where to post this as Friday Chart Predictions isn’t open yet, but Mint Royale has posted that Take That have sold more than Michael Buble’s entire first week sales on Friday.

Breathin has had such an odd chart run. It looked like it was going to be an all consuming massive Dark Horse style smash when the album was released, but it’s kind of languished in the mid teens since then and is now on ACR. I guess no video hasn’t helped, as well as the lacklustre radio 1 b-list support, but it feels like a real missed opportunity.

Whats going on with those Normani/Calvin songs? I mean they have been out 24 hours and have barely scraped the top 100 which is a little shocking for a Calvin Harris song.

Do you mean Cher Lloyd?

Clean Bandit up to 3 and Years and Years up to 12.