Radio employee circulates don't-play list

James Sullivan, Chronicle Staff Writer

In the aftermath of last week's terrorist attacks, a staff member of the radio powerhouse ClearChannel has distributed a list of
more than 150 "questionable" songs to the company's affiliates nationwide, suggesting that they not be played.
AC/DC's "Shoot to Thrill," the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" and R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel
Fine)" are on the list. Others include Steve Miller's "Jet Airliner" and Peter, Paul and Mary's "Leaving on a Jet Plane."
In the Bay Area, ClearChannel Radio owns a wealth of stations -- KMEL-FM, KYLD-FM (Wild 94.9), KABL-AM,
KKSF-FM, KISQ-FM (KISS-FM), KUFX-FM (KFOX), KSJO- FM, KIOI-FM (Star 101.3) and KLDZ-FM (Channel
104.9). ClearChannel's parent company also owns the former Bill Graham Presents.

Michael Martin, operations manager of ClearChannel's San Francisco stations,  said through a spokeswoman that company program directors were having informal discussions about what songs might be inappropriate to play. Company spokeswoman Pam Taylor said the list was "really a grassroots effort" by one ClearChannel program director from outside the Bay Area, whom she declined to name. "This was not a corporate mandate." John Gehron, senior vice president of rival radio behemoth Infinity, which owns KFRC, KITS-FM (Live 105), KLLC-FM (Alice 97.3) and KYCY-FM, said yesterday that Infinity plans no such list. "We feel our local program directors are in a better position of knowing what's appropriate for their audience."
Others in the business said they understood ClearChannel's concern, to a point. "You want to look out for songs that might
touch a nerve," said Dave Benson, program director of KFOG. That station's parent company, Susquehanna, has not distributed any list similar to ClearChannel's, but Benson said his staff had discussed a few songs that disc jockeys should avoid for the time being, including Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" and the Pretenders' "My City Was Gone."
Nina Crowley, founder of Mass Mic, a music-censorship watchdog organization, said such internal decisions were inevitable. But the memo circulating throughout ClearChannel, she said, amounts to a "blacklist."

"People have been trying to blame the ills of the world on popular music for years," she said. Many songs on the ClearChannel list, such as the current modern-rock hit "Bodies" by Drowning Pool, which features the refrain "Let the bodies hit the floor," are explicitly violent. But it's not clear why others made the list, said Crowley. Some of her correspondents have suggested, for instance, that the Beatles' "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" made the list because "o,""b" and "l" are the initials of terror suspect Osama bin Laden. "The list could go on forever," she said. ClearChannel's Taylor said those charging censorship are misguided. "This was one person's thoughts on things that might be insensitive," she said. "I don't think that's censorship."

Like many companies, ClearChannel has aided the recovery effort. In recent days, the company has set up a donation bank,
and its Outdoor division has been covering its billboards with images of the American flag.
In related news, the bulletin board service on the official Web site of the band Rage Against the Machine was pulled by its
Seattle-based host company after the Secret Service complained of "inflammatory" remarks posted by the band's fans. The
political rock band is the only group to earn a blanket boycott recommendation on the ClearChannel list.
KFOG's Benson said deciding what not to play is only slightly more difficult than coming up with songs that do seem
appropriate at a time like this. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's "Find the Cost of Freedom" has gotten plenty of positive
response, he said, and listeners have been requesting Sarah McLachlan's "I Will Remember You" and R.E.M.'s "Everybody
Hurts."
"People are so sensitized right now," he said, "and we want to be respectful of that."
E-mail James Sullivan at jamessullivan@sfchronicle.com.
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From: Chart Attack:
http://www.chartattack.com/damn/2001/09/1707.cfm
America Under Attack = Banned Songs
Monday September 17, 2001 @ 05:30 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff
In light of the events of last Tuesday, an American radio ubernetwork has decided to recommend that approximately 150 songs
not be aired due to "questionable" lyrics.
The world's largest radio network, Clear Channel, owns stations all over the planet and reaches over 110 million listeners in the
US alone. According to the company, one out of every 10 American radio stations is under their control and that their
advertising reach is so powerful that "newspapers will soon be useful only to those training puppies." Humility aside, Clear
Channel also runs SFX Entertainment, the world's largest promoter of big name live acts like U2 and the Backstreet Boys.
In short, they're a big deal... and anything they say is sure to have further repercussions in the music industry.
Will Clear Channel's recommendation lead to an outright banning of songs? No one seems sure, but for now a list of songs
which shouldn't be played on their stations has been circulating online ranging from U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday" to Jerry
Lee Lewis' "Great Balls Of Fire" to System Of A Down's "Chop Suey."
Some of the songs singled out are understandable: Drowning Pool's "Bodies" and The Clash's "Rock The Casbah" could take
on some very uncomfortable connotations in the days that follow the attack. One could also argue that certain songs with
innocent subject matter (The Bangles' "Walk Like An Egyptian," Springsteen's "I'm On Fire") might be perceived differently in
the aftermath of the destruction of the World Trade Centre.
But is Clear Channel going too far in Alien Ant Farm's Jacko cover "Smooth Criminal" or jazz classic "What A Wonderful
World"? Will anyone really misinterpret the lyrics to Pat Benatar's cheesy pop rock "Hit Me With Your Best Shot"? Most of
the songs listed are only guilty of (in some cases only for a line or two) making use of figures of speech and metaphors that
could, with some effort, be linked to terrorist attacks or literal violence.
Barenaked Ladies' "Falling For The First Time"?
It's not clear how long the songs in question (which include every single Rage Against The Machine track) will be
considered questionable, or what the ramifications will be up here, north of the border. Clear Channel's closest counterpart in
Canada, Corus Entertainment, could not be reached for comment and it's unknown which (if any) songs will be cut from
rotation on radio or the Nation's Music Station. ChartAttack will try to keep you posted.
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from NY Post, 9/18/01 www.nypost.com
MUSICAL HIT LIST
By MARY HUHN, New York Post

September 18, 2001 -- CLEAR Channel, the giant Texas-based radio network that owns many of New York's most popular
stations, last week sent to its affiliates a list of 150 songs it suggested should not be played because of the World Trade Center
collapse.
But managers and programmers at some of the 1,100 stations, including Z100 and Q104.3 in New York, ignored the list and
played the songs anyway.
The tunes range from metal and hard rock songs to lighter pop fare. Some are among the most popular hits of all time, including
John Lennon's "Imagine," Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven," Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" and Don McLean's
"American Pie."
Bob Buchman, host of Q104.3's "Rock 'n' Roll Morning Show" and the station's programming director, said he got the list by
e-mail last week from Clear Channel corporate executives and immediately deleted it.
"Are you kidding?" he said he asked himself when he saw the list. "A national no-play list?"
Buchman said that moments after he received the list, a second notice was sent, saying the list was merely a selection of titles
deejays should consider avoiding.
Execs at Clear Channel stressed that the list was not an attempt to ban songs, only a guide for programming directors.
"It was never a mandated list to say, ‘Pull these songs off the air,' " said Jack Evans, a senior regional vice president of
programming at Clear Channel, who created and distributed the list.
And he claimed that Clear Channel, based in San Antonio, had never sent any such request to its stations.
Evans said he compiled the list after fielding e-mails from some station programmers asking what songs might be considered in
poor taste.
"We don't need the help at Q104.3, but some stations might," said Buchman.
Among Evans' suggestions were some songs by Metallica and AC/DC, all songs by Rage Against the Machine and many pop
songs mentioning planes, such as Elton John's "Daniel," Steve Miller's "Jet Airliner" and Peter, Paul and Mary's "Leaving on a
Jet Plane."
Several Beatles tunes, including "Obla Di, Obla Da," "Ticket to Ride," "A Day in the Life" and "Lucy in the Sky With
Diamonds," were on the list. Even Lennon's call for peace, "Imagine," was listed, as was Peter, Paul and Mary's "Blowin' in the Wind," which was written by Bob Dylan, and Dylan's "Knocking on Heaven's Door."

Clear Channel's New York deejays have been ignoring the list. Z100 has been spinning many of the songs. At Q104.3, some of the tunes - such as "New York, New York," "Imagine," and "Stairway to Heaven" - have been the most requested tunes of the week.Joe Levy, the music editor at Rolling Stone, said he was concerned that the world's largest radio network had overstepped its boundaries. "When does the action of a corporation slip over the line into censorship?" he asked. "To ask that all Rage Against the Machine songs be taken off the air is disturbing."