The Orbis

Issue date: 3/27/02 Section: Undefined Section

The First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press," supposedly paving the way for freedom of expression.

The censorship practices of the Wal-Mart Corporation against musicians seeking a market for their music, however, are as effective in undermining the First Amendment as any Congressional act could be.

With its 2,300 stores selling a total of over 52 million CDs a year, Wal-Mart controls approximately 10 percent of the domestic sales of music CDs.

When faced with the threat of being completely excluded from a large segment of the market, most record companies will cut a sanitized version to comply with Wal-Mart's family-appropriate standards. Since Wal-Mart refuses to stock CDs with parental guidance stickers, musicians are routinely told to change any part of a song or album cover that the corporate headquarters deem inappropriate, lewd, violent, explicitly sexual, or in any way offensive.

Ironically, movies such as Die Hard, Halloween, and Lethal Weapon, all of which contain extreme violence, sexuality, and strong language, can be found unaltered on the store's shelves.

Wal-Mart argues that the changes in lyrics, cover art and even entire song titles, create cleaner and more family and child-friendly versions of popular songs while still maintaining the music's artistic integrity and value.

This argument fails to recognize the complexity of some of the more controversial songs and artists, who specifically use provocative words and imagery to convey a point.

Sheryl Crow, one of the few artists to stand up to Wal-Mart's pressure, refused to change the lyrics of a recent song containing the line "Watch our children as they kill each other with a gun they bought at Wal-Mart discount stores."

In order to have his records sold on Wal-Mart shelves, John Cougar Mellencamp was asked to airbrush an angel and a devil out of his album covers.

Nirvana's In Utero album underwent similar cover changes, airbrushing out fetuses that were deemed objectionable; they also changed the title and lyrics of the song "Rape Me" to "Waif Me." A corporation cannot force such a radical change and still preserve the integrity of the music. It merely serves to degrade and water down the content of the music being produced.

Most well-known musicians can afford to make two cuts of a record, one for the family market and one for general consumption; many record companies now act preemptively, automatically making a second, sanitized version for their more popular artists.

Unfortunately, Wal-Mart's policy severely inhibits developing musicians who lack major record label support. These performers must choose between self-censorship and limiting their market audience to only music-store shoppers.

Because of the pressure on rising artists to sell a large number of records, they all too frequently choose the former. They are not given the chance to contribute something genuine and thought provoking, and are instead compelled to conform to Wal-Mart's cookie-cutter image of American propriety.

Although more established artists have the industry support necessary to make separate versions of their records, the public suffers when Wal-Mart is the only music supplier in an area.

Many small towns have no independent music stores, making it difficult or inconvenient for consumers to find uncensored music. In places that do have separate music stores, their prices are usually undercut by Wal-Mart, again making it more difficult for consumers to have access to award-winning albums such as The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in their uncut form.

Wal-Mart's dominance of the music market is dangerous for both artists and consumers, as it discourages expression and risk-taking by rising musicians and fosters a censored musical environment for listeners. Its corporate censorship tactics are as effective as government-sponsored censorship, threatening the career of any musician who challenges its ideas of propriety.

For Wal-Mart to designate itself the moral guardian of the music business by using its status as the largest single seller of CDs in the country as leverage to cleanse the industry, is a direct affront to free speech.

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