Censorship in Music (in the light of last weekend’s Glastonbury festival).

In the run-up to Glastonbury, the main thrust of pretty much every news item that mentioned the festival also mentioned Kneecap and their performance; should it be broadcast live, or should they even play at all? Step into the fray Bob Vylan, whose set was broadcast live and which has caused a huge amount of controversy around the world and has seen the band knocked off the lineups of several festivals this summer. Anyway, it sparked the thought about whether music should be censored at all and here are my thoughts. 

Music has always been political. It has always been about social comment. It has always been dangerous and edgy, despite the best efforts of some. And, more often than not, that’s exactly why we love it. From protest folk to punk, from the anger and social commentary of hip-hop to the under-the-radar satire of some pop, music has a way of articulating what people feel but can’t always say out in normal life. So when censorship rears its head in the musical world, as it did recently at Glastonbury with the BBC’s muted coverage of Kneecap and subsequent silencing of Bob Vylan, it always makes me stop and think. 

If you’re not familiar with Kneecap, they’re a Belfast-based hip-hop group known for their political, often provocative lyrics, blending Irish language, culture, and nationalism with straight-up and raw urban commentary. At this year’s Glastonbury Festival, the BBC made the decision to significantly cut their performance from its iPlayer coverage. Why? One of the band’s members has recently been charged with inviting support for a proscribed organisation under the UK’s Terrorism Act – an organisation that is illegal in the UK. The reaction to Bob Vylan has been even more Draconian by Auntie Beeb and some festival organisers. 

Now, this is a sensitive situation. Supporting banned organisations and getting the crowd to chant “Death, death, death to the IDF” are not trivial matters in the eyes of the authorities. But the question that remains with me is whether removing Kneecap and Bob Vylan’s performance from public view was the right course of action. Does muting the artist mute the message? And more importantly, does muting the message serve to protect the public, or simply suppress sensible discourse? Has the attempted cancelling of these bands made their messages even more powerful and more talked about – has it backfired on the Beeb and others?

Censorship in music isn’t new. We don’t have to go back far to remember Frankie Goes to Hollywood, whose 1983 hit Relax was banned by the BBC for its sexually explicit content. Come on guys, get real! (pun intended) Ironically, or perhaps predictably, the ban only fuelled sales and propelled the song to number one. The Streisand Effect in full force. But Relax didn’t incite violence. It didn’t promote illegal activity. It simply made a few people uncomfortable. And that’s not a good enough reason to silence art – in my opinion, and all that. 

If you remember the band Crass and their song Reality Asylum, you may well recall that the pressing plant in Ireland refused to print the band’s album that contained the tune because it was (in their eyes) blasphemous. Instead, it was replaced by silence and the title “The Sound of Free Speech.” It’s now included on subsequent pressings of the album, which only goes to show that times change and opinions mutate. 

So, where do we draw the line?

Let’s look at arguments for censorship. They’re not all rooted in authoritarianism or prudishness. Some could (perhaps) be seen as valid. There are artists, thankfully, few and far between, who have glorified suicide. In this case, censorship isn’t just a moral debate; it becomes a matter of public safety. Words matter. Repetition matters. And we know that for individuals on the edge, music and media can sometimes push people toward dangerous decisions. There’s a good argument to say that maybe we should be stepping in at those moments. 

But here’s the problem. Once you accept that censorship is sometimes acceptable, it becomes dangerously easy to start applying it elsewhere. The lines blur. The desire to protect can become the desire to control. And pretty soon, we’re not just stopping people from hurting themselves or others, we’re stopping them from being uncomfortable, from being offended, from hearing views that don’t match their own. And that is where the real danger lies. Being offended doesn’t give you the right to stop someone from saying something  – that’s your problem, not theirs! 

Letting people say what they want, even if we disagree, even if it makes us uncomfortable, is the foundation of a free and just society. As far as I’m concerned, let artists say their piece, and let the public make up their own mind. Don’t like it? Don’t buy it. Don’t stream it. Don’t clap. But don’t burn it either. Don’t ban it because it’s inconvenient or controversial or doesn’t align with your worldview. That’s a very slippery slope. VERY!

In many ways, social media has replaced traditional censorship with something more insidious: the algorithm. It may not ban you outright (though I’ve found myself on the wrong end of that particular ban hammer on more than one occasion), but it decides what you see and what you don’t. It shows you more of what you already like. It feeds your biases and confirms your views. And over time, it builds a cosy little echo chamber where everyone agrees with you and nobody challenges anything. Don’t assume that this is limited to social media; your artificial intelligence bot and search engine will both learn from your searches and prompts and likely feed you more of what engages you most with their platform. This, too, is a form of censorship, though it’s a bit more subtle, hidden, and much harder to push against – you don’t recognise what you don’t see. When no one disagrees with you, when the algorithm hides dissent, we don’t grow, we don’t listen, we don’t learn – either as individuals or as a society. The dangerous thing about the algorithm is that we don’t realise that we are being censored, our accounts choked, and our posts muted. Don’t think this is affecting you? Think again! 

Of course, we must be honest: some things (maybe) should be off-limits. Music, or any media that encourages self-harm or targets specific groups with hatred, has perhaps crossed a line. We have a duty of care to ensure that people, particularly young and vulnerable listeners, aren’t harmed by what they hear. That’s not censorship for censorship’s sake, that’s protection. That’s about reducing real-world harm. But again, it’s a slippery slope and the jury is out (for me) on this too! 

But let’s not pretend that all censorship is about protection. Sometimes (most times) it’s about control. About power. About sanitising culture to fit a narrow view of what’s acceptable. And that is where we need to resist – and to resist it in the strongest possible terms. Because when we shut down voices, we don’t erase the ideas; they just go underground. They don’t disappear. They grow in the dark, unchecked and unchallenged. If we want to fight what we perceive as being bad ideas, let’s fight them with better ones. Let’s answer lyrics with proper open discussion. Let’s meet outrage with open conversation. Let’s allow the clash of thoughts and ideas, not fear and silence them.

Kneecap and Bob Vylan’s censorship is a reminder that the politics of music remain as alive as ever. But it also reminds us that when you censor music, you don’t just censor a song, you censor an experience, a worldview, or a truth, however raw or messy or uncomfortable that truth might be. And while we may not agree with every voice we hear, we must defend the right for that voice to exist. It makes no difference whether I (or you) agree or disagree with Kneecap or Bob Vylan’s lyrics, actions, or viewpoints; the arguments remain the same! 

As I’ve been putting this article together, things have progressed at an alarming rate with regard to Bob Vylan, who found themselves dropped from several festival line-ups following their vocal condemnation of the Israeli Defence Forces. Their repeated chants of “Kill the IDF” during live performances understandably caused a backlash, and predictably, a wave of calls to have them cancelled followed soon after. Now, let’s be clear: this wasn’t a case of an artist making a vague political statement in the abstract. This was a direct, emotionally raw protest, and it made people uncomfortable. But then again, protest music is supposed to be uncomfortable. It’s supposed to provoke, challenge, and say the unsayable. That’s not to say everyone has to agree with the message (far from it), but if music (and performance) is only allowed when it’s palatable, we’ve lost something vital, something essential, and something that if we lose will inevitably lead to a society much more easily controlled and malleable to the whims of government and large corporations! 

And here’s the irony of all this: in trying to silence these bands, those calling for their cancellation have most likely amplified their voice far louder than any festival slot ever could. In an age where algorithms reward outrage and attention-grabbing is the norm, the attempt to cancel has become the best kind of PR, though I genuinely do not think this is what Bob Vylan or Kneecap were seeking. If anything, the future now looks rather bright for the bands, perhaps brighter than it did before their name hit the headlines, though they’ve both been on the PiG Radar for some time and we’ve featured Bob Vylan and Kneecap in our monthly Selection Box well before they blew up.

Whether you agree with them or not, their exclusion raises uncomfortable questions. Are we okay with artists using music to express fury at injustice? Are we fine with it… until it hits too close to the bone? And if so, who decides where that bone is?

Music is not just background noise. It’s communication. It’s culture. It’s the sound of what matters to people. Let’s not be so quick to mute it and even less speedy to cancel it. 

As Voltaire did or didn’t say, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Stuart Smith

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