Happy September 1st!
I write to you today as scores of Boston college and university students move into their apartments for the 2020 Fall semester. In my neighborhood of Brighton, the birthplace of one Michael Bloomberg, these wide-eyed young adults wear their masks during the day, and shed them the moment the sun goes down. After hibernating in quarantine with their parents all summer, these wide-eyed newcomers are teeming at the chance the gather in large groups, play loud music, and ram their moving vans into the overpass on Storrow Drive—a yearly consequence of student migration known as “Storrowing.”
One of the songs young people (I am legally 27) love to play loudly at all hours of the night (I am physically 77), is “WAP”—the overnight sensation from Cardi B feat. Megan Thee Stallion. Even if you aren’t a Cardi B fan, you probably know about “WAP” from the volcanic outrage conservative pundits expelled in the days following its release:
I can’t describe to you the title of Cardi B’s song it’s so filthy and vile…It’s the filthiest video.
- Tucker Carlson, defender of the Kenosha domestic terrorist
This is what the feminist movement was all about…Wet Ass P-word
- Ben Shapiro, man incapable of saying the word “pussy”
The song is pretty dirty, but who cares? Whether or not conservatives like it, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion are major recording artists: the former holds a Grammy, and the latter will likely win one for her Tik-Tok hit “Savage.” Ben and Tucker should do what I do with to programs: not listen. But these two clowns are trying to tie Joe Biden and the Democrats to these two wildly popular artists, which, to me, only makes the old man cooler.
“WAP” debuted at No.1 on the Hot 100, which presented an issue for commercial radio stations: how do they play a song that is both a cultural phenomenon and an FCC violation waiting to happen? To address this problem, we will need to understand the rules set forth by the Federal Communications Commission.
THE FCC
There’s a famous bit by comedian George Carlin called “Seven Words You Can’t Say on TV.” The terms are as follows: shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits. While it is true that saying any of these words on broadcast TV or Radio would land a host in hot water, the FCC does not have any such list. Instead, they opt for a vague rule that describes prohibited speech:
Federal law prohibits obscene, indecent and profane content from being broadcast
That’s it. That’s the rule. In fact, the FCC still relies on the Supreme Court 1964 landmark case on obscenity and pornography, where Justice Potter Stewart famously wrote “I know it when I see it,” in order to determine what is—and what is not—objectionable speech. The FCC goes further to define each of these categories of prohibited content:
Obscene content must appeal to an average person's prurient interest; depict or describe sexual conduct in a "patently offensive" way; and, taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
Indecent content portrays sexual or excretory organs or activities in a way that is patently offensive but does not meet the three-prong test for obscenity.
Profane content includes "grossly offensive" language that is considered a public nuisance.
Congratulations, you now know all the rules the government places upon radio and television content. Let’s take a hard look at “WAP” through the lens of these FCC guidelines, and see if we can approve the most controversial single of 2020 for broadcast on major radio stations:
OBSCENE: the song certainly appeals to prurient interest. Check. The song describes sexual conduct explicitly, but the “offensiveness” of the track is subjective. I do not believe the song lacks artistic value, however I am not equipped to argue on its behalf. But the beat slaps and millions of Americans love the song, so it must have cultural value.
INDECENT: as mentioned before, “WAP” is explicitly sexual, but the jury is out regarding offensiveness.
PROFANE: once again, “grossly offensive” language is subjective.
We have a hung jury because the nature of “offensiveness” varies between individuals. Do I consider “WAP” to be an offensive song? No. Would my ultra-conservative cousin who hates rap music? Yes. This is the dilemma radio stations face when presented with songs and content that push the proverbial envelope. Playing a hit song will attract more listeners, but an offensive song could trigger a complaint to the FCC. As radio stations never want to deal with a fine or legal battle, they will always err on the side of caution. From this perspective, every radio programmer in America would deem “WAP” to be too offensive for airplay.
THE CLEAN
We’ve established why, from a legal perspective, radio stations can’t play songs with naughty language or bad words—but what if they really want to? “WAP” debuted at the top of the Billboard charts. To not play “WAP” would be a massive oversight. The solution to this dilemma is the “radio edit”—a squeaky clean version of a dirty track, with all profanity, obscenity, and indecency removed.
Today, most artists will provide radio stations with clean versions of their songs to streamline the process and ensure their singles get as much airplay as possible. Other times, programmers are required to create these versions themselves. As someone who has made cleans, I can pull back the curtain and describe my 5 favorite tricks.
BEAT REPLACE: many songs will have instrumental breaks that are musically identical to the verses. If a singer says “fuck” at the same time a snare drum is hit, we can copy and paste the instrumental snare hit over the “fuck” and eliminate the bad word.
WORD REPLACE: if there’s no instrumental break, the next best thing you can do take a clean word or phrase from another verse and replace the dirty lyric (same copy and paste technique). This is okay but not great because often the rhymes don’t match up, and listeners will realize the lyric is being repeated. Another execution of this edit involves repeating the word immediately prior to the swear: “what the fuck” becomes “what the what.”
THE VINYL WIND DOWN: radio producers, myself included, love pitch effects. By playing with a word’s pitch, we can render it incomprehensible and make it sound like a record scratch. This is a very effective and fast way to remove bad words…but it gets really annoying after a while.
REVERSE: if all else fails, I reverse the word. “fuck” becomes “cuff”…but somehow “bitch” becomes “shit.”
LOW PASS: I learned this trick recently. Since the human voice generally occurs in the frequency spectrum over 250Hz, cut out all frequencies above 250Hz, and only leave the bass. It’s a pretty crude approach, but it works.
THE WAP CLEAN
Now that we know how to make a clean, let’s look at the clean version of “WAP” Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion sent to America’s radio stations.
Above is the intro and chorus of “WAP” as heard on radio stations across the United States. “Whores” is easily reversed and pitched, “wet” and “make that” are echoed to replace dirty language, and, for some reason, “bucket” is entirely removed from the song. While the term for a container used to transport liquids is not obscene, it is possible programmers thought the word sounded too much like “fuck it” and removed it to be safe.
I don’t have the time or energy to go through the entire song line by line, but know that the edits get far more extensive in the verses (especially Megan Thee Stallion’s). There are portions of this song where there are 1) repeated “yeahs” for entire phrases and 2) no lyrics at all. I heard “WAP” on the radio earlier this week, and it was so unrecognizable that I didn’t realize what song it was until the DJ told me after it was over.
The version we hear on the radio isn’t the official clean version. The clean version, as released by Atlantic Records, replaces “wet-ass pussy” with “wet and gushy” (seriously). I find this new phrase to be far more offensive than the original, and radio programmers agreed, making their own edit as delineated above. Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion released a number one song that was so dirty, the official clean version was still too controversial for radio airplay. Conservative pundits be damned, that accomplishment deserves an award.
As for me, I have no opinion worth sharing on “WAP.” If you don’t like it, don’t listen to it. If you don’t want your kids to hear it, don’t play it for them. The FCC rules required multiple edits of the song before it reached broadcast—if you still have a problem with it, find a hobby. Here’s New Music Tuesday:
Oceanator - Things I Never Said
You can find the latest record from New York’s Elise Okusami (stage name Oceanator) on Bandcamp. The album is full of doubled-up vocals, fuzzy guitars, and hooky verses. I listened to Things I Never Said all weekend and it never wore out its welcome. The songs are punchy and about “finding comfort in the face of destruction”—which is something we could all use right now.
Pairs Well With: hot tea on a cold fall day
The Killers - Imploding The Mirage
I know I don’t usually use this space to hype up established artists, but hear me out: this is an excellent record from a band many people have written off as over-the-hill. Imploding The Mirage picks up where Day & Age left off: flamboyantly romantic songs that strut the fence between corny and inspiring. Tracks like “Dying Breed,” “Caution,” and “Running Towards a Place,” almost cosplay as a juiced up 2010 Gaslight Anthem; and others channel The Killers’ signature fusion of Americana and synthetic Vegas glitz. This is The Killers album I’ve been waiting a decade for.
Pairs Well With: driving a convertible as the leaves change
Sneaks - Happy Birthday
Released via Merge Records, this new album from Sneaks can also be experienced on Bandcamp (and Spotify). Blending spoken word with hard dance beats, Happy Birthday oozes raw cool. The sonic pallet is decidedly retro, with synth sequencers, boom-clap drums, and robotic diction dominating the album. Lyrical economy is on full display in “Mars in Virgo” as Eva Moolchan repeats the song title sixteen times in less than two minutes, but I never once looked for the “skip” button.
Pairs Well With: grooving, vibing, working on spreadsheets