Though timely, Taboo Tunes also reveals the timeless nature of mankind’s censorious impulses by revisiting the firestorms of controversy that have engulfed brave artists like Woody Guthrie, Paul Robeson, Billie Holiday, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, the Dead Kennedy’s, Madonna, N.W.A., Public Enemy, Ice-T, Nirvana, Rage Against The Machine, the Dixie Chicks...and many others from earlier times. Milestones explored in Taboo Tunes include: The ancient (451 BC) Roman law that defined the singing of bawdy songs as “a disruption of public order” – an infraction punishable by death; The bans placed on youth-oriented Roaring ‘20s dance-steps like The Grizzly Bear and The Bunny Hug in numerous American towns; The firing squad execution in 1915 of America’s radical labor songster, Joe Hill; The FBI’s surveillance of jazz diva Billie Holiday for performing a pacifistic song at the dawn of WWII; The McCarthy Era blacklisting that stunted the careers of folkies like the Weavers and Woody Guthrie in the ‘50s; The 1959 congressional “Payola” hearings that were orchestrated to unmask the presumed evils of rock ‘n’ roll radio; The FBI’s 2-year “dirty lyrics” investigation of the Kingsmen and their 1963 garage-rock classic, “Louie Louie;” An ill-fated early-‘60s campaign to outlaw electric guitars; President Nixon’s unleashing of the FBI on bands like the Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and the Doors in the Psychedelic ‘60s; The ‘70s radio bans of Donna Summers’ orgasm-laden disco hit, “Love To Love You Baby” and the Sex Pistols’ snotty punk anthem “God Save The Queen;” The mid-‘80s Parent’s Music Resource Center (PMRC)-driven Senate hearings that ultimately resulted in the Parental Advisory warning stickers now seen on CDs; And, the proposed 1933 congressional bill that would have mandated the incarceration of fans “intoxicated” by jazz – a plan echoed in 1998 when various law enforcement organizations proposed forced hospitalization for fans of the popular shock-rock band, Marilyn Manson.

Far from simply recounting dusty old history, Taboo Tunes brings readers fully up-to-date by documenting some of the under-reported impacts that reactions to the 9/11 terrorist attacks have had on music. Most folks probably remain unaware that, for example, within hours of those traumatic attacks America’s largest radio chain (Clear Channel) imposed a ban on further airplay for over-150 particular songs. Or, that the Secret Service leaned on the managers of one popular-if-a-bit-rebellious rock band’s Web site resulting in perfectly legal content being “disappeared.” Or, that the nation’s largest Internet provider, America Online (AOL), suddenly began cutting service to punish subscribers for simply getting involved in online chats about the political dimensions of certain hit song lyrics. Or, that the Crime Prevention Resource Center (CPRC) recently proposed the creation of computerized databases for law enforcement agencies to monitor the Internet traffic – and musical proclivities – of “suspicious youth.” Or that, in the wake of 9/11, certain risk-aversive record companies altered a few new records over concerns that various lyrics or graphics might be offensive to the shell-shocked American psyche. And that, according to the cruelly misnamed USA–PATRIOT Act of 2001, anything the authorities now decide to define as “advocating terrorism” – including: home computers, libraries, diaries, and music – can be targeted and seized by the FBI.

Taboo Tunes digs deep to examine serious complexities within key censorship issues. Among those are: Threats to authority posed by the intrinsic power that songs have to suggest new and different ideas to people; The constitutional principal of Free Speech as it applies to the arts; America’s traditions of dissent as expressed through music; The varying manifestations of censorship from the political Right and Left; The role that the radio and record industries play in America’s informal censorship “system;” And, perhaps most significantly, the patterns of censorial behavior which have occurred and reoccurred throughout time. As Blecha writes: “By surveying this historical landscape it is hoped that we can gain a more informed understanding of how crusades to ban music—usually in the guise of “protecting society”—have been woefully misguided, often destructive, occasionally comical, and remarkably unsuccessful.”