Radio edit
In music, a radio edit is a modification, typically truncated, intended to make a song more suitable for airplay, whether it be adjusted for length, profanity, subject matter, instrumentation, or form. Radio edits may also be used for commercial single versions, which may be denoted as the 7" version. However, not all "radio edit" tracks are played on radio.
Editing for time[edit]
Radio edits often shorten a long song in order to make it more commercially viable for radio stations. The normal length for songs played on the radio is 3 to 4 minutes. Occasionally, the song will simply fade out earlier, common on tracks with long instrumental endings.
Some songs will be remixed heavily and feature different arrangements than the original longer versions, occasionally even being completely different recordings. A popular example of this is "Revolution" by The Beatles which is a completely different recording from the version which appears on The White Album. Many of the 7" mixes aimed for pop radio airplay of their songs feature very different arrangements, such as "Bizarre Love Triangle", or even a completely different recording, such as "Temptation".
Some long songs do not have a radio edit, despite being as long as 5, 6, 7, or 8 minutes in length, presumably due to listener demand from radio stations. The idea of extended songs receiving airplay on commercial radio was extremely rare until the birth of progressive radio in the mid-1960s; most rock music formats descend from progressive radio, and as such, rock songs tend to be played at their longer original length than songs of other formats.
On rare occasions, a radio edit might be longer than the original album version. This may occur when the song is edited for form, such as in the cases of "Creep" by Radiohead. Some radio stations cut the bridge and outro, some shorten the hooks and others go from the second chorus to the outro.
The syndicated radio format "QuickHitz", notably adopted by the Calgary radio station CKMP-FM in August 2014, utilizes even shorter edits of songs, from 1 minute and 30 seconds to 2 minutes in length.[1][2]
Editing for content[edit]
Radio edits often come with any necessary censorship done to conform to decency standards imposed by government agencies, such as the Federal Communications Commission in the United States, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission in Canada, the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas in the Philippines, the Australian Communications and Media Authority in Australia, and Ofcom in the United Kingdom. The offending words may be silenced, reversed, distorted, or replaced by a tone or sound effect. The edits may come from the record label itself, broadcasters at the corporate level before the song is sent for airplay to their stations, or in rarer cases, at a radio station itself depending on local standards.
Radio edits may have more or fewer words edited than the "clean version", because of the stations' or agencies' standards. An "amended" radio edit which only removes the major profanities while keeping the small profanities can be produced for some stations that allow small profanities (e.g. "You're Going Down" by Sick Puppies and "Bad Girlfriend" by Theory of a Deadman) whereas a "dirty" radio edit preserving the offensive language but maintaining the shorter play time may be produced, which may be aimed at club play, nighttime radio, and non-terrestrial radio stations. Kid Rock wrote the term "radio edit" into two of his songs, both of which are the same on radio and album versions. After two million copies of Michael Jackson's "They Don't Care About Us" had already been shipped, the lyrics of the original track with the words "Jew me" and "Kike me" were replaced with "do me" and "strike me" due to its controversial anti-Semitic references. Radio edit versions of the track remained with the original version until the edited version was pressed and released. An example occurs in Lady Gaga's song "Poker Face", where the line, "P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face" is misheard as, "P-p-p-poker face, p-p-fuck her face". Some radio stations repeated the word "poker" from the first part of the line, while others played the original version. A promotional CD single is available containing both of these versions.[3] The edited version is available on the compilation Now 31 in the US.
One notable station, KIIS-FM in Los Angeles, censors songs substantially more, and more obviously, than its counterpart, Power 106. This is almost always done to hip-hop songs, and as much as several seconds can be cut off. This more substantial censorship began in 2004, perhaps as a part of the heightened scrutiny of media content following the "Nipplegate" incident at Super Bowl XXXVIII. An example of this censorship can be heard in Rihanna's ballad "Unfaithful", where the lyric "I might as well take a gun and put it to his head" is censored on KIIS-FM as "I might as well take a _____, put it to his head". The previous example of song editing is common for many CHR stations owned by iHeartMedia.
See also[edit]
- Censorship on MTV
- List of "songs with questionable lyrics" following the September 11, 2001 attacks
- Loudness war
- Parental Advisory: Explicit Content
References[edit]
- ↑ "This Calgary radio station has started cutting songs in half so listeners don't get bored". Financial Post. 1 August 2014. Retrieved 1 August 2014.
- ↑ "Amp Radio Calgary relaunches with QuickHitz". RadioInsight. Retrieved 2 August 2014.
- ↑ "Lady Gaga - Poker Face". Discogs. Retrieved 2018-03-10.
External links[edit]
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