From: owner-sheryl-crew-digest@smoe.org (sheryl-crew-digest) To: sheryl-crew-digest@smoe.org Subject: sheryl-crew-digest V2 #180 Reply-To: sheryl-crew@smoe.org Sender: owner-sheryl-crew-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-sheryl-crew-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk sheryl-crew-digest Monday, May 31 1999 Volume 02 : Number 180 Today's Subjects: ----------------- The Web vs. Wal-Mart [Paul Schreiber ] Sort of OFF: Censorship ["Meredith Sarah Anne" ] Re: Sweet Child O' Mine Video! [Katrina Wyss ] Re: The Web vs. Wal-Mart [SCrow816@aol.com] nasty letter to walmart [SCrow816@aol.com] Sheryl's Own Words [David ] smoking ["DivineTrash" ] New Video ["DivineTrash" ] SCOM -- 2 versions (Real Audio!) [SCFANCLUB2@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 18:19:59 -0700 From: Paul Schreiber Subject: The Web vs. Wal-Mart This is from: http://www.netizen.com/netizen/96/46/katz4a.html The Web vs. Wal-Mart Media Rant by Jon Katz Mediaville, 14 November f you worry about protecting free speech, want to make your own decisions about culture, respect the right of artists to create and profit from their own work, support the idea of the young having any rights at all, or fear the devastating impact America's mega-corporations can have on creative freedom and choice, then boycott Wal-Mart stores and urge everyone you know to do the same. Wal-Mart, the single largest seller of pop music in America - they sold 52 million CDs last year - is forcing the removal of songs, changes in cover designs, and alterations of lyrics its executives find objectionable or offensive. It's forcing studios to make tamer, safer films as well. Artists who disagree with particular Wal-Mart notions of morality are being deprived of revenue and having their livelihoods threatened. One example: The chain's stores, according to The New York Times, refused to carry Sheryl Crow's new album because of a lyric that accused the chain of selling guns to children. When Crow refused to remove it, she lost 10 percent of her album's potential sales. Wal-Mart won't sell CDs with explicit rap lyrics or sexual references, but is happy to carry rifles, knives, handcuffs, and handgun ammunition. Since Wal-Mart refuses to carry any CDs with a "parental advisory" label, artists and record labels say they're under increasing pressure to sanitize their work. Music industry and film executives and producers say these policies are forcing both industries to substantially alter their content. Last year, the fight over the Communications Decency Act politicized much of Web culture. But the CDA was always a largely toothless and symbolic political gesture. As offensive as it was, it was unenforceable as well as unconstitutional. But the threat to the free movement of ideas and artistic expression by companies like Wal-Mart is far greater. And it's already here. As these companies inevitably move to commercialize the Internet, their noxious efforts to censor culture and speech will post a much more serious threat to the idea that information wants to be free than the CDA ever could have done. Wal-Mart stores are mostly in rural and suburban communities. Kids there are especially at the mercy of their efforts to dictate what wholesome culture is, as chains like Wal-Mart drive out smaller music outlets that actually care about music and know something about it. Chains like Borders and Barnes & Noble have moved aggressively into the book business, but one difference is that they are experienced book retailers, and have shown little interest in censoring books or altering their content. Wal-Mart is a discount retailer with no knowledge or experience in fields like books or music. And no respect for notions of individual choice or creativity. In all of popular culture, there's almost no entity more dangerous than a powerful corporation with a political agenda. They tend to suck up all the space around them, and force the makers of all creative products to pander to them. The technology and political ideology of the Web is the best available means to combat this arrogant expansion of power by a corporation that presumes to know what moral and cultural choices its customers - and indirectly, the rest of us - should have. Web culture can work in several ways to take on Wal-Mart and other corporations that are growing obscenely powerful and threaten both freedom of commerce and freedom of ideas. The Net is the best means of spreading the message that Wal-Mart's entertainment retailing policies are offensive and unacceptable. Wal-Mart stores should be boycotted until and unless the company guarantees to respect the free movement of ideas and the right of consumers - even younger ones - to make their own choices about morals and values. And to clearly label altered editorial products. Music and video companies can be encouraged to retail products directly off of Web sites, so that consumers can buy original, unaltered, and uncensored versions. Music and movie lovers, libertarians, liberals who believe in free speech, and conservatives who believe in maintaining individual liberty can - if they are of a mind - get together and picket Wal-Mart stores, and try and let parents know the company is making familial decisions for them and their children, mislabeling products it sells, and taking upon itself the cultural policing of the country. The Web can sell uncensored CDs. It is still our least censorable medium. Rather than cave in to Wal-Mart, record companies can show some spunk, defend their artists and make money as well via the miracle of digital sales. The bookseller site Amazon.com has demonstrated that commercial products can be sold online. A musical equivalent could end run chains like Wal-Mart and make this kind of censorship unprofitable as well as impossible, and could advance the idea of the Web as a source of creative products. Third, legislators and members of Congress should be emailed, snailmailed, or phoned and urged to support legislation that would force Wal-Mart to clearly label CDs and videos that have been altered, often without the permission or the knowledge of the artist. While you're at at it, email Wal-Mart's president and tell him what you think. Through newsgroups, Web sites and mailing lists, isolated teenagers and others should be supported if they wish to find the actual lyrics of songs, especially of songs and videos banned by Wal-Mart because the company's purchasers don't like them. Children have been victimized by media, politicians, and many parents for years - and had their culture branded stupid or offensive. The Web culture should become the first medium to support them and their rights to control more of their culture themselves. Net culture is routinely branded as isolating, arrogant, narcissistic, and apathetic, and is struggling to find issues around which it can coalesce as a community. The CDA was the first one. This is a good nominee for the second. The notion that information wants to be free - the primary ideology of the Net - should be fought offline as well as online. The young - especially those far from sophisticated urban centers - have the right to access the work of artists they like as it was created. Parents have the right to make their own moral judgments about what is appropriate for their children. Artists have the right to have their work stand or fall on its merits. Wal-Mart shouldn't be allowed to set the country's cultural agenda. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 20:44:02 -0500 (EST) From: David Subject: Hill, Letterman, Fall tour I think that song was co-written by Todd Wolfe, not Jeff Trott. I listened to the song just the other day when I was at Borders. I think that means it's an old song, because Jeff helped in writing the second album. Also, somebody said that the Cowgirl lady on Letterman was good? I thought she was horrible. She played guitar ok but she couldn't harmonize worth crap. She smiled a lot but I was hoping she wouldn't be on the tour and I'm so glad she wasn't!! Next, I read that somebody heard about a fall tour? I know she's discussed doing the "acoustic college tour" in the fall. Does anyone know if this is going to happen or not, or if she's just going to go back and hit the cities that she missed the first time around? Finally, I was in Indianapolis this weekend and I turned on the radio to hear the DJ say, "That was Sheryl Crow covering the Guns-N-Roses classic..." So, if anyone listens out there, SCOM is being played on 92.3. DAVID ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 02:07:13 GMT From: "Meredith Sarah Anne" Subject: Sort of OFF: Censorship I would like to thank Paul for sending out those articles on censorship. I read them both thoroughly and found them very interesting and true. In my opinion, music is (or at least should be) art, and the work is the artist's, not the store's. The same can be said for books or any other type of art. Freedom of speech no longer seems important to these people; money is all that matters. There's a difference between freedom of speech and complete chaos. Occasional curse words in a piece of writing are not and should never be confused with any sort of vile activity that goes on in the world today. I read an article a few months ago about several students whose web-sites were closed down by their schools because of their content. This seemed unfair to me because this sites were made on the students' free time at home; not at school. Why should school limit what you choose to do on your own time? This is another censorship problem that needs to be addressed. I could ramble on and on about this subject, but I'll stop now. Censorship often causes more problems than it solves, and that's a shame. - -Meredith *** http://locket.net/ *** Cup Riot On-line~ "Save the plastic cups!" Roundhouse Follow-up Petition~ "SEX? AAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!" -Roundhouse Raizens' Jason Raize Page~ "Hakuna matata!" -The Lion King "I’ve got a hole in me pocket." - -Ringo Starr, 'Yellow Submarine' _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 19:20:38 -0700 (PDT) From: Katrina Wyss Subject: Re: Sweet Child O' Mine Video! Hey Everyone~ My name is Katrina and I've never e-mailed, but I saw the new video last night too!! It is pretty good. Well, I just thought I'd write and say hi to everyone. ~Katrina** _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 23:02:29 EDT From: SCrow816@aol.com Subject: Re: The Web vs. Wal-Mart WALMART SUCKS BIG D$%K i am sooo sorry if i offend anyone but i hate walmart i dont want to offend anyone i apoligize if i have Shawn ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 23:20:12 EDT From: SCrow816@aol.com Subject: nasty letter to walmart i just sent a really nasty letter to walmart ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 23:33:02 -0500 (EST) From: David Subject: Sheryl's Own Words I remember a little while back that somebody was talking about that book about female singer/songwriters and stuff. Well, you don't have to buy it because Sheryl's entire section is transcribed here. IT's really cool, and it will give you some insight into some of the tracks on the second album. http://www-scf.usc.edu/~cmeijia/solo.html DAVID ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 22:31:02 -0800 From: "DivineTrash" Subject: smoking i saw a marlboro light hanging from the back of her ear on the race to erase ms special during rehearsal! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 22:48:45 -0800 From: "DivineTrash" Subject: New Video was this in the uk or the states? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 03:05:13 EDT From: SCFANCLUB2@aol.com Subject: SCOM -- 2 versions (Real Audio!) For those who haven't heard the song yet ("Sweet Child O' Mine"), especially those outside the US... SHERYL CROW/Sweet Child Of Mine (Pop Mix) (C2/Columbia) http://www.allaccess.com/sounds/sheryp99.ram SHERYL CROW/Sweet Child Of Mine (Rock Mix) (C2/Columbia) http://www.allaccess.com/sounds/sheryr99.ram These clips are courtesy of All Access Music Group. It's unfortunate you don't get to hear the entire song -- the "where do we go now" part at the end is awesome! But that's a good taste for you guys. Enjoy! Lisa ------------------------------ End of sheryl-crew-digest V2 #180 *********************************