Censorship on Satellite Radio: What's the deal with Lithium?

The label/artist edited songs seemed to dominate Lucy during the day hours and the obsenity laden tracks came out after dark. I always assumed if there was no XL label next to the channel, to not expect to hear unedited tracks. I know for a fact that even The Rhyme, an XL station, featured edited tracks, specifically some 2 Live Crew tracks.

If the words aren't there to offend you, rest assured, Lithium's horrible playlists will.

more importantly, why do the channels formerly know as Ethel & Fred now suck?

Hm, I thought I noticed the censored songs on Lucy before the switch. Though it could have been after. When I called to cancel, I still had about a week left on my month of service... (It's off now.)

Now if we could just return Lithium to Lucy.....

Sirius subscriber here and have been OK with the switch. But this could be a killer. Get this fixed guys!

Did Mr. Greenstein happen to mention why these edited songs ONLY made it onto "family friendly" stations? Why does Lithium play Closer by NIN edited, yet Faction plays it in all it's glory?

Did he perhaps answer why they have known about the "problem" for two weeks and have yet to have any solution?

This isn't an accident, it was deliberate. Hopefully if we continue the negative feedback we can not only eliminate this censorship but have our service back to it's previous state.

http://www.SiriuslyScrewed.com

BTW Ryan why not e-mail me and let our group air our grievances and out intentions on Orbitcast?

Ryan - you are on top of it. Way to go.

ya, i quit listening to lithium after the switch from lucy. i miss xm saturday night and all the other cool shows.

great site guys keep it up.happy holidays the news on thanksgivings is going to be a doosey

Good.

I hate hearing radio edits on Lithium and also on Hip Hop Nation.

I love how you end by taking a shot at the fans by saying "naughty language", nice. Dump on the folks who PAY and want something besides what is available for free...FM. Oooh you have to hear that naughty language, YES. I am an adult and want to hear things uncut, not cleaned up by someone who thinks they know what I should hear. Remember the Sopranos? Was it better without the "naughty language"? I am sick of that shit. Stop trying to dumb us adults down, please, it is infuriating.

I love how you end by taking a shot at the fans by saying "naughty language", nice. Dump on the folks who PAY and want something besides what is available for free...FM. Oooh you have to hear that naughty language, YES. I am an adult and want to hear things uncut, not cleaned up by someone who thinks they know what I should hear. Remember the Sopranos? Was it better without the "naughty language"? I am sick of that shit. Stop trying to dumb us adults down, please, it is infuriating.

I'm more suprised that they are saying that "songs were added to the playlist" There must have just been the Nevermind album before Lucy was added.

Say anything.. may .. may.. make it happen.. I'm a veg... hold tight to what makes you sound intelegent (spelled wrong for effect)

I've also seen customers complain of censorship on Hip-Hop Nation as well. At least Shade 45's still not like that...

Well, this answers the Lithium end of things, however, why is Hip Hop Nation also playing many edited tracks...

I've noticed a LOT of edited songs on Hip Hop Nation, Octane, and Alt Nation after the merge. It's very upsetting and unnerving to hear edited versions of songs now that were never edited on Sirius before. I hope this same issue will get worked out and the normal unedited versions of songs are getting played.

Speaking of songs from XM's Library....

Does anyone have any idea what's going on with the MEMO feature on Sirius radios?

On some of the predominantly Sirius channels, you can still memo both Artist and Song, on SOME of the more melded channels, you can only memo the Song, and on some of the more XM channels, neither option is available.

What's going on with the music library? and are they going to sort this out?

I actually wrote to XM a while back asking them to consider making playing uncut versions of songs on Lucy, but was told they wanted to keep it family friendly. Kinda interesting that Greenstein said that wasn't the case when they've been doing it for years.

I noticed the same thing. I read the interview here yesterday. Then I was in my car listening to NIN on Lithium and they edited out what he wanted to do to her (I assume he is referring to a femal but you never know with him) like an animal. But then there was a Greenday song (can't remember the song) on a little after that and it wasn't edited. Song it sounds like what they are saying is true.

I contacted Sirius customer (lack of) support about this and received a canned response that's lock-step with what Scott Greenstein said. "We only censor 3 channels." Bullshit! Hip Hop Nation is clearly censored... no question about it.

Just heard a the "damn" of "god damn" edited out of a Modest Mouse song on the Spectrum! WTF? The Sirius channel names and graphics really suck rocks. Alt Nations might be the worst, Spectrum a close 2nd.

I don't think he has a clue what is going on. He referred to "20 on 20" which doesn't even exist anymore.

This sounds about right. I think it may take some time to correct the playlist once they were merged 2 weeks ago. None of the Sirius channels mentioned above played the "radio edit" versions of songs but from what I heard and what was written above, XM did. Hopefully, Sirius gets working on removing the "radio edit versions". Other than this issue, I am happy with the channel merges. Besides Howard, my favorite channels have always been Alt Nation and Hip Hop nation. Now lets get that "naughty language" back.

God forbid they "add" anything to Lithium's playlist. I dont care if they play edited or non-edited songs on Lithium, but please for all that is holy, make it interesting. Lucy was getting boring as well, but Lithium's playlists are flat out snoozers. Anyone who listened to the type of music they play bought the albums of these artists, and know that most of the "hits" were not the best songs on the album. Dig a little deeper guys. You are not going to upset the 14 year old girl demographic, because they dont listen to Lithium!

@daniel: not quite correct. squizz was xL, octane has played radio edits since merging. specific example is some sevendust songs played. never heard the radio edits on on squizz. combined with the statements in the interview, i have a small (but growing) belief this was more intentional than represented. I fully admit this is a small sampling plus my personal opinion.. but given my experience and the explanation, i'm veering more toward not buying it.

if anything, i wonder if it was testing the waters to make the platform more santitized as a whole, possibly to pave the road for more advertising or whatever plans mel may have in store. again, total speculation, not a shred of evidence.. probably just my combination of frustration with the recent changes to channels i frequent and growing concern with where this all is headed. it bugs me too, coming to satrad from my iPod (and finding a lot of new artits that are cool)...

Sorry to go off topic but since we are talking about how foul language improves art, I have been watching Family Guy on DVD, rather than on TV. TV is definetly edited for the worse. Even Stewy drops a few F bombs on DVD.

Ok so they going to fix lithium, that's cool now what about hip hop nation, it seems like 4 out 5 songs on there are edited and it really is irritating. if this doesn't get fixed that is a deal breaker to me.

Hell, I always thought Fred,Ethel,Lucy,Mike, Dave,Ted,Sam and Michelle always sucked. XM had the worst channels I've ever heard. They spent wayyyyy to much time trying to play obscure bull crap. I say goodbye and don't come back. Hey if you guys don't like it then cancel. Quit bitching and cancel. Who needs you.

It's clear many of the XM / Lucy listeners are unhappy with Lithium's "small" playlist. As a Sirius subscriber used to Lithium, let me just say that much of that seems to have happened post-merger. It seems like they cut about 50% of the "old" Lithium playlist and added 10% of "new" songs that presumably came over from Lucy.

I had stumbled on a post elsewhere with a long list of songs that were played on Lucy that the poster had not heard yet on Lithium. Many were certainly in the old Lithium playlist, but admittedly seem to be missing post-merger.

The one notable difference is that the old Lithium played 90s Alt/Grunge only. There was never any Duran Duran, INXS, old U2, 2000ish Alternative, etc. The channel was much more narrowly focused than Lucy. It's now slightly more encompassing, albeit far less than Lucy apparently was. Depending on your point of view that's either a good or bad thing. Frankly if they fix the censorship, I'll deal with the obscure Lucy-sourced stuff that I could do without.

Actually 20 on 20 is still a chanel only on XM as Sirius hits 1 is only on Sirius!

The same thing has been happening on Hip-Hop Nation on Channel 40. That station was uncensored prior to the XM-Sirius channel changes. Since then, most of the songs are the radio edited version on the station. What gives? Have to listen to Shade 45 for uncensored hip-hop music. Since the heat is censored, as is was apparently when it was on XM only.