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Name: Leah Budin
Date: February 5, 2003
Slug: Wal-Mart Censorship
“Watch our children as they kill each other with a gun they bought at Wal-Mart discount stores,” Sheryl Crow sang on a recent album.
Wal-Mart got its revenge by not carrying that album, reducing Crow’s album sales by an estimated 10%.
Sheryl Crow’s album is not the only music that Wal-Mart refuses to sell. Albums with the Parental Advisory label are only sold in “clean” versions, in which the words are bleeped or altered. Albums with objectionable cover material are only sold when airbrushed.
“Many of our customers understand what we’re attempting to do here,” says Wal-Mart spokesperson Dale Ingram. “We don’t have a bank of censors. We’re really just like all retailers.”
Wal-Mart’s website states that it “does not alter CDs, albums, or other music that is offered in our stores.” This is true; all of the censoring is done by the record companies in order for the albums to be sold at Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart is the biggest music retailer in the country. It sells nearly 10% of all music sold in the United States, 52 million CDs last year alone. It is no wonder that musicians want to be a part of this market.
Many artists, such as Da Brat, Beck, Busta Rhymes, John Mellencamp, Public Enemy, the Butthole Surfers, Nirvana, Outkast, and Rob Zombie have willingly allowed their albums to be censored for consumption by Wal-Mart.
“We put out the real version months and months in advance and later we put out Wal-Mart version,” says Rob Zombie, a rock musician. “You know you’re just denying the kids the music if you don’t do something.”
The cover for his CD “Superswingin’ Sexy Sounds” featured a naked woman on a hammock, onto which bikini straps were airbrushed for Wal-Mart.
“I know that Wal-Mart stocks bottles of shampoo with more nudity than our album cover,” says Zombie.
This is just a small example of the duality of standards at Wal-Mart. Although spokesperson Betsy Riethemeyer says that the chain is “family-oriented,” Wal-Mart’s treatment of employees shows evidence to the contrary. Most of its employees are minimum-wage part-time workers without benefits. Those who work full-time often decline the benefits because they’re too expensive. There are currently lawsuits filed against the chain for sexual discrimination against women. When Wal-Mart bought out the Woolco chain in Canada, it cut 1,500 jobs.
Sheryl Crow’s comment about guns wasn’t entirely inaccurate. Company spokesman Dale Ingram says that the stores comply with local laws regarding firearms. But this has not prevented the chain from being sued twice by relatives of people killed with guns bought at its stores.
“It’s ridiculous that Wal-Mart asks you to clean up your music, yet they sell guns. They need to wipe out that contradiction,” says rapper Chuck D.
“Three cheers for Wal-Mart,” says Senator Joseph Liebermann, of Connecticut. “I have felt that the record companies, the big businesses that produce music, have been so irresponsible that my first reaction to the Wal-Mart story was, ‘Thank God that these people are being responsible.’ ”
“The point of the First Amendment is not to protect things everyone agrees on. It’s to protect things people don’t agree on,” says music critic Dave Marsh. “This is not about protecting people. Wal-Mart sells guns; they sell junk food and carcinogens. This is about forcing people to think like Christians from Arkansas.”