A ban on karaoke songs with 'harmful content' in China

Do you guys remember when we pulled off a live radio karaoke last year on our show? Amazing, right? Now can you imagine if the SA government was to say, "No, we are banning some of these karaoke songs because they are a danger to the state"? 

Our friends in China don't have to imagine it as the Chinese government will establish a blacklist of karaoke songs which bans songs that contain “illegal content” from karaoke venues across the country. 

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China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism shared that banned content would include music that endangers national unity, sovereignty or territorial integrity, violates state religious policies by propagating cults or superstitions, or which encourages illegal activities such as gambling and drugs.

This includes songs that encourage obscenity, violence, drug-related activities or crime. Songs should not insult or slander others. 

So, basically, about 80% of the hip-hop genre and a huge amount of pop songs. The first one that come to mind is Lady Gaga's Poker Face. It's a goodie for karaoke, no? 

The ban will start on 1 October 2021.

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Content providers to karaoke venues will now be responsible for the auditing of karaoke songs, the ministry said on its website on Tuesday. 

China has nearly 50,000 entertainment outlets with a basic music library of more than 100,000 songs and this will make it difficult for venue operators to thoroughly identify illegal tracks. These content providers are encouraged to supply “healthy and uplifting” music to these venues.

Songs like Black Eyed Peas' Where Is The Love?  or Michael Jackson's We Are The World seem like the type of songs that will survive the cut. Not bad, we guess. 

But we are grateful to still have the world's library of songs to jam to at our karaoke venues. 

Main Image Courtesy: Pexels