Episode 8: Humming for the FBI: A Celebration of Banned Songs

The Coda: A Music Podcast

This episode:

• Two musician-programmers algorithmically generate every possible melody ever through MIDI files, and put them in the public doman in order to circumvent the growing number of copyright lawsuits.
• Brian and Rob reflect on The Grey Album 15 years later, and wonder whether an album like that could ever be made again.
• For the main feature, Brian and Rob each dicuss a handful of songs that were banned, including the infamous Clear Channel Memo that surfaced after 9/11.
• The B-Side finds Brian trolling Rob before offering up one of the best blues collaborations ever, and Rob goes typical sad bastard, and talks about a performance that stopped him in his tracks.

Sources:

• "'This Note's For You' Isn't For MTV" by Patrick Goldstein - The L.A. Times
• Short Neil Young Interview Clip.
• Michael Hutchins announcing the winnter of the VMA for Video of the Year at the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards.
• The Lascivious Louie Louie - The Smoking Gun
• "Is This the Dirtiest Song of the Sixties?" by Anwen Crawford - The New Yorker
• "The FBI Investigated the Song ‘Louie Louie’ for Two Years" by Rose Eveleth - Smithsonian Magazine
• "TURN THAT DOWN! 40 BANNED AND CENSORED SONGS" - National Coalition Against Censorship
• The Who performing "My Generation" on the Smothers Brothers show
• "25 Years of Killing Cops with Ice-T" by Tim Scott - Vice
• "The Rolling Stone Interview: Ice-T" by Alan Light - Rolling Stone
• "Hang the MC" by Matthew McKinnon - Internet Archive
• Ice-T on the Legacy of "Cop Killer" YouTube Clip - Fuse

The playlist for this episode can be found here.

Theme song:
Bittersweet by | e s c p |