Music Lyrics

The BCCSA has ruled on a controversial kwaito song’s lyrics.

Music has always been a powerful tool of expression but a string of controversial songs in recent years has raised questions about whether artists are crossing the line with lyrics that are racially or religiously offensive.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A bill updating the lyrics of Florida’s state song, Stephen Foster’s “Old Folks at Home,” and approving an official state anthem has passed the Florida Senate.

Matthew Ryan’s music has a startling dichotomy, his effervescent melodies acting in counterpoint to darkly themed lyrical content.

After laundering the lyrics to delete racially offensive terms like “darkeys,” the Florida Senate voted Thursday to retain the tune familiarly known as Swanee River as the official state song, and also adopted much newer work by a Broward music teacher as the state anthem.

Philadelphia’s hip-hop collective the Roots are off to a rough start at their new label.

Parramore’s Johnny Wineglass is a font of ideas. This is what it looks like inside the head of Johnny Wineglass: a baseball bat that registers the force of a batter’s swing; new song lyrics; a recipe for Cajun rice pizza; a foolproof home-security system; cartoon characters who fight crime in the inner city.

Fabula , Skyphone’s Avellaneda may be the most beautiful near-pop record of 2008. This Danish trio makes music so song-like that it could, with added lyrics and a different approach to production, easily exist in the kind of dreamy experimental post-rock terrain of Iceland’s Sigur Rs. In its seamless integration of technology and acoustic instrumentation it shares much with Norways’s Svalastog …