China Lifts 3-Year Ban on Lady Gaga’s Songs
Provocative US singer, Lady Gaga, has been removed from a Chinese government blacklist, thereby allowing her chart-topping new album “ARTPOP” to go on sale legally in China.
The pop diva’s songs had been on a blacklist since 2011, when the Culture Ministry deemed her work to be “creating confusion in the order of the online music market, and damaging the nation’s cultural security.”
Singling out songs from her album “Born this Way,” Chinese authorities identified six Gaga tracks — “The Edge of Glory,” “Hair,” “Marry the Night,” “Americano,” “Judas” and “Bloody Mary” — as among 100 foreign songs to be placed on a blacklist, alongside Katy Perry’s “Last Friday Night” and the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way”.
The ministry at the time said that foreign songs would be subject to the same censorship requirements as domestic artists and All albums for release would be screened by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.
Chinese censors have however placed conditions on the ARTPOP album art, inflating a large ball between her legs to cover more of the naked singer’s body and adding a pair of black tights to the singer’s bare legs.
Chinese officials also changed a song title, transforming “Sexxx Dreams” to “X Dreams.”
Lady Gaga last week responded with enthusiasm to the lifting of the ban on her Twitter feed.
” The Chinese Government approved ‘ARTPOP’ to be released in China with all 15 songs! Next I hope I can come to perform!,” she said on her Twitter account.