"They Don’t Care..." - Michael Jackson
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Category: Top 40 Music On Compact Disc
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Topic: "They Don’t Care..." - Michael Jackson
Posted By: Todd Ireland
Subject: "They Don’t Care..." - Michael Jackson
Date Posted: 19 September 2013 at 10:57pm
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Brian W. reported the following regarding Michael Jackson's "They Don't Care About Us" in the http://http://www.top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=73&PN=1 - Michael Jackson - the 45 versions on CD thread:
The third commercial single from "HiStory" in the US. What had been only a minor controversy when the album was released was reignited, since the song, a diatribe against racism in America, contained the phrases "Jew me, sue me" and "kick me, kike me." Michael of course denied any anti-semitic meaning in the lines, claiming once again to be "misunderstood," but agreed to remove the offensive words... which involved dubbing a crash-type sound effect over one and "buzzing" type sound over the other. (You can still hear them if you know what he's saying, though.) It was allegedly censored on future pressings of "HiStory," but I bought one of the ones with a sticker claiming it was censored, and it wasn't. I don't know if it was ever actually done or not. However, the censored 45 version was later included on the UK edition of Sony's "The Essential Michael Jackson." I purchased Michael Jackson's History - Past, Present And Future CD just in the last couple of years and the song is censored on my copy with the "buzzing" sound effects covering up the controversial words just like Brian described above. So the database should probably point out that early pressings of History were uncensored, while later ones were censored. Does anyone know if any U.S. commercial single pressings were censored? |
Replies:
Posted By: edtop40
Date Posted: 22 September 2013 at 7:51am
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i own two commercial cd singles for this song.....the
first is the standard 3/4 track one that is listed in billboard as epic 78264 and contains the below tracks 1-they don't care about us (single version) (4:43 listed; 4:43 actual) 2-rock with you (frankie knuckles radio mix) (3:47 listed; 3:49 actual) 3-earth song (hani's radio experience) (3:33 listed; 3:32 actual) 4-wanna be startin' somethin' (brothers in rhythm mix) (7:35 listed; 7:34 actual) track one, the single version edits out the words 'jew' and 'kike' with records scrathes/crashing sounds in their place.....'jew' is edited out completely, but 'kike' can still be interpreted.... the second is the ep version issued as epic 78212...it contains 8 tracks as listed below.....if anyone need the actual's let me know as the cd single is still sealed and is the same as i bought from 'record explosion' on fifth ave on jan 6, 1998!!! 1-single version (listed 4:43) 2-charles full joint mix (listed 4:56) 3-dallas main mix (listed 5:20) 4-love to infinity's walk in the park radio mix (listed 4:46) 5-love to infinity's classic paradise radio mix (4:14 listed) 6-track masters radio edit (listed 3:41) 7-rock with you (frankie's favorite club mix) (listed 7:45) 8-earth song (hani's club experience) (listed 7:55) hope this help, todd... ------------- edtop40 |
Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 22 September 2013 at 10:50am
| Thanks, Ed, this is helpful! Now I'm curious to know if any early commercial single pressings were uncensored since I'm not sure at what point the single was released in conjunction with the media controversy. If anyone does have an uncensored copy, please let us know. |
Posted By: Underground Dub
Date Posted: 22 September 2013 at 11:22am
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The single was issued well after the controversy which seemed to hit right as the album was released. MTV ran a news story about I believe within the week the album hit store shelves.
I remember that initial copies of HIStory came with a black, square sticker affixed to the jewel case with a red border. This had the uncensored version of "They Don't Care..." on it: 
Later copies started showing up in late 1995 with a slightly altered sticker with a gold border and these had the censored "TDCAU" as well as I believe a different mix of "HIStory" that removed an uncleared sample. Notice the bottom of the second sticker says "Revised Lyric": 
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Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 22 September 2013 at 11:31am
| Terrific info and nice work, Underground Dub! So it should pretty much stand to reason then that all commercial single copies of "They Don't Care About Us" were censored. Between this and the different pressings of HIStory, there should probably be database notations documenting this. |