10 Songs From The Past That Now Get A Big Ol' "Yikes"
Human society is ever-changing, and as much as we like to think of ourselves as good, well-intentioned people who would never want to upset anyone, we often have to learn a lot about how our words impact others. Certain things that used to be acceptable aren't anymore, often for very good reason, and in the case of these 10 songs, we're pretty sure it wouldn't be a great idea to record them today.
The Vapors - "Turning Japanese"
I mean, all you have to do is look at the thumbnail for the video to understand why you probably couldn't get away with this now.
Minor Threat - "Guilty of Being White"
There's been a lot of discussion lately on the idea of white culture accepting the wrongs of the past, and this song about dismissing all of that probably wouldn't fly now.
The Bangles - "Walk Like An Egyptian"
Fun fact: some stations actually banned this on its release out of fear of offending Egyptians. Really.
The Rolling Stones - "Brown Sugar"
Originally titled "Black P***y" (seriously), this take on slavery would probably be insanely controversial nowadays.
These next few songs would be pretty hard to pull off now...
2 Live Crew - "Me So Horny"
The fact that the chorus samples lines given by a Vietnamese prostitute from the movie Full Metal Jacket is probably enough to get it pulled from the air nowadays, especially with all the baggage that war created in the US over the years.
Carl Douglas - "Kung Fu Fighting"
It's a Jamaican dude singing a song about "funky China men from funky Chinatown" while one of the most stereotypical "Asian" woodwind instruments plays in the background. It's pretty easy to see why people might take issue with this.
George Michael - "Father Figure"
A sexy song featuring the line "I will be your preacher teacher," in a day and age where we know of plenty of church-based sex scandals, would probably go over less than well...
Katy Perry - "I Kissed A Girl"
This is kind of cheating, in that the song was controversial even when it first came out, but with how seriously a lot of the world is taking LGBTQ issues lately, this song might not go over well with a lot of people.
Village People - "YMCA"
Fun fact: this song is actually about men sleeping with other men at the YMCA. Between this fact and the stereotypes portrayed by the Village People themselves, we're pretty sure you couldn't get people to let kids play this at their middle school dances nowadays.
Wang Chung - "Everybody Have Fun Tonight"
Look at the band name. Just look at it.