85 western pop songs have been deemed pornographic and banned from being played in daylight hours in Indonesia’s West Java province.
The West Java broadcasting commission singled out these songs as they said it contained adult and offensive content. This includes Ed Sheeran’s hit, “Shape of You”. In a memorandum issued on Tuesday the commission cautioned that the material should be played or broadcast only between 10pm and 3am.
“In this case, what is banned is not the songs, but the lyrics of the songs that contain pornography, pornographic association, and obscenity,” Rahmat Arifin, deputy head of the commission, told Tempo.co.
Ed Sheeran has not commented on the inclusion of his song on the explicit content list, but according to his website Sheeran is scheduled to hold a concert in Jakarta on May 3.
Other foreign pop songs on the restricted playlist include Ariana Grande’s Love Me Harder and Bruno Mars’s That’s What I Like.
In the official memorandum, commission head Dedeh Fardiah said some of the lyrics could be perceived as “objectifying women as sexual objects”.
The broadcasting body in Indonesia’s most populous province, home to 48 million people, said the list was more a guideline than regulation, although it could sanction radio and television stations for contravening it.
The provincial guidelines on explicit music follow recent uproar over a proposed music bill in the national parliament last month, which sought to restrict “negative foreign influences”.
Source: The Guardian
Photo: Mark Horton/WireImage