Monday, December 19, 2005
IRAN'S PRESIDENT BANS WESTERN MUSIC; "IT SUCKS", HE CRIES
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, answering charges he has been "not as Ayatollah-Khomeni-like lately", has banned Western music from Iran's radio and TV stations, reviving one of the harshest cultural debates since the heady days of 1979 and the Islamic Revolution: does Western Music "suck" or does it "blow". A new Iranian poll shows it "blows", 89 to 9 percent, with 2 percent writing in "bites". Songs such as George Michael's "Careless Whisper," Eric Clapton's "Rush" and the Eagles' "Hotel California" have been publicly decried as "blasphemously terrible, almost as horrible as tunes by saxophonist Kenny G. But not quite."
