Jake Nyman and the forbidden records
Kauniainen library had an interesting evening on March 20th, 2014. Legendary radio music journalist and author Jake Nyman gave a lecture on records that were once censored by the Finnish national radio.
A great deal of people showed up to listen to the lecture. The lecturer himself also sparked an interest, since many know Jake Nyman's voice from the radio. Many also wanted to buy a signed copy of his latest book, Rakas vanha vinyyli, after the lecture.
The censored records are an interesting part of radio history in Finland. There were many different - and sometimes weird - reasons to the censorship. Some records were, among other things, described as "awful in every way".
In the 1950's the Finnish national radio began rating records: a censorship board rated the records as class A, B or C. Class C records could only be played on special occasions. One of the reasons a record could be forbidden was that the lyrics were "obscene and ambiguous".
Anecdotes like this gave the audience a spectacular tour through the history of record censorship of different ages.