Fifth Harmony’s last single BO$$ is not getting as much airplay as it should, considering how well it’s doing on iTunes, Spotify and Billboard charts because it name drops Michelle Obama in the chorus. Ricky Reed, the main producer of the song, stated on his twitter that radio stations won’t play it because the song name drops Michelle Obama several times. Pop Radio is controlled by Clear Channel. Clear Channel “has the largest reach of any radio or television outlet in America with 243 million monthly listeners. It serves 150 cities through 850 owned radio stations in the U.S.” Conveniently, Romney’s Bain Capital, holds huge stakes in Clear Channel which would explain why Clear Channel isn’t playing BO$$ as much as it should.
US stations may be showing their true colors, since they never showed any kind of morality when it came to play songs about rape culture and women’s sexual objectification. We just have to look at two of the most air played songs of the summers, Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke and Talk Dirty by Jason Derulo. The fact that radios aren’t playing BO$$, a song that promotes feminism and women empowerment, just because it name-drops the 1st lady is absurd.
A few media outlets have already written their own articles about this problem. When radio stations are questioned about the song’s airplay, they just say the group’s label is not allowing the song to be played, but several Epic Records workers have said on their twitter accounts that they already gave all radio stations the green light to play the song.
And it’s not like the general public is not liking the song: it reached the Top 10 of the iTunes charts when it was released, while is holding steady at the 60s despite the airplay problem; it debuted at #43 on Billboard’s Hot 100 (currently at #72), and is being played about 250K times per day on streaming services.
Fans yesterday got the hashtag #dontcensor5H to trend worldwide on Twitter, showing their complains and disapproval to the stations behavior. Fans hope that the censoring stops and that radios put aside their political affiliations by playing BO$$, a catchy hit-worthy song with an extremely positive message.