Archive for the 'religion' Category

Toumani Diabeté track is pulled from Sony game

In a pretty radical move, Sony Entertainment has decided to pull a track by the Malian harp player Toumani Diabete from the upcoming Little Big Planet game. The track “Tapha Niang” contains two lines quoted from the Quran. After a poster on a Sony message board started complaining, the company decided to withdraw the track [...]

Oscar and Muslims irate at lyrics

Lyrics have been the subject of more debate this week. The Oscars opened the proceedings when “It’s Hard to be a Pimp Out Here” from “Hustle and Flow” won the Best Original Song. Many people questioned whether it wasn’t making prostitution glamorous. But the truth is that the song won simply as it was the [...]

Let’s “understand” Black Metal

What is it with Black Metal? It reminds me of early punk when the goal was to be outrageous at any cost (remember the Christ crucified over a Swastika T-shirt?). But then people began to take it at face value and it became a whole lot less funny. So is Black Metal an elaborate joke? [...]

Madonna irritates new religion

There’s a sense of déjà-vu about Madonna’s latest controversy – if you can call it that. Years ago, she was upbraided for cheapening Christian symbols. Since then, Madonna and her husband Guy Ritchie have converted to the Kabbalah strain of Judaism. So she has recorded a song on her upcoming album dedicated to Yitzhak Luria, [...]