There is an interesting debate going on about his right now in rec.music.artists.ani (or whatever).

Early on in this thread, I said I thought it was a manipulative and pretty cynical thing that Ani was doing, and I felt it was being done as a media savvy publicity stunt.

I still stand by that statment, despite the fact I believe that what the Powers That Be who made the final decision about "which song to tell her to play" were idiots because they would come off as being incredibly heavy handed.

And I do believe the problem they had with the song was the political content of the song. By telling Ani she had to sing a different song, they *are* trying to dictate something they shouldn't have any say in, on principle.

Every artist who appears on one of these shows should always have the right to perform whatever they like. If producers and nervous network nillies can't handle some of that artist's song list, then they shouldn't book them to begin with.

I stand my ground, this was political censorship of the most insidious kind--the kind that no one really gives a shit about. Or at least, not enough to do anything about it.

As someone in that other newsgroup said--SNL would have let her play it, and the late night audiences for the two shows can't have that different of demographics.

If the audience (or is it really about the advertisers, which is what I suspect its about in this case) on SNL can handle overtly political stuff--well, OK, so SNL censored Rage Against the Machine's second song, so they ain't entirely innocent either--then why not the Letterman weenies?