98.7 AMP Radio welcomed Ke$ha, LMFAO, and Spank Rock to DTE Energy Music Theatre on Friday, August 26th 2011 (Photo By Steve Wiseman / 98.7 AMP Radio)
DETROIT (CBS Detroit) Following the violent attack against children in Sandy Hook, Conn., radio stations across the country are pulling songs that could be construed as violent.
98.7 AMP Radio, a top 40 station in metro Detroit, no longer has “Pumped Up Kicks” in its rotation, and decided to pull Ke$ha’s “Die Young.” Los Angeles radio station KIIS-FM, and others, did the same thing following the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Ke$ha’s song has the chorus: “Let’s make the most of this night/Like we’re gonna die young.”
Ke$ha herself appears to support the decision, Tweeting: “I understand. I had my very own issue with ‘die young’ for this reason. I did NOT want to sing those lyrics and I was FORCED TO … I’m so so so sorry for anyone who has been effected by this tragedy and I understand why my song is now inappropriate. words cannot express.”
The basis of “Pumped Up Kicks” was more in the dark until Foster the People’s frontman Ben Foster said during an interview with “SpinnerUK” that it’s about a teen “plotting revenge.”
Lyrics including “All the other kids with the pumped up kicks better run, better run, faster than my bullets” are about an “outcast” who feels “isolated.”
“I feel like the youth in our culture are becoming more and more isolated,” Foster said in the interview.
