China doesn't want patrons at tens of thousands of karaoke venues across the country to belt out subversive lyrics — and they are cracking down to make sure that it stops.
The country's Ministry of Culture and Tourism says it will create a blacklist of songs containing "illegal content" at karaoke establishments starting Oct. 1, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.
The banned songs will be anything that "endangers national unity, sovereignty or territory integrity; violates China's religious policies and spreads cults and superstitions; and advocates obscenity, gambling, violence and drug-related crimes or instigating crimes," Xinhua reports.
The news agency says China has about 50,000 venues, such as karaoke bars, which have "a basic music library of over 100,000 songs."
Chinese officials expect such establishments to police their song lists and delete any songs that violate the blacklist criteria, the South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong-based daily, reports.
In the past, China has imposed similar bands on songs with titles including "I Love Taiwanese Girls," "Fart," "Beijing Hooligans" and "Don't Want to Go to School," according to the Post.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.