US radio stations pull Ke$ha’s “Die Young” after Sandy Hook tragedy
MusicMany US radio stations have pulled Ke$ha‘s hit song “Die Young” from their playlists after the tragic shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.
Many have thought the song to be insensitive in wake of the tragedy. As a result it has dropped drastically on radio charts, and said to be the biggest radio reaction to a song since country radio boycotted the Dixie Chicks in 2003 for negative comments towards President Bush & the Iraq War.
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Following the shooting deaths of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Conn., on Friday (Dec. 14), radio is doing what it traditionally does best in the wake of such tragedy: providing listeners a forum to express their emotions and tempering its sound and playlists accordingly.
Along with many other stations, WDAQ sees how Ke$ha’s “Die Young” could be construed as insensitive at the moment. “We’ve been playing it before Friday but not since and I think we’re now done with it. Even though it’s a fun pop/dance record about seizing the moment, all people are going to hear right now is those two words in the title,” he says.
Ke$ha‘s new hit “Die Young” has fallen on deaf ears … after radio stations around the country yanked the song from their rotation after the Newtown tragedy … TMZ has learned.
“Die Young” clocked in at #3 on the radio playlists on Friday (the day of the shooting) … reaching 167 million listeners nationwide, this according to Mediabase, a company that tracks radio airplay.
By Saturday, the day after the shooting … airplay dropped by 3 million listeners … a sign that stations were slowly pulling the song off the air.
By Monday … “Die Young” took a huge hit on the radio … dropping down to 148 million listeners … a 19 million drop from what had been a pretty steady rotation before the shooting.
One music expert tells us … a drop of this magnitude is extremely rare. The last time a song plummeted this quickly is when the Dixie Chicks were banned from country radio … after insulting President Bush.
We reached out to Ke$ha for comment — so far , no word back.
