Janet Jackson Super Bowl Flash Fine Tossed

More than four years after a wardrobe malfunction allowed a Super Bowl audience of 90 million people to see Janet Jackson's breast, the $550,000 indecency fine levied against CBS for the incident has been thrown out, a court ruled today. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the FCC "acted arbitrarily and capriciously" when issuing the fine on CBS for what was an accidental, split-second flash of nudity. The "malfunction" was almost perfectly synchronized with Justin Timberlake singing the line "Gonna have you naked by the end of this song" ("this song" being "Rock Your Body") performed during the Super Bowl intermission. The incident led to an almost-censorship of live events, with tape delays becoming the norm to avoid future unscripted situations.

• 
  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
• 
  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
• 
  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter