Always A Pleasure: The Times Once Again Finds A Way To Praise Fucked Up Without Printing The Words "Fucked Up"

Rad song too.

The Paper of Record's dedication to both safeguarding our sense of verbal decorum and giving shine to Toronto's finest proto-anarchist punk band is a lovely thing: The Times writes about Fucked Up a whole lot considering they'll only render the band's name as ********. (Examples here and here.) Been a while since this happened (with dismaying silence even after FU released the 2009 Canadian Album of the Year), but finally, over the weekend, a resurgence!

Here we have Ben Ratliff handling the weekly quick-hit Playlist column, a series of blurbs traditionally headlined by the artist's name, but not in one case:

'Year of the Ox'

The Toronto punk band whose name can't be printed in this newspaper has put some of its best work in long-form songs released on EPs over the past three years: first "Year of the Dog," then "Year of the Pig," "Year of the Rat" and now "Year of the Ox." The 12-minute song first surfaced online last month, as a cathartic studio-session video filmed by the Canadian Web site and satellite radio station Bande à Part. (Poke around at bandeapart.fm and you'll find it.)

And so on. I'll admit to being bummed out that the new euphemism is "can't be printed in this newspaper," considering that an earlier article explained its reticence with "the name won't be printed in these pages, not unless an American president, or someone similar, says it by mistake," holding out hope for, like "BP: 'We fucked up'" or "Obama: 'I love the band Fucked Up'" or something of the sort. Let's get this clarified.