Chinese censors are once again waging war on pop music. But their criteria for banning songs show little understanding of the art form

Pity the poor censors at the Chinese ministry of culture, for they have set themselves a Sisyphean task. Two years ago, amid a wider crackdown on illegal downloading, the ministry vowed to keep "poor taste and vulgar content" from the ears of the nation's youth. This week it handed music websites its latest blacklist of 100 pernicious songs. Unless the record labels submit the songs for official approval, the sites have until 15 September to remove tracks by Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and several Asian artists.

Like any authoritarian regime, China has a history of censoring songs with political content. In May, the government banned a Mongolian hip-hop protest song and arrested the rapper behind it. Last year Tibetan singer Tashi Dhondup spent 10 months in prison for recording "subversive songs". And Guns N' Roses' 2008 album Chinese Democracy was banned for somewhat obvious reasons. In comparison, the 2009 directive is a recipe for absurdity.

Pop music censorship tends to be unwittingly comical because censors show so little understanding of the art form. For every song that is banned, hundreds more explicit ones go unmolested. The accusation of "poor taste and vulgar content" has been levelled at rock'n'roll since its inception – Jerry Lee Lewis wasn't singing about actual balls of fire, you know – and a war on innuendo is a war that is doomed to failure.

Even by its own expansive criteria, the Chinese blacklist defies logic. Why, for example, target six songs from Lady Gaga's Born This Way album yet not the title track's LGBT anthem? You can see why the censors might balk at Katy Perry's Last Friday Night (TGIF) , which rhymes "streaking in the park" with "ménage a trois", or Canadian punk-pop band Simple Plan's frankly dreadful You Suck at Love ("You were such an awesome fuck"). But if the Chinese censors have never heard anything more outrageous than Minnesotan milquetoast Owl City's Plant Life ("Your spirit is sweet so pull off your sheet") or the Backstreet Boys' vanilla 1999 hit I Want It That Way ("You are my fire/The one desire") then they must live miraculously sheltered lives and they're in for a hair-raising time once they discover Nicki Minaj.

But this risible detour isn't the censorship that matters. Amusing though it is to see a regime getting flustered about a 12-year-old Backstreet Boys song, China's real war on free speech, as Tashi Dondhup and the Mongolian rapper can testify, is no joke.

The writer is author of 33 Revolutions Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs