Radio pulls Ke$ha's "Die Young" after school shooting

North American radio stations have begun dropping songs that could be construed as insensitive in the wake of last week's massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.

TMZ reports that many stations have stopped playing Ke$ha's single "Die Young," which had 167 million listeners prior to the December 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 26 people dead. By Monday, the number fell by 19 million to 148 million, according to radio play tracking company Mediabase.

"We've been playing it before Friday but not since and I think we're now done with it," Rich Minor, the program director/morning host for Danbury, Connecticut-based adult pop station WDAQ told Billboard. "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."

Billboard points out that it's hard to tell if the song was impacted by the shooting as it was already beginning its chart descent. The song was at number two on the Hot 100 singles chart and number one on the pop songs chart but is expected to drop this week.

Foster The People's hit "Pumped Up Kicks" is also reportedly being pulled by some stations due to its lyric, "All the other kids with the pumped up kicks/You better run, better run, outrun my gun... better run faster than my bullet."

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