Parental Advisory and Musicians as 'Role Models'

[Macca]

Bought a new album the other day, released 2017, and I was surprised to notice it has the 'Parental Advisory' warning on the cover. Which is this, if you didn't know or had forgotten:

http://theartofsound.net/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=22798&d=1519464072

I thought that this Tipper Gore/Mary Whitehouse crap had died out years ago? Obviously not.

I remember buying Guns & Roses 'Appetite for Destruction' when it came out back in 1987 and the whole moral crusade against music thing had just started. It never occurred to me to peel off the sticker and my mother saw it and complained about me buying 'records that are just swearing.'

The difference then was that it was a vinyl LP so you could just take the sticker off. With this CD it is actually on the artwork. And I'm nearly fifty and no longer live at home so I don't really see the need to caution my one remaining parent that I might be listening to bad language. Now you may say well a youth could buy it in which case it is still pertinent. Well that's true except I doubt very much anyone under the age of 18 is still buying CDs. They will stream it or download it. So where is the warning sticker if they do that? Does it send an e-mail to their parents? I doubt it.

Worse still I have a cd of ACDC 'High Voltage' and that contains the following lyrics:

'You can stick your nine to five living and your collar and your tie'
'You can stick your moral standards 'cause it's all a dirty lie'
'You can stick your golden handshake, you can stick your silly rules'
'And all the other shit that you teach the kids in school'

Which is obviously far more subversive than someone saying 'Fuck'. But because it isn't sweary, there is no 'Parental Advisory' mark.

I remember at the time people saying that the whole thing hadn't been thought through, but of course it was lost in the moral outrage.

Then I go into work and people, people a lot younger than me, are complaining about Kendrick Lamar's performance on the Brit Awards, saying it was 'disgusting'. All the swearing was blanked out of course, but they still didn't like it or that some bloke was smashing up a car as part of the act. Apparently this is setting a 'bad example' to youngsters and that these people should be more aware of their 'duty' as 'role models to the young'.

I just don't know where to start with that. You're always going to have 'mum friendly' artists like Ed Sheeran, for example. But do we really want all music and musicians to be bland conformists? Wasn't part of the whole 'music' thing that it was subversive, offensive and rebellious? That it challenged societal norms? Is it not the problem with modern music and artists that they are no longer pushing any boundaries and are instead trying to be good role models?

Well fuck that! I want my rock music loud and offensive, I want its perpetrators to be vilified by the older generation and the establishment. I want explicit content! Otherwise, we are lost, truly lost, in the anodyne world of Gore and Whitehouse, the world of 'dirty lies'.

[walpurgis]

Unfortunately young people are infuenced by 'bad examples'. They always have been and peer pressure (hate that term, but what else is there?) encourages them to each follow suit.

[Macca]

Unfortunately young people are infuenced by 'bad examples'. They always have been and peer pressure (hate that term, but what else is there?) encourages them to each follow suit.

And my response to that is 'So what?'

We need more bad examples, challenge preconceptions, challenge the status quo, give the youth something to think about. Do we want them all as conforming little robots? Is that good for society? Is that good for them?

[Primalsea]

I think it won’t be too long before kids can bearly talk using words, let alone swearing. Have you seen any of the incomprehensible nonsense they seem post online these days?

I think early on record companies realised that there was money in rebellion- corporate friendly rebellion they call it now. Not only do we get manufactured groups but manufactured anti establishment.

[Macca]

I think it won’t be too long before kids can bearly talk using words, let alone swearing. Have you seen any of the incomprehensible nonsense they seem post online these days?

I think early on record companies realised that there was money in rebellion- corporate friendly rebellion they call it now. Not only do we get manufactured groups but manufactured anti establishment.

But if it is all 'corporate friendly rebellion' instead of real rebellion, how are they supposed to learn the difference?

[struth]

I'm all for those stickers. Sweary words in music Disgrace an odd 1 is ok but it's a bad example for every 2nd word. What chance do parents have if it's classed as ok

[Macca]

I'm all for those stickers. Sweary words in music Disgrace an odd 1 is ok but it's a bad example for every 2nd word. What chance do parents have if it's classed as ok

The thrust of my argument is that we need more bad examples, not fewer. Parents will cope.

[struth]

The thrust of my argument is that we need more bad examples, not fewer. Parents will cope.

coming from a non parent:doh: letting young kids be bombarded with this language is not good. its a bit like defrocking santa at the local shop and showing them its mr jones from across the st.

[Pete The Cat]

It seems to me that there are a couple of quite different aspects - lyrical content, and controls.

As has been touched on in some other threads, I think the content is all down to context. Whether subversive or sweary, Dead Kennedys, NWA and a shelfload of others are perfectly fine with me. They come across as authentic. You can't deny the existence of the real world and music has always reflected it and challenged the established order. However in terms of lyrics I dislike it when a mainstream pop artist inauthentically lobs in bad language to give themselves some "street" appeal. In that context it's lazy, cheap and comes across as rather silly.

To controls, quite a different matter. "Rockstar" by Post Malone was a number one at the end of last year and has far more offensive lyrics than any rock track that I can think of (ironically it makes a passing reference to Bon Scott, but I digress). We could clearly hear the lyrics when it was being played on Capitol...while in the car on the school run. Try getting out of that when a child asks you about it. I find it offensive that pretty tame singles were banned by the major radio stations in the 70s and 80s but nowadays they don't even have an expletive deleted version or warning before playing. Kids are just as impressionable as ever, but things are trickling down to them more quickly and graphically than ever, way before they're ready for them.

Must go off and play Black Flag's "Police Story" now - with the door shut obviously.

Pete

[GrahamS]

The thrust of my argument is that we need more bad examples, not fewer. Parents will cope.
Will they? Most parents that I know, including my family, don't seem to even try. Now there is a debate about etiquette and manners being taught in school because they are not being taught at home.

[Pete The Cat]

My daughter used to ask for specific tracks as gifts. Painful as it was, because I'm encouraging her love of music I always listened to each one after downloading it before passing them on if suitable.

Then she started to ask for albums by certain artists and so I vetted those. By this stage I felt a bit like GCHQ but even checking 12 tracks at a time wasn't too much effort.

Having seen it at the petrol station she recently asked for "Now...98" for her birthday. That'd mean I'd have to check out 46 tracks before I could let her have it.

Modern parenthood :steam:

Pete

[Truckletheuncivil]

When my daughter listens to music I am less worried about the swearing than the sexual references in music aimed at girls her age - she is 9. I would rather she listened to Public Enemy whose albums had those stickers on - because they criticised and challenged the authorities as I don’t recall any swearing.

[Macca]

Maybe children don't use bad language at school anymore but in my day everyone swore like a trooper. Heard far more swearing at school than from anywhere else. I think the idea that you can 'protect' your child from hearing swearing is absurd. I did notice that in general the children whose parents had an active objection to bad language used it less, so I suppose if you contextualise it for them they may refrain from using it themselves, at least in inappropriate situations. I think that is the best you can hope for myself.

[walpurgis]

They still swear like troopers at school.

My grand daughters have had some diablolical language for the last few years and they're only twelve and thirteen. I put it down to an extent that they are surrounded by kids from migrant families, who's parents have a poor grasp of English, so don't even know what their offspring are saying, let alone stopping it. Mind you, my daughter doesn't help, she's always swearing around her daughters. I'm the only one in the family who does not habitually use bad language.

[Primalsea]

Bad language from kids in many cases is really their way of discovering how to express themselves as individuals. The irony being that there is nothing new under the sun in that regard. I think it is only a real problem when they swear because that’s what their parents or role models do all the time gratuitously. I think that there is a cetain elegance in being able to swear in order to reinforce a point. Problem is that very few people can do it.

We are fairly easygoing with our kids language as we believe that making something taboo only makes them chase it more, if its not a big deal it doesn’t seem so interesting. We do have an issue with them using bad language to refer to other people.

[GrahamS]

"How was your day, son?" "Yeh, like, it was f^&%ing cool."

Really?

[Macca]

"How was your day, son?" "Yeh, like, it was f^&%ing cool."

Really?

I remember one of my brothers literally having his mouth washed out with soap. Of course they would put you in prison for that now.

[walpurgis]

I totally abhor bad language. It really fucking pisses me off! :D

[struth]

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180224/605029153ef7ec0e8225908dad9435ee.jpg

Lol

[GrahamS]

I totally abhor bad language. It really fucking pisses me off! :D:lol:

[Minstrel SE]

Well its down to the age old thing that if you let your parents choose your music you are pretty much F**ked :

"Our committee will check with the restaurant owners and the cafes to see what errr Presley records is in their machines and ask them to do away with them" ( quote opening to a Cochran summertime blues )

[struth]

depends on how old they are, same with tv and films. they get enough at school without parents giving them the ok.

[Minstrel SE]

Yeah there is a loose balance. I wouldnt want a younger child to be listening to Plan B... Kidz but there is a point where they need to face the world and they will hear more in the playground than any song.

I dont think you can wrap kids in cotton wool for too long. Any well balanced well brought up child is going to be interested in questioning the slant of a song lyric.

There is a more liberal bohemian balance than some parents feel comfortable with. You end up with a ridiculous situation where chavs are making a massive issue of their kid hearing a swear word when they probably heard it from their parents first. Dont fucking swear johnny you little .......! :)

[Dom66]

I think swearing in music is a bit different to everyday language, I guess like nudity is accepted in art, but less so in a magazine.

When I was 13, I came home with a copy of 'Never Mind the Bollocks' by the Sex Pistols. My Mum threw away the cover, but she never stopped me listening to the record.