19
The biggest offender, according to PMRC leaders, is Prince, who has penned lyrics
about such raunchy topics as oral sex, masturbation and incest. The song that angry
parents mention the
Even Bruce Springsteen, the '80s All-American boy who has been embraced by
such political heavyweights as President Reagan and Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.), has
been criticized by the PMRC for promoting loose sex. As Howar told one
According to Baker, her involvement with PMRC began when she hear [sic] her
7-year-old daughter singing along to hit songs by Madonna that she had heard on her
clock radio. "While those songs are basically more suggestive than explicit, it
awakened me to what's going on in pop music today," said Baker, who said her other
children are either grown or off at college. "I think parents have a responsibility,
instead of telling kids to turn down the music, to listen to what the music is saying.
"Cole Porter used suggestive music, sure. But those were double-entendres aimed
at a mature audience. Now we're hearing songs about pure sex and even forced rape
that are geared toward kids. I've walked into a record store and seen an album
cover with a naked girl whose body has been painted blue, with her genital area
covered with a chain and a lock. Now I don't think my 7-year-old should see that
flipping through records in a store."
With that in mind, the PMRC has launched a campaign to clean up the record
business. It's stated goals include: album jacket warning stickers, inclusion of lyrics
on all album jackets and a move to put albums with explicit album covers under the
counters at record stores. The group has also asked that record companies exert
pressure on broadcasters not to air explicit records and music videos as well as
reassess the contracts of pop stars who display violence or sexual behavior in concert.
After several meetings in recent months with industry leaders, the RIAA
announced recently that it will have record companies put labels on albums to warn
parents and children about potentially offensive and sexually explicit lyrics.
However, the PMRC is still not satisfied. "We were pleased to see the record
association agree to a generic warning," Baker said. "But we'd like an official panel,
consisting of industry executives and community officials, who would set up general
guidelines for industry standards."
RIAA chief Gortikov refused to comment on the continuing negotiations. However,
RIAA spokeswoman Heimers, who criticized the center's "strident press
campaign," said that the association has "rejected" the idea of an advisory panel.
Many record company chieftains, including Warner Bros. President Lenny
Waroner, CBS Records Chairman Walter Yetnikoff, EMI President Jim Mazza and
Elektra President Bob Krasnow, as well as top executives at PolyGram and Atlantic
Records, refused to comment on the issue, preferring to let the record association
speak for them.
However, the uproar has prompted many industry leaders to lambast the center
for applying rigid standards to song lyrics that are so ambiguous that they can be
interpreted in many ways.
"I can't believe they're
Boberg insisted that any ratings system would merely encourage kids to seek out
albums that carried a warning tag. "When you put ratings on things, it just arouses
kids curiosity and makes them want to hear them all the more. That's what
happened with the movie ratings. I know that when I was 16, which wasn't so long ago,
if a movie was rated R, that just whetted my appetite to see what I was missing."
"The whole nature of rock has always been the
Other execs feel the PMRC move would set a dangerous precedent. "There is too
much glamorization of drug use and sexual license," said Geffen Records President
Eddie Rosenblatt. "But what's the next
Frank Zappa was also critical of the whole record-rating campaign. "The whole
thing is |
previous | next | contents