Parental Advisory: Explicit Content

I introduce to you the answer to every conscious parent’s prayers, the recipient of the scorning of all media using teenagers, and the parenting tool that will be ineffective in a minor consumers favor: The Parental Advisory Sticker. This sticker stands boldly in the bottom corner of every explicit album, injecting fear into youngsters that crave the music of artists that promote vulgarity. With the rapid increased use of music apps and music streaming services, it is easier now than ever, for kids to download explicit albums since all of these services memberships require a submission of age but none of the services can genuinely verify if the age of the consumer is what they say it is. The types of music kids listen to nowadays can be easily identified by the increasing amount of violence, profanity, and promiscuity in our communities following the blatant voicing and reciting of explicit lyrics in children’s everyday vocabulary. This is clear evidence that the parental advisory sticker is useless, highly ineffective and untrue to its original purpose. With the rapid rise of technology, a single person, no matter the age, gains access to all types of media. The Parental Advisory sticker was conceived in order to keep parents from buying explicit albums for under aged consumers. Just like 18 and over requirements, the Parental Advisory sticker has faded in its own false solution. What once was a relief system for parents is now a nightmare. What was supposed to make kids think twice about buying an album now serves more like a bragging sticker shown upon proudly to fellow under aged consumers.

The Parental Advisory sticker was an idea manifested by a woman by the name of Mary “Tipper” Gore. Tipper Gore bought her 11-year old daughter Prince’s Purple Rain album. The song featured on that album by the name of “Darling Nikki” raised concern when Tipper Gore heard her daughter listening to the song which contained explicit sexual content in which had she known of this she would not have purchased the album. Mrs. Gore raised havoc by using her power of a well known business woman to execute a label to alarm parents of content on an album before they buy it for their kids. In the late 80’s we started to see an early version of stickers on albums listing the content consisting of an album. Let’s get one thing straight. The content rating of the albums did not make under aged purchasing of explicit albums illegal, the Parental advisory sticker just stated what consisted of the album, therefore still allowing minors to purchase explicit albums. The Parental Advisory sticker only seemed to alert parents of explicit albums before buying them for their kids. I must remind you that the start of the Parental Advisory sticker was conceived in the 80’s, at a time when most kids bought their own albums, mostly with their parents money or weekly allowance, and the hardworking busy parents rarely had anything to do with the type of music their children partook of. A music article states, “In fact in Heavy: the Story of Metal, a documentary about 1980s hard rock, members of the bands Mötley Crüe, Quiet Riot, and Poison all claim their album sales went up after getting stickered. "The sticker almost guaranteed your record would be bought by rebellious kids," said Mötley Crüe's Nikki Sixx. The "Parental Advisory" sticker would have no legally binding effect on stores. It didn't prevent stores from selling stickered albums to minors, nor did it require them to keep offensive albums behind the counter, unless they wanted to. Wal-Mart opted not to carry stickered albums at all (a policy that still stands).” Explicit content stickers raised album sales because of the mass consumers who purchased the albums, which were youngsters and teenagers alike. As we move into the late 90s and early 2,000’s we can see a rapid increase in technology and music media downloading devices birthing none other than one of the first music download services known as iTunes.

With all of this technology prohibiting and unknowingly allowing under aged kids to download explicit music without any surety of true identity, the question is, are Parental Advisory stickers even necessary anymore? Americans know all too well that there are kids on school buses, in schools, and even at home who use explicit language and recite lyrics from explicit albums. What has the Parental Advisory sticker done to stop kids from still being able to listen to these explicit albums? Even before the rapid rise of technology under aged consumers could freely go to music stores and buy explicit albums while getting away with the fact that they were obviously under aged. These music stores have to make money as well. What are the music stores and record companies going to let get in the way of their money? They are certainly not going to let an under aged teenager with money to pay go elsewhere and give their money to someone else such as an underhanded music trader or bootlegger on the street corner selling music for money. Let’s use common sense here and drop the naivety. We know the ultimate motive of the music business, and that is to sell records with no thought or care for the age of the consumer. The goal of record companies is to sell music, period. If these Parental Advisory laws were so important to them why are companies still turning a blind eye when a 13 year old kid comes to the register boldly buying an explicit album? Why did record companies oblige with these parental advisor stickers, you may ask? It was all to maintain a good reputation and make parents feel more secure so that the record companies could still sell more records and not be under any fire. It is a blunt marketing scheme that many people don’t realize. If record companies truly cared about the safety of under aged listeners wouldn’t it be a lot easier to ban artists from making risqué art and stop the record company itself from distributing it and making money off of it? This would never come to fruition because these music companies only care about money and sales. Most music consumers in this day and age are from ages 13 to 30. With the amount of explicit albums on the rise and the age of the consumer of these albums getting lower and lower, show me a statistic that proves that kids are not listening to these explicit albums as much and I will surrender my argument but, as we all know, there is no true statistic that states this. In other words this statistic does not exist and will not exist because of the rapid rise in the easy access and so-called “convenience” of technology that’s really ripping the minds of the youth apart.

The use of the Parental Advisory sticker is and has always been vain. When’s the last time you heard a kid go to jail for downloading or buying an explicit album? In this brand new age where anyone of any age can simply purchase explicit music from an app, many people don’t buy physical albums like they used to in the 90’s and backward. When has the Parental Advisory sticker stopped an under aged consumer from buying albums? It is proven that the sticker is not effective at all in the fact that minors are buying digital singles and albums more now than ever. Parents nowadays rarely check what kinds of music their kids are buying since kids aren’t bringing home huge obvious vinyl albums; they are buying easy-to-conceal, digital albums and singles on their Smartphone’s which can hold one side of a double life within a child. If these stickers are not strictly preventing kids from buying explicit albums by law then the sticker is useless. The Parental advisory sticker does not keep kids from buying these albums. Kids are allowed to buy these albums by law and rebellious kids are in awe by the sight of a Parental Advisory sticker, not in awe of shame or disappointment. But the kids are in awe in that they have just as much ability and allowance to buy the explicit album as people over 18 do. The Parental advisory sticker has changed nothing at all and it certainly has not edified the music choices of our youth. If it were a law that kids under 18 could not by explicit albums, record companies and music stores would go out of business and that is the hard truth. Get rid of these useless stickers that hold to none affect and actually compel our kids, in more desire, to want to buy them album. In this age, 90% of albums wear this sticker like a proud honorary badge which makes kids want to buy the albums even more. Let’s not be silly, we might as well put a parental advisory sticker on the front doors of every music store. What was supposedly meant to help our under aged consumer has hurt them in the long run. Stop being naïve and realize that the Parental Advisory sticker has faded, falling in its false solution and breeding more under aged explicit album consumers.

References for the quotes can be found on Neotarma.com

http://www.neatorama.com/2012/01/02/tipper-vs-music/ ; quotes taken from book: Uncle John Bathroom Reader Plunges into Music;2012; author: Bathroom Readers Institute

-Peace, Love, and God Above