se71

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January 05, 2007

Parental Advisory CDs

Rant time.

It seems that popular music can't make up it's mind whether to be inclusive to children or not. We have some very popular female artists - like Madonna and Pink and Gwen Stefani, who make songs that are played on the radio incessantly. These women are strong role models, and the songs are about empowerment and independence and other good things, and are catchy and excellently produced. Young girls love listening to them, and this is a good thing. And then what do the record companies do? - they put the adult versions of the songs on their albums, so that I can't buy them to give to my children. This is annoying, and I'm sure the artists are missing out on a huge amount of revenue. I can't even buy the singles as the album version is quite often also included. I'm currently listening to Pink's "I'm not Dead" Album - and so far I think four songs are totally inappropriate for anyone under 16. Other than that it's a really good collection of songs.

It's particularly bad for rap and hip-hop too. Eminem is a huge artist, and has many popular songs that my nine year old could probably sing along to. That's just the radio version of course. The albums I've bought are kept on the shelf, and seldom taken out unless I'm alone in the house. In fact, I'm reluctant to buy them any more for just this reason - I do not get any time to listen to them. And if I try and find a compilation album of recent hip-hop/rap/R&B radio hits, I cannot get one that has the single versions on it - just the Parental Advisory ones full of swearing. It's a real shame because these songs are definine a generation's childhood memories.

Maybe other parents don't mind so much. Maybe the recording artists think that being edgy and controversial with their lyrics keep them more popular, and maybe they are right. If they had any integrity though they'd insist on not having their work edited to allow radio airplay to be possible - oh, but then they wouldn't get as much money would they? So they entice children in with the sugar coated version, and then give them the full aural assault when they get the CD for christmas from some dotty aunt who doesn't realise the difference.

I would have bought dozens of CDs over the years if they had had clean versions. And my kids have had much less exposure to this kind of music than they might have had - come to think of it though, maybe that's a good thing.

Posted by se71 at January 5, 2007 11:36 AM

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