The Smut and Sadism of Rock (lyrics, dancing, music video, metal) - Music Banter Music Banter

Go Back   Music Banter > The Music Forums > Rock & Metal
Register Blogging Today's Posts
Welcome to Music Banter Forum! Make sure to register - it's free and very quick! You have to register before you can post and participate in our discussions with over 70,000 other registered members. After you create your free account, you will be able to customize many options, you will have the full access to over 1,100,000 posts.

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 03-11-2008, 09:33 PM   #1 (permalink)
Whatever
 
Predator's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 344
Default The Smut and Sadism of Rock

Most of us have heard of the PMRC hearings from 1985. Without going into the issue of censorship, where do you stand on the subject? Do you think it is important for parents to know what their kids are listening to? How has the music industry changed as a result of the hearings? Is it for the better or worse?
This is what set the whole thing off.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tipper Gore
Sexual innuendo or rebellion has always been a part of rock 'n' roll, but nowadays, sex is described explicitly, complete with moans and groans. Moreover, sadomasochism, bondage, incest and rape are out of the closet and into the lyrics. Whips, chains, handcuffs and leather masks are being popularized in songs and as images in videos and on album covers. Lyrics glorify forced sex; videos depict thrill killings.

"Eat Me Alive" from Judas Priest's double platinum album (2 million copies sold) "Defenders of the Faith" depicts forcing oral sex at gunpoint.

Motley Crue, a heavy metal band increasingly popular with young teens, sings this in "Live Wire":

I'll either break her face
Or take down her legs
Get my ways at will
Go for the throat, never let loose.
Going in for the kill.

Or consider this from "Too Young to Fall in Love" from "Shout at the Devil":

Not a woman, but a whore
I can taste the hate
Well, now I'm killing you
Watching your face turning blue

Twisted Sister, a group often in the Top 40, has these lyrics on their "Under the Blade" album:

Your hands are tied,
Your legs are strapped.
You're going under the blade.

My 11-year-old bought Prince's 10-million-seller "Purple Rain" album because she heard an innocuous song, "Let's Go Crazy," on the radio. But once we got our purchase home, we were also treated to "Darling Nikki." The song describes "Nikki" as "a sex fiend," who spends her time "in a hotel lobby, masturbating."

Another example of Prince's work comes in the song "Sister" from the "Dirty Mind" album. The lyrics describe a 16-year old boy making love to his "lovely and loose" sister. The song concludes that "incest is everything it's said to be."

I feel that these songs, and others like them, are inappropriate for my children. Yet I find it very difficult to protect them from their twisted themes.

Studies indicate that the listening, buying and viewing audience for music is growing younger. To those who say, "Just turn it off," I submit that it is unrealistic to believe parents can control everything a child listens to.

It's time to remember that radio stations are licensed to broadcast "in the public interest," using a precious natural resource that belongs to all of us. And it isn't just radio anymore. Music videos, which are used to sell records to kids, come into our homes via broadcast TV and via cable on MTV, a 24-hour music channel, reaching 26 million homes.

Graphic sex, sadomasochism and violence, particularly toward women, are rampant on MTV. Its executives need to respond to the public outcry and curb the excesses, especially since MTV is an industry trend-setter. Jay Durbin, a music video director, has been quoted as saying he doesn't let his young children watch MTV because of the "incredible sadism."

Thomas Radechi of the National Coalition on Television Violence warns that more than half of music videos are violent. For example:

* Def Leppard's video "Photograph" shows the strangling of a Marilyn Monroe look-alike, and ends with her body wrapped in barbed wire.

* Twisted Sister's "We're Not Going to Take It Anymore" shows a son destroying his father, smashing him with doors, dragging by the hair and eventually blasting him through a plate-glass window.

* Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself" has a naked woman struggling in chains behind a transparent sheet. The Jackson's "Torture" shows women whipping skeletons and attacking men with claws and swords. Images of devil worship abound.

* Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher" features a schoolteacher doing a striptease on top of desks while elementary schoolboys ogle at her. When my 8-year-old asked me, "Why is the teacher taking off her clothes in school," I started paying attention to the videos my children watch.

Children process reality differently from adults, a fact we too often forget. These images have powerful and terrifying effects on young minds.

In another disconcerting development, some rock artists promote and glorify suicide. Ozzy Osbourne sings "Suicide Solution"; Blue Oyster Cult sings "Don't Fear the Reaper"; AC/DC sings "Shoot to Thrill." Every year half a million teenagers attempt suicide. More than 6,000 succeed. Yet too many of the executives of the rock record industry apparently don't care.

No one should want a return to Victorian hypocrisy about sex. It was repressive at worst and unrealistic at best. But now the pendulum has swung too far toward the hedonistic and materialistic philosophy of: If it feels good, do it; if you want it, take it.

The time has come for concerned parents and consumers to demand a choice. Recently, 19 record companies offered to apply a warning label to albums containing explicit sexual material. However, each company would have its own standard as to what lyrics warranted a label. The effect in the marketplace would be to confuse the consumer.

The Parents Music Resource Center has asked the record executives to create an industrywide uniform standard defining what constitutes explicit and violent material. We of the PMRC are not trying to ban any songs, and we oppose censorship or government regulation. Instead, we believe that the music industry itself and its media outlets should voluntarily cut down on violent and sexually explicit material.

We have proposed a rating system for records, tapes and videos that the industry could administer itself.

The national PTA (National Congress of Parents and Teachers) has also been calling for records to be rated. And some responsible voices within the industry have called for restraint. George David Weiss, president of the Songwriters Guild of America, called for the music industry to tone down. "There is enough violence without glorifying it in music aimed at youngsters," he wrote in Billboard.

Even Sting, formerly of the rock group The Police, is on record as saying "to write pornography is to display a lack of imagination."

On Sept. 19, the Senate Commerce Committee will hold hearings on pornographic rock music.

That's the good news. The bad news is that most purveyors of porno rock think they can get by with anything by simply accusing their critics of advocating censorship.

To market explicit sex and graphic and sadistic violence to an audience of preteens and teens is a secondary form of child abuse. A society whose mass media peddles these themes unchallenged is abdicating its responsibility to an entire generation of young Americans. I believe in the First Amendment, but freedom always involves responsibilities.

It's not easy being a parent these days, but it's even tougher being a kid. It's about time the record industry gave us all a break.

Tipper Gore, a founder of the Parents Music Resource Center, is the mother of four, ages 2 to 11. She is married to Sen. Albert Gore Jr. (D-Tenn.). "Live Wire" and "Too Young to Fall In Love" lyrics © 1982 Warner Tamerlane Publishing Corp. and Motley Crue Publishing. "Under the Blade" lyrics used with permission of Snidest Music Co. Inc. and Zomba Enterprises.
I think that when looking at lyrical content, vulgarity has increased. Violence in music has also increased. It is to the point that interpreting lyrics isn't necessary in some cases. To hold the hearings again today with artists like Cannibal Corpse and Eminem would end up detrimental to the industry.
As a parent I think it is more important for me to teach my kids the difference between fantasy and reality. My parents did a good job of that and when I hear the lyrics "fornicate the dead" I don't go out and screw dead people. I don't think its a long shot to believe that most parents have done the same. Of course I am talking about the extreme end of the spectrum. When you start looking at certain violent lyrics such as "Kim" by Eminem the picture may change. Somebody acting out these lyrics may not be so far fetched. Eminem wrote about this in "Stan". We could turn this to the argument about video games and tv and end up with the same problem. Rather than screening everything that your kids are exposed to, I think its more important to teach them what is right and wrong. Of course if I hear my 12 year old daughter listening to "Fuck The World", I'm gonna take it from her. Sometimes you have to censor what your kids are exposed to, most times you just need to make sure they understand that it isn't reality.
I'm not sure that the hearings had a long term effect on music. Short term, I remember having problems buying music because of that damned sticker, today it seems like a badge of honor. Lyrical content has gotten worse in terms of the subject matter that the PMRC was against.
My stand on this is education. It shouldn't be the responsibility of anyone other than the parents to educate their children. The hearings were a waste if time and, though I understand their concern, the senate has no place in the matter.
__________________
Jack be nimble
Jack be quick

I be a lunatic

The answer is hidden in plain view.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Predator is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-11-2008, 09:38 PM   #2 (permalink)
Account Disabled
 
Join Date: Feb 2008
Posts: 2,773
Default

ahhhh to many words.....
Farfisa is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-11-2008, 09:50 PM   #3 (permalink)
Da Hiphopopotamus
 
sweet_nothing's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: cloud cuckoo land
Posts: 4,034
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by loose_lips_sink_ships View Post
ahhhh to many words.....
yeah,I only read the first paragraph. But I don't think parent should control what kids listen to. If that happened I would of never heard the Sex Pistols
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by swim View Post
America does folk, hardcore and mathrock better and that's 90% of what I give 2 shits on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chartsengrafs View Post
sweet nothing openly flaunts the fact that he is merely the empty shell of an even more unadmirable member. his loneliness and need for attention bleeds through every letter he types. edit: i would just like to add that i'm ashamed that he's from texas. surely you didn't grow up in texas, did you sweet nothing?
sweet_nothing is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-11-2008, 09:55 PM   #4 (permalink)
Whatever
 
Predator's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 344
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by loose_lips_sink_ships View Post
ahhhh to many words.....
Quote:
Originally Posted by sweet_nothing View Post
yeah,I only read the first paragraph. But I don't think parent should control what kids listen to. If that happened I would of never heard the Sex Pistols

Wow, the attention span of our youth...............

Skip the quote and read on.



LOOK, ITS SOMETHING SHINY.
__________________
Jack be nimble
Jack be quick

I be a lunatic

The answer is hidden in plain view.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Predator is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-11-2008, 10:23 PM   #5 (permalink)
one big soul
 
Alfred's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 5,096
Default

Ten year old kids shouldn't be listening to "Crazy Bitch" or "I Wanna **** You", but I don't see a problem with them listening to some milder stuff. It's really up to the parents. If they wanna let their kids listen to whatever they want, who is Tipper Gore to tell them otherwise?
Alfred is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-11-2008, 10:25 PM   #6 (permalink)
Music Addict
 
Dmizz's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Missouri(aka Misery)
Posts: 101
Default

people are right to be concerned but trying to censor everything is impossible they need to quit sugar coating things and quit thinking they're kids are so innocent they need to teach them what things are and what they mean because kids are gonna be exposed to them anyway.
Dmizz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-11-2008, 10:47 PM   #7 (permalink)
Al Dente
 
SATCHMO's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Texas
Posts: 4,708
Default

Pointing the finger at artistic expression is an inadequate way of absolving yourself of parental responsibility.
There will always be garbage out there and if you can't communicate with your children about it perhaps THAT'S what you should be worried about, not the lyrics to a hip hop song.
SATCHMO is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-11-2008, 10:52 PM   #8 (permalink)
isfckingdead
 
sleepy jack's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 18,967
Default

That's fine if Tipper Gore feels those songs are inappropriate for her children but don't tell me I have to follow her standards for my own kid.*












*I don't actually have a kid but if I did I'd raise him on Mclusky and Big Black.
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by METALLICA89 View Post
Ive seen you on muiltipul forums saying Metallica and slayer are the worst **** you kid go suck your **** while you listen to your ****ing emo **** I bet you do listen to emo music
sleepy jack is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-11-2008, 10:56 PM   #9 (permalink)
Whatever
 
Predator's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 344
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alfred View Post
Ten year old kids shouldn't be listening to "Crazy Bitch" or "I Wanna **** You", but I don't see a problem with them listening to some milder stuff. It's really up to the parents. If they wanna let their kids listen to whatever they want, who is Tipper Gore to tell them otherwise?
Tipper Gore's position on this was as a concerned parent. Of course you have to take into account who her husband is. If it had been my mother in her shoes nothing would have happened. Her goal in the matter didn't seem to be censoring the music so much giving parents more options to monitor what their children are listening to. She even stated that the PMRC was not looking for censorship.
Quote:
The Parents Music Resource Center has asked the record executives to create an industrywide uniform standard defining what constitutes explicit and violent material. We of the PMRC are not trying to ban any songs, and we oppose censorship or government regulation. Instead, we believe that the music industry itself and its media outlets should voluntarily cut down on violent and sexually explicit material.
It ended up being the senate committee that pushed harder for censorship.
I agree that if I think its ok for my 6 year old to listen to Torture Killer, thats my choice to make. I don't think anyone should be able to tell me any different.
__________________
Jack be nimble
Jack be quick

I be a lunatic

The answer is hidden in plain view.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Predator is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-12-2008, 08:09 AM   #10 (permalink)
I'm sorry, is this Can?
 
Comus's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 1,989
Default

Even at the time all those stickers did was ensure sales of the CD.
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by sleepy jack
Quote:
Originally Posted by antonio
classical music isn't exactly religious, you know?
um
last.fm
Comus is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Similar Threads



© 2003-2024 Advameg, Inc.