waaaaay back in the mid 80's when Tipper Gore had the big "Darling Nikki" broo-ha-ha...music wasn't really regulated. now of course, DN seems almost rated "G" to half the stuff played on the radio now.

seems like putting that famous label




does nothing but guarantee a spike in sales...

is music better off because of it or in spite of it?
[Edited 8/3/05 22:56pm]

i really don't think anyone pays a bit of attention to it these days, and honestly, i think a bunch of stuff comes out these days that technically should have the sticker but doesn't. i think it's a relic.

Anxiety said:

yea pretty much. i mean when i'm lookin @ cds i wanna buy, i don't pay one bit of mind to that little sticker. most times i don't even notice it. its pretty useless. us kids ALWAYS find a way to get what we want. if our folks wont hook us up with that new (insert cd name here)cd and it has a sticker on it, but we really want the cd we go out and get it ourselves. simple.
its only purpose now is to keep clueless parents informed (i seriously doubt there are many of those though)

i remember when the "cream" maxi-single came out, i couldn't buy it because i was 20 years old and the wrecka stow i was at told me i had to be 21 or have a guardian buy it for me. I WAS 20 DAMN YEARS OLD! and for the CREAM single!?

i think we went out drinking that night, then i had hot mansex with whomever i was dating at the time. thank you tipper gore, for saving me from corruption.

it worked extremely well. it sold a shit-load of records, didn't it?

I was lucky cuz I was friends with all the punks and freaks at all the record stores in town, even as a 14 year old. They never cared about selling me 2 Live Crew or Prince or whoever. It was mostly my mother that I had to worry about.

It helped sales because if people didn't know the record was obscene, they did when they saw the sticker, which made them want it even more.

I remember five years before the famous sticker, Prince's album, "Dirty Mind" contained a sticker that read.....

"This album contains language that may be unsuitable for young listeners."

I had a few Prince 45s already, but because of this sticker, I got my first Prince album. I simply put my thumb over the sticker and my grandmother bought it for me. She looked at Prince's picture on the cover, saw the name "Prince" across the front, and said....."Oh, look at Freddie Prinze".

vainandy said:

Vain Baby, I know that when that sticker bullshit came out, my parents didn't make much issue especially my mom being that she had first turned me on to P's music. I guess my parents were pretty liberal considering that they also got me into listening to Slick Rick in the 70's as well.
[Edited 8/4/05 0:38am]

vainandy said:

hell, my mom bought me 'dirty mind' and 'controversy' for my 14th birthday. the only thing she didn't let me keep was the poster of him in the shower, and that's because she wanted it for herself.

Anxiety said:

Abuse!

GangstaFam said:

hell, i remember *I* was more offended by that poster than my mom was. and my mom was playing much worse lyrics than prince when she'd spin her old frank zappa albums.

Anxiety said:

Your mom's cool.

GangstaFam said:

she has her hip moments, i spose.

I was lucky. Tipper Gore raised all her hell during my senior year in high school. By the time the "official" stickers were on the records, I was 18. 18 was also the legal age to buy beer back then, until they changed it to 21 when I was 19. I don't think the explicit album sales went up to 21 though, because I never had any trouble buying them. But....now that I think of it....I was never asked to show my ID when I bought a record.

My grandmother bought all my records for me back in the day. Of course, she didn't know what she she was buying at the time. All she knew was, she was buying something to keep me entertained over at her house every weekend and every summer. She used to bribe me with records to keep me from going out sometimes.

Anxiety said:

Oh give me a break! She should be make an honorary member of AbFab!

Anxiety said:

DAMN! Did you have to be 21 years of age just to buy an album featuring a Parental Advisory sticker back then?

onenitealone said:

oh, i lived in indiana, they were just being quaint and hyper-reactionary, i'm sure.

Anxiety said:

Oh, I see.

Or maybe the young Anxiety just looked shifty.

onenitealone said:

what kind of trouble can someone get into with a cream maxi-cassingle?

Anxiety said:

True.

Can't imagine the hoopla you had to go through just to buy the 'Lovesexy' album...

GangstaFam said:

and she's also a drummer

onenitealone said:

shit, i just walked in and bought that. of course, i went to a geeky little indie wrecka stow for that little gem.

Anxiety said:

REBEL!

onenitealone said:

well, remember, lovesexy came out BEFORE the parental stickers. any child could be corrupted by that smut.

Anxiety said:

Those were the days.

I remember seeing that in Woolworth's the week it came out. My pick 'n' mix nearly went everywhere.

Anxiety said:

uggh...they should have made a movie about..like the kids in Footloose were forbidden to dance (of course by the end of the movie, they all knew the latest breakdancing and hip dance moves of the 80's )

Anxiety said:

I think the rule with the label is and always has been 17. 21? Shit, you can be 18 and buy porn....they wouldn't let you buy "Cream", which ended up becoming a number one? Crazy!

I don't think the label sereved it's intention. Children listen to stuff with the label and if they can get it, they will. They like hip hop and rock (and in some cases, naughty pop) but the fact that some stores are hardcore about it shows that maybe it's working. Now the labels do sell clean verisons of CDs. Wal-Mart will only sell the clean verisons and they are the biggest retailer for music (sadly) but if kids have the choice....they are going for the labeled one!

vainandy said:

She saw that album cover and still bought it for you? lol I had to hide that album like it was drugs or something. I used to keep the record itself inside the Gap Band's "GAP III" album and the cover to dirty mind inside the fold out of EWF's "All in All" I figured if moms ever found it, at least the music would be safe in another location lol. Sure enough, she found the cover and tossed it. After a grilling over the whereabouts of the record itself, she finally let it go (there were a lot of "I don't knows" and "I forgot" mixed in there lol). To this day, I still have the record but not the album cover itself (I do have it on CD though) I should never have hide that cover in an album my mom might play. I should have stuffed it inside some P Funk record lol.

meltwithu said:

No muddafukkkka it ain't!