From: dtokarew@tokafew.Doc.Provo.Novell.COM (Deb Tokarewich)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.canada
Subject: Music labelling (was So its Clinton/Gore, eh?)
Date: 5 Nov 92 23:52:09 GMT
Organization: Novell, Inc.

In article <1dc205INNcj@fido.asd.sgi.com> livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon  
Livesey) writes:
> 
> In article <bob1.720982232@cos>, bob1@cos.com writes:
> > In <1992Nov5.025659.268@morgan.ucs.mun.ca>  
hamm@weejordy.physics.mun.ca (Craig Hamm) writes:
> > 
> > Can we please put this BS to bed. PMRC want's recordings with
> > *adult* (actually, pretty damn childish IMHO) lyrics to be so
> > labeled. They aren't burned in big bonfires, etc. Suppose you
> > have a young daughter and buy her a R&R record for a present,
> > but you don't know the R&R scene. Wouldn't it be just great
> > to hear it for the first time and find all they are singing
> > about is [expletive deleted].
> > 
> > It was *not* censorship, merely *truth in labeling* :-/
> 
> Two questions:
> 
> 	When do they get started on Shakespeare and the Bible?
> 
> 	Who decides on the label?   Who writes the label for
> 	Upton Sinclair's books, Zola, Gorky?   Does the label
> 	say "Recommended: social comment"? or "Warning: socialist
> 	propaganda"?
> 
> You have to be ready to answer questions like that before you
> throw words like "truth" around with such gay abandon.


Ah, if only more people would become so "defiled" by such things as  
Shakespeare and Sinclair and the Bible and...instead of by some of the  
music (*and* other literature) that's around today.

If you really want to compare labelling music to other things like  
literature or movies, OK: Who complains when a book jacket "blurb," a book  
review, or a parent/school teacher/librarian/bookstore employee lets you  
know what the book's about, what kinds of topics it deals with, and how  
the topic's handled? And who complains about movie ratings--or about more  
in-depth movie guides or reviews that describe such specifics about a  
movie as its subject content, language, nudity, violence, adult  
situations, etc.? All music labelling would do is give the consumer a more  
informed choice. And what does "who decides on the label" have to do with  
it, as long as it's a label that merely describes the contents? (Who  
writes up those in-depth movie guides and who compiles the contents list  
on the side of your cereal box--and what does it matter? Facts are facts.)

Geez, there's such a big deal being made lately about requiring all food  
products to list a full disclosure of their contents--if we're so  
concerned about knowing what we put into our (and others') bodies, why  
can't we have the same concern about what goes into our minds or psyche or  
spirit or wherever music individually affects each of us?

I'm definitely against outright censorship, but I agree with the others  
(many of them musicians from all areas of the music world who testified  
*in support of* music labelling at those hearings) that mere labelling of  
a record's contents would not be "censorship." And even if a label *were*  
somehow "slanted" to read something like "Recommended: Social comment" or  
"Warning: Socialist propoganda," that's *still* not censorship--it would  
just be a poor, cheap, mostly ineffective attempt at persuasion, not  
unlike that found in advertising and politics. And in any of those cases,  
you are not forced to agree or disagree with, or to buy or not buy,  
anything. 

(This topic was brought up in response to someone's question about what  
Canadians thought about Clinton's election (people have often "feared" the  
First Lady's potential "power," but I don't historically recall the VP's  
wife ever being so threatening). But maybe this discussion should move to  
a more appropriate group...unless it can still somehow be tied to s.c.c.)