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.............................. Parental Advisory Explicit Content
Logo and Trademark..............................
Parental Advisory is a message affixed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to audio and video recordings in the United States containing offensive language and/or content. Albums began to be labeled for "explicit lyrics" in 1985, after pressure from the Parents Music Resource Center. In 1990, the PMRC worked with the RIAA to standardize the label, creating the now-familiar black and white design. To some, it has become known as the "Tipper sticker" because of Tipper Gore's visible role in the PMRC.
Some politicians have tried to criminalize the sale of explicit records to minors, and others have gone so far as to try to ban such records. Certain retailers refuse to sell albums containing the label, and many others limit the sale of such albums to adults only, although, most stores have settled on an age limit of 17 in order to buy an album containing the label. While the label is most prevalent on heavy metal, dance pop, alternative rock, punk and, especially, hip-hop/rap albums, it can appear on any genre of CD which the RIAA believes warrants the need for one.
Although many retailers use the sticker as a criterion for censorship, whether or not to use the sticker is determined by the record company that publishes the album. Many albums with very few instances of strong profanity or one instances of violence and sexual situations in lyrics, have a "parental advisory" sticker, (Examples include Janet Jackson's All for You and Damita Jo, Nirvana's Incesticide and In Utero,Godsmack's Awake, and Justin Timberlake's FutureSex/LoveSounds among others.), although albums with multiple uses of explicit language may not. It is not a rating. There are no true standards for a parental advisory label. It is totally up to the record company whether an album needs one or not. Just because an album has a parental advisory label, doesn't mean that it is any more explicit than an album that does not have that label. For instance, the punk rock group NOFX has largely avoided the Parental Advisory sticker (though their albums contain many profanities) because they are published on the independent label, Fat Wreck Chords. Other independent artists avoid the label such as Modest Mouse as well as Negativland, and their album Escape From Noise was released on SST Records and Seeland Records, both of them independent labels. But some major label artists' CDs evade Parental Advisory, such as albums from Atreyu, Deftones, and Green Day, Maroon 5's Songs About Jane and It Won't Be Soon Before Long, Pussy Cat Dolls's PCD, Arctic Monkeys' Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not and Favourite Worst Nightmare and some movie soundtracks such as Godzilla: The Album.
Some albums may receive Parental Advisory labels even though these albums contain no profane, sexual, or violent lyrics at all. Examples include Danzig's self-titled album, the Gorillaz' G-Sides (which only contains some mild drug and violence references in one song), Sum 41's Does This Look Infected? (which only has mild and infrequent profanity), Savatage's Fight for the Rock, Story of the Year's Page Avenue, Slayer's Seasons in the Abyss, and Britney Spears' Blackout (which only contains the mild profanity bitch and has lots of sexual references).
Albums released on Sony BMG's record labels (Arista Records, Columbia Records, Jive Records, J Records, among others) that contain the PA sticker provide additional explanations of why the disc warrants the sticker. On System of a Down's Hypnotize, for instance, under the label it reads "STRONG LANGUAGE, SEXUAL + VIOLENT CONTENT". Radiohead's Hail to the Thief has a warning of the strong offensive language on inside the CD booklet, next to the listed lyrics.
Many albums with the label have clean versions available, especially on online music stores such as iTunes or Napster. A few albums have a note saying that the lyrics are of an adult nature, but without the sticker: Back to Bedlam by James Blunt, Jimmy Buffett's Live in Hawaii, Guns N' Roses's "The Spaghetti Incident?", Savatage's Gutter Ballet and Overseer's Wreckage. However, Back To Bedlam only contains two uses of explicit language. Some CD's such as Jumpsteady's The Chaos Theory doesn't have a Parental Advisory of anysort dispite having many uses of explicit language.
There have been some cases of unusual use of the label. After Frank Zappa campaigned against music censorship in 1985, the sticker was attached to his next album, Jazz from Hell, because of the title of one track, "G-Spot Tornado", although the album is entirely instrumental and contains no lyrics that could be "explicit lyrics". The designation of instrumentals as taboo, however, is nothing new; in the 1960s, the "Rumble" instrumental by Link Wray was banned from some radio stations because it could supposedly incite "juvenile violence."
There has been the observation that the stickers appear to have had the reverse effect to what was intended - the sticker can make an album more desirable (to teenagers, for example), and the sticker has been called the musical equivalent of an "alcohol content" label. The RIAA, however, officially states that "it’s not a PAL Notice that kids look for, it’s the music. Independent research shows kids put limited weight on lyrics in deciding which music they like, caring more about rhythm and melody. The PAL Notice alone isn’t enough incentive."
The label is also seen in the United Kingdom, Portugal, Greece, Finland, the Netherlands, Brazil, Denmark, South Africa, Japan , Australia and, Canada on albums of American origin. An album with the label is automatically banned in some conservative countries, for example Saudi Arabia. At Wal-Mart stores, only a "clean" version of the album is allowed, and if no "clean" version of the album is available, the album isn't going to be available for purchase.
As well as that, some labels put the label on a CD, but it is placed only on the packaging, and not on the actual CD. This allows the label to be easily removed, and be confused with an album that features no explicit content. Also, sometimes the label is placed on the CD case itself and it can be easily removed as well.
The label was also formerly used as a bumper each hour during Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block. The Broadway musical Avenue Q's poster spoofs the sticker saying, Parental Advisory Sticker: You Know Where You Can Stick This.
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