In a statement by the RIAA, they wrote: We believe that not all music is right for all ages and out Parental Advisory Label was created for just that reason. Parents can use the label to identify music that may not be appropriate for their children and make the choice about when -- and whether -- their children should be able to have that recording. (Gore, Tipper 68)
Under this agreement, future releases by 22 participating RIAA record companies would carry a label stating "Parental Advisory -- Explicit Content" when lyrics reflected "explicit sex, violence, or substance abuse." (Gore, Mary 55) Companies would have the option of printing lyrics on the cover of long-playing record jackets or imprinting "See LP for Lyrics" on cassettes with LP counterparts displaying the lyrics. This was announced two days after the Home Audio Recording Act had its own hearing. And who was one of the bill's sponsors? Al Gore. (Benesch)
While the sticker was not considered censorship, it led many record stores to refuse carrying items that were marked with the label. Rap and rock were hit the hardest as they found their sales dropping. (Nuzum "Radio Suckers") By the late 1980s, communities were passing ordinances that restricted or prohibited the sale and airing of certain songs within their localities, thus deepening the stake within the music industry's heart.
It seemed like the PMRC accomplished their goal, but there was one problem. The sticker was not mandatory; it was voluntary. So after seeing the sales of CDs drop, the RIAA told their record companies behind the PMRC's back to decrease the use of the sticer. According to Rolling Stone, the agreement participants such as CBS, RCA, A&M and Warner avoided labeling anything at all. Billboard magazine stated that "despite the pact, however, there was no unanimity in the industry regarding the warning stickers." (Holland "Congress Can.." 1)
For a few artists, the voluntary sticker was a joke. Some artists decided to put humorous warning stickers on their CDs, but the PMRC was not amused. For example, Ice-T's album "Freedom of Speech" had a warning sticker that read: "X-Rated; Parents Strongly Cautioned; Some Material May Not Be X-tra Hype And Inappropriate For Squares And Suckers." (Siegmund 27)
The National PTA and the PMRC reported on labeling progress on December 1986 and criticized companies for "blatantly ignoring, sidestepping, or mocking the agreement." (Weisel 32) In 1988, the PMRC again reported on the labeling progress and found that less than half of the recordings containing explicit lyrics had labels. And half of those labels were "hard to find, easily removed, incorrectly worded, or displayed way too small to read." (Stolder 30) In a commentary published in Billboard in February of 1989, Tipper Gore and Susan Baker wrote that the RIAA member labels had "repeatedly violated the spirit of the agreement by releasing albums such as the Beastie Boys, Metallica, and Motley Crue without attempting to warn consumers about the content." (Gore, Tipper 110)
With the media attention focused on the RIAA and critics scourning them, the association debuted its universal warning sticker on March of 1990. (Nuzum "Parental") In addition to providing uniform artwork, the RIAA issued a statement that served as the only policy guideline to member record companies:
To facilitate the exercise of parental discretion on behalf of younger children, participating RIAA member recording companies will identify future releases of their recordings with lyric content relating to explicit sex, explicit violence, or explicit substance abuse. Such recordings, where contractually permissible, either will be identified with a packaging inscription that will state: "Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics" or such recordings will display printed lyrics. (Nelson 40)
The PMRC was not satisified with the statement. They wanted the RIAA to have a more detailed criteria of when to use the Parental Advisory label. A year later, after the PMRC continued talking to the media about the warning sticker, the RIAA released a detailed list. That list is on the next page: |
