I’m also Class of '84. I’d finally stopped hearing about the “evil” rock music from church, and then the government started in on it.
Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the record companies now encourage artists to curse, even when they wouldn’t ordinarily, so they can slap the warning label on the cover. I mean when a rock/rap act like Linkin Park has to point out that that they deliberately chose to not curse on their songs …
One thing I hate about the warning labels and the “clean” versions of CDs: probably due to the generation I belong to, I’m not accustomed to specifically looking for the warning label, and that led to my accidentally buying the “clean” version of Puddle of Mudd’s Come Clean CD. I didn’t realize it until I’d gotten it home, opened it up and ripped it to my computer, which meant it was too late to take it back and exchange it.
Somebody on one of my e-mail lists pointed out that they hate the song “She Hates Me” from Come Clean. This person said, “It’s obvious that they wrote and recorded that song simply because they could.” I agree. While I like the song (my old cover band used to play it) and I find it amusing and catchy, it’s clear to me that it was written as an excuse to say “fuckin’” repeatedly. I suspect there are a lot of songs that are the same way.
How can anybody enjoy listening to a song with dozens of blank holes in the vocal line?
Funny you should mention this–a few months ago I was in Fred Meyer buying an ICP CD and a couple of kids (mid teens “kids” that is–I’m old…) were complaining that the cashier had carded them for naughty lyric CDs. I noticed that one of them had an ICP title as well, so I took their money and bought them both their music. Screw labelling–if those guys are old enough to GET a blowjob, they’re old enough to hear someone singing about getting one! Besides, ICP is educational…