What do you think?
Rate this book
Parental Advisory: Music Censorship in America
Believe it or not, music censorship in America did not begin with Tipper Gore's horrified reaction to her daughter's Prince album. The vilification of popular music by government and individuals has been going on for decades. Now, for the first time, Parental Advisory offers a thorough and complete chronicle of the music that has been challenged or suppressed -- by the people or the government -- in the United States. From Dean Martin's "Wham, Bam, Thank you Ma'am" to Marilyn Manson's Antichrist Superstar; from freedom fighters such as Frank Zappa and in-your-face rappers such a N.W.A. to crusaders such as Tipper Gore, this intelligent and entertaining book shows how censorship has crossed sexual, class, and ethnic lines, and how many see it as a de facto form of racism. With nearly one hundred fascinating photographs of musicians, record burning, and controversial cover art; illuminating sidebars; and a decade-by-decade timeline of important moments in censorship history, Parental Advisory is by turns frightening and hilarious -- but always revealing.
368 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2001
4 people are currently reading
242 people want to read
About the author
Eric Nuzum
8 books75 followersEric NUZUM is a writer, cofounder of podcasting company Magnificent Noise, and creator of iconic podcasts. He is considered a leading “go-to” expert in audio, podcasting, radio, and spoken word entertainment. He led NPR’s initial podcasting efforts in 2005 and remained that effort's leading creative and strategic force for a decade. As a creator, he developed some of NPR’s most successful podcasts, including TED Radio Hour and Invisibilia. He continued his track record of success during his tenure as Audible’s leader for short-form content and podcasting, creating such recognized podcasts as Sincerely X (another co-production with TED), The Butterfly Effect with Jon Ronson, and Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel. He is also the author of Giving Up the Ghost: A Story About Friendship, 80s Music, A Lost Scrap of Paper, and What It Means to be Haunted (2012), The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula (2007) and Parental Advisory: Music Censorship in America (2001). Nuzum was awarded the National Edward R. Murrow Award for News Writing and his work has appeared in a few publications you’ve heard of and many more that you haven’t heard of. Eric is based in the New York City metro area.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 29, 2024
Here's a ~*wild*~ idea: If you don't like a certain band...don't listen to them!
It really is that easy. But moral scolds aren't satisfied with that and never have been. This book does a great job of showing what a long and unfortunately deep history there is behind music censorship in this country. I was aware of a lot of it, but there was so much more, especially occurring before I was born in 1980, that was new to me. It seems like as soon as music started having words put to it, the pearl-clutchers were out in force looking for any lyrics that they could deem inappropriate, even in some laughably thin cases. I really appreciated what a well-researched and thoughtful look Nuzum provides here, especially showing how arbitrary most of this was. Like, who gets to determine what counts as "obscene" or "inappropriate" or even "violent"? I mean, technically when Queen Latifah sang "I punched him dead in his eye" that was a "violent" phrase, but I doubt most people would say it was worthy of censorship. And when do allusions to sex go from PG-13 to R to X? It's all subjective, and thus it's absurd to try to create objective rules about it.
I don't know how strong the music-censorship crusades are these days (this book was originally published in 2001), but I'm sure they're still out there. The thing is, you have every right to choose what you listen to and what your kids listen to (though, trust me, whatever you tell your kids NOT to listen to, they will find a way to do so behind your back). If you own a music store, you have every right to choose not to stock certain bands or albums. But as Nuzum shows, these folks would not accept stopping at their own front door. The fact that they wanted federal legislation against what they considered "bad" music is kind of wild, TBH. And I also appreciated that he reiterates many times that correlation is not necessarily causation. Just because a kid who died by suicide listened to certain music doesn't mean the music made them do it, even if that music talked about death.
I mean, the Bible is chock fucking full of death and destruction. Just sayin'.
I did wish there had been a concluding chapter kind of summing everything up and giving a "where do we go from here" perspective. Nonfiction texts usually have something like that, but this one didn't, and it felt sort of abrupt. Part II of the book is just a chronology, a timeline essentially, of all of the various censorship efforts starting from the first half of the 20th century, but most of them had already been discussed in the book, so it felt a little superfluous because he went into a lot of detail about some it in the chronology, too. I would have liked that to be cut down a little and to have had a conclusion. But I still really enjoyed this and found it fascinating how ridiculous people can be while thinking they're the only NON-ridiculous person in the room.
It really is that easy. But moral scolds aren't satisfied with that and never have been. This book does a great job of showing what a long and unfortunately deep history there is behind music censorship in this country. I was aware of a lot of it, but there was so much more, especially occurring before I was born in 1980, that was new to me. It seems like as soon as music started having words put to it, the pearl-clutchers were out in force looking for any lyrics that they could deem inappropriate, even in some laughably thin cases. I really appreciated what a well-researched and thoughtful look Nuzum provides here, especially showing how arbitrary most of this was. Like, who gets to determine what counts as "obscene" or "inappropriate" or even "violent"? I mean, technically when Queen Latifah sang "I punched him dead in his eye" that was a "violent" phrase, but I doubt most people would say it was worthy of censorship. And when do allusions to sex go from PG-13 to R to X? It's all subjective, and thus it's absurd to try to create objective rules about it.
I don't know how strong the music-censorship crusades are these days (this book was originally published in 2001), but I'm sure they're still out there. The thing is, you have every right to choose what you listen to and what your kids listen to (though, trust me, whatever you tell your kids NOT to listen to, they will find a way to do so behind your back). If you own a music store, you have every right to choose not to stock certain bands or albums. But as Nuzum shows, these folks would not accept stopping at their own front door. The fact that they wanted federal legislation against what they considered "bad" music is kind of wild, TBH. And I also appreciated that he reiterates many times that correlation is not necessarily causation. Just because a kid who died by suicide listened to certain music doesn't mean the music made them do it, even if that music talked about death.
I mean, the Bible is chock fucking full of death and destruction. Just sayin'.
I did wish there had been a concluding chapter kind of summing everything up and giving a "where do we go from here" perspective. Nonfiction texts usually have something like that, but this one didn't, and it felt sort of abrupt. Part II of the book is just a chronology, a timeline essentially, of all of the various censorship efforts starting from the first half of the 20th century, but most of them had already been discussed in the book, so it felt a little superfluous because he went into a lot of detail about some it in the chronology, too. I would have liked that to be cut down a little and to have had a conclusion. But I still really enjoyed this and found it fascinating how ridiculous people can be while thinking they're the only NON-ridiculous person in the room.
May 8, 2022
As a musician, I had fun reading this one. It's a comprehensive history of music in the USA through the lens of controversy and censorship. Each chapter talks about hot topics like religion, violence, sex, profanity, drugs (promoting or discouraging them), race, and politics, their place in the music industry and any efforts that have been made by any group to discourage their availability to the public.
Even as someone who knows as much about music as I do, there were a number of things, I never knew of, like the outrage over the original album art of the Beatles' Yesterday and Today, so it was fascinating to read about it all. Nuzum doesn't condone music censorship and gives his viewpoints and case for free music, especially relating to the topics above. The music discussed is primarily rap and rock and roll. Nuzum points out the anarchic nature of these genres and how censoring groups tend to focus on these when practically no attention is given to country, soul, pop, etc., which can also contain explicit material. He is insightful and knows his topic well.
The final part of the book is a chronological index of noteworthy incidences of the release of "questionable" music and the public's reaction to it. It discusses controversial musicians like Prince, Madonna, and Ozzy Osbourne at length.
I recommend this to anyone who loves music.
Even as someone who knows as much about music as I do, there were a number of things, I never knew of, like the outrage over the original album art of the Beatles' Yesterday and Today, so it was fascinating to read about it all. Nuzum doesn't condone music censorship and gives his viewpoints and case for free music, especially relating to the topics above. The music discussed is primarily rap and rock and roll. Nuzum points out the anarchic nature of these genres and how censoring groups tend to focus on these when practically no attention is given to country, soul, pop, etc., which can also contain explicit material. He is insightful and knows his topic well.
The final part of the book is a chronological index of noteworthy incidences of the release of "questionable" music and the public's reaction to it. It discusses controversial musicians like Prince, Madonna, and Ozzy Osbourne at length.
I recommend this to anyone who loves music.
March 12, 2008
I used this book as an aid on a Mass Media Ethics class. My paper turned into a huge anti-PMRC rant and one of the more amusing, well-researched (passionately researched)projects in the class. This book exposes the Parental Advisory Labels for what they are (a flipping joke)and the politics at the core. All but confirms my belief that Tipper Gore is a demon spawn.
Read
September 15, 2019I'm not giving this a star rating because it's non-fiction. But this was really interesting! I've never read anything like this before and it was pretty cool to learn about music censorship, something I've never really thought or learned about before. I'm also curious to see how things have changed since this book came out in 2000 and I'm wondering what the current state of music censorship looks like.
September 27, 2023
This was a hugely enjoyable book about a topic that interests me. There were interesting facts throughout.
November 9, 2024
Informative read on the history of music censorship. I would be interested in seeing an update on how things have changed in the last 20 years and what bands/artists are facing censorship now.
June 15, 2021
i had to read this book for one of my classes. i was happily surprised to see that it was interesting even though i was reading it for a paper that was due. i found this book to use easy language and use real work music examples anyone from any generation could understand. i wouldn’t have read this book if it wasn’t for class but i’m happy i did.
February 22, 2016
Started reading because I actually found an autographed copy (always a plus). Fascinating history of music censorship across the history of modern pop music, with much that was enlightening (albeit in a depressing way) about how brazenly racism and political repression figured into official bans and taboos. But...and you know something, I don't believe the author would go along with this...as the years progress, and the rise of Rock'n'Roll (and, later, rap) puts forth more transgressive personalities in the music, lyrics, marketing and the attendant album-cover art, videos etc., I actually found myself rather more sympathetic to the words of the bluenoses. Aye, the Tipper Gores and the Delores Tuckers and even the crazed demon-chasers of the Christian Right in the late 20th century at least came across in Nuzum's prose and interviews as being able to make a reasoned argument for their POVs. On the other side were a bunch of oft-unstable musicians who, even when capable of displaying a great deal of intellect (Zappa, Jello Biafra most prominently), still seemed to delight in going farther into shock value and tastelessness just for kicks or to earn notoriety. By the end of the book a few things stood out. (1) Most of our kids listen to music for the beat and the danceability; it's lucky if the little monsters are even paying attention to the lyrics at all, so censors' arguments about harmful content kind of fall flat. (2) If I had to choose between a modern rock-hating conservative or a drugged-up, profane rock idol gagging on his/her own vomit as a dinner guest...well, let's just say I'd tell either one sorry, we ran out of food. But at least with the conservative I wouldn't have to worry about finding my tires slashed or excrement on my front door in the morning.
October 31, 2011
An excellent book that gives the istory or album labeling. It shows how some people with power can change our world "for our good". My favorite story is how Frank Zappa had an album labeled explicit for language despite the fact thast is had no words at all. Worth a read and despite it's subject very hilarious (refer to Frank Zappa story).
December 22, 2010
This book was used as a cornerstone of one of my Mass Comm. classes back in college, and I reread it after graduating. Nuzum chronicles music censorship incidents ranging from the funny to the outrageous. I really wish the author would update and expand this into a newer edition.
May 1, 2012
I had to use this book as a reference for a paper I was writing and ended up reading the whole thing on my own. It's extremely informative and gives light to many of the events concerning censorship in America throughout the years.
March 25, 2013
this book put a clear view on music censorship in the us
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews