Parental Advisory

Parental Advisory is a intelligent and entertaining look at the colorful history of popular music in the United States that hs been either challenged or supresseed by forces of government or community. From Dean Martin ("Wham, Bam, Thank You Ma'am") to Marilyn Manson ("Antichrist Superstar"), Parental Advisory illuminates the complicated issue of music censorship, and demonstrates how censorship comes from all sides of the political spectrum. The book discusses everyone from The Beatles ("More popular than Jesus") to Ozzy Osbourne ("Suicide Solution") to N.W.A. ("Fuck tha Police") and The Prodigy ("Smack My Bitch Up")--as well as frenzied record burnings, controversial album cover art, the censors (Tipper Gore gets her very own chapter), and the freedom fighters (such as Frank Zappa). Featuring amusing sidebars (the PMRC's "Filthy Fifteen" list) chapters divided by subject (Sex; Politics; Violence; Race; Religion; Drugs; MTV) and finally a decade-by-decade timeline of important moments in censorship history, Parental Advisory is by turns frightening, amusing, hilarious, chilling--but always revealing.