Ever buy an album recorded by a musical group that you love to listen to? Nearly everyone has done that before. Nowadays, you can purchase an entire collection of music devoted to one specific group so you can enjoy every facet, every nuance of their progressive success over the span of their career. As long as you are the only one to listen to this music, you should be fairly safe from offending most people. But stop a minute. What about those huge, booming stereos, which often reach your ears with the drivers' music of choice? And what about the lyrics in those songs? Music albums containing words that may be offensive to some people should include a warning on the package, and all lyrics should be included with the packaging of all albums made available to the public. Some lyrics in today's music may be considered offensive, and parents of young children may not want them exposed to what could be considered graphically violent or sexually explicit song lyrics. And many people who might not appreciate loud or fast music may actually be missing out on what could be considered an artistic endeavor.
More often than not, you may be sitting in your car at a red light with cars on either side of you, or maybe behind or in front of your car, and one of those vehicles could be emitting this booming sound. This sound may even be so loud as to shake your car. Such volume of sound could have your side and rearview mirrors rattling. As obnoxious as this may be to many motorists, it may be nowhere near as unnerving as when you are bombarded with this loudness accompanied by offensive lyrics. These lyrics are probably designed to offend the occasional listener, and not the avid fan of such a group's entire artistic style.
Try explaining the consideration of "style" to a young child of six or so, who could be sitting in one of these other cars, and may be mentally recording these possibly offensive musical phrases for future use in his or her conversation. The issue could then become one less of occasional annoyance, and more of moral ethics concerning responsibility for the education of youth in this country. You might not wish to instill in your children possible hatred of the police, or of women, or of the government, as some of these groups today may be encouraging their listeners to do through their lyrics. These decisions of love and hate may be better determined through personal experience. Allowing children to make such decisions later in life could prove a better answer for providing a safer, and more morality-based society in which to bring up future generations. Therefore, including a warning on the front of music albums, containing what could be considered offensive lyrics and providing a printing of the song lyrics may help to meet the many concerns of parents of youngsters in today's society.
A third possible use of such printed information could benefit consumers looking to better understand the artist's meaning behind the song. By providing printed lyrics to each song of an album, musical groups could then draw in a possibly otherwise apathetic ear to their style of music. Because some self-proclaimed critics of the music scene may tend to be somewhat "turned-off" by the faster or more aggressive music styles, many bands are sometimes sloughed off purely out of public ignorance. By providing the extra knowledge, to accompany the music, many people who would otherwise deny this music as artful, may then view it as having credence and depth of emotion.
Music can have a good effect upon society as a whole, if its creator and producers, as well as promotion representatives and distributors understand the responsibility they may have to the consumer.
Artists of the music world could have a more positive influence on their listeners, both young and old, if they were to understand that an educated consumer might really be their best customer.
