AT Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 15:17:22 Dan wrote:

>In a message dated 5/7/2004 1:03:00 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>audities-owner@smoe.org writes:
>This kind of surprised me and then on another level doesn't.
>I work in a music store where we can't play anything with profanity (though
>frankly that refers mostly to songs with a certain word beginning with the
>sixth letter of the alphabet and anything with overt sexual context) and 
>we've had
>this debate many times. It seems that when anything is "bleeped" it not 
>only
>draws extra attention to the lyrics of the song, but it also makes the mind
>wonder what was missed. I think that the "dirty" versions are quite often 
>less
>offensive, especially given the tendency to bleep fairly inoffensive words
>(like any drug reference) in the clean edits.

Something that backfired in the '90s when the PMRC decided that all 
offensive lyrical content be stickered to warn the consumer....sales 
escalated AFTER some of the more mundane rap releases were 
targetted...suddenly these acts were getting far more attention then they 
may have deserved. Still, the stickering never did help ICE-T....who was 
more deserving of commercial accessibility than he ever got.

>Strangely I was in Best Buy once and they played a Streets track with 
>f-bombs
>intact on their in-house radio. We'd never get away with that. --Jason

I wonder how Gene Simmon's new solo album "Asshole" is going to fair...the 
debut single is "Firestarter", but the title track is sooooooo power pop 
perfect in a Foo's meets Fountains of Wayne collision. The chorus features 
the word "Asshole" twice....and it's infectious as hell.

Speaking of Simmons...he appears on 'Third Watch' tonight as a New York 
crime lord out for revenge. Rumour has it that he gets a recurring role next 
season.

Jaimie Vernon,
Bullseye