It&8217;s up to parents to check music
Published 12:00 am Thursday, October 19, 2006
Fuddy duddies all across the country rose up in unison Monday. The proud moment came after a newly released study &8220;proves&8221; what moms and dads all across this great nation have been saying for years: that &8220;trashy&8221; music is going to get you in trouble.
That&8217;s right, the generations old adage that the music youth listen to is filthy trash has now been quantified.
A study by the Rand Corp. that was released this week shows teens who listen to music featuring raunchy, sexually descriptive music are more likely to have sex sooner than teens who listen to less raunchy music.
Parents in the 1950s believed Elvis Presley&8217;s gyrating hips were the devils incarnate, enough to send the crooner to the jailhouse for good.
In the 1960s, few parents had sympathy for the devils called the Rolling Stones or The Beatles.
And so on and so forth for the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Just insert some of the most popular music into one of those sentences and you&8217;ll describe the parental frustration of the decade.
But &8212; and maybe we&8217;re just getting old when we say this &8212; some of today&8217;s lyrics don&8217;t just allude to sex through innuendo.
Some actually describe acts as though watching something on the set of a pornographic film set.
And the music booming out of the speakers isn&8217;t just rap or hip-hop. Some country and pop tunes are equally as raunchy.
Critics are quick, however, to point to the artist and the music industry, blaming them for the overt lyrics and over-the-top messages. Both are just in business to make money. They aren&8217;t in charge of raising our children &8212; or giving them a moral compass by which to live. That&8217;s what parents are for.