by Christina Donahue

Created on: August 16, 2008

Freedom of speech. It may be tired and played out and used to justify virtually every disagreement but no matter what it still holds true. We live in a country where artists are allowed, and even encouraged, to express themselves. There can be no hypocrisy; either we allow freedom of speech, or we don't.

The music industry can't be expected to censor what they put out. They know what sells- sex, drugs and rock and roll- and they're going to keep selling as long as we keep buying. The industry has no moral or legal responsibility whatsoever to "improve" lyrical content of their songs. They are responsible for hiring musicians they believe to be talented and promising, and basically exploiting them as much as they can. It makes sense that a corrupt system would produce corrupt results. But I digress.

Parents and teachers are really more concerned than anyone about the morality of lyrics. They are worried about the youth and what listening to certain types of songs may do to their kids. What they don't realize is that kids here that type of language and subject matter every day in the lunch room or on the soccer field. And it doesn't come just from the music they listen to. They are hearing it from movies, television, older friends, relatives, sometimes even parents. And with the explosion of internet accessibility to a younger audience, they can easily surf Urban Dictionary or YouTube to learn all the colorful words and slang they want.

Protecting kids from foul language is all good and noble, but what it really comes down to is the artist. It's up to the parents to monitor what their children see and hear, and an artist should not be penalized because of a parent's incompetency. No one would dream of telling a painter he isn't allowed to paint because his work is erotic, nor would you tell a writer he needs to stop writing because his main character is a heroin addicted prostitute. So why should music be any different? Musical artists are expressing themselves how they know best, the way someone else may dance or tell a story.

Even if it was a good idea to censor the music that is distributed, we would need to look elsewhere than the music industry. Asking the record companies, producers and managers to improve moral content is completely ridiculous; you can hope all you want but it's not going to happen. As I said before, a corrupt system yields a corrupt product. As long as the industry knows they can make a buck off of sex and foul language, they're going to do it.

So if we can't rely on the industry, and we know the artists aren't going to clean up (because artists, no matter the media, would never comply to censoring themselves) who can we look to for morality in music? The simple answer is: ourselves. Just plain don't listen to something if you don't like it. If you're not comfortable with your kids watching MTV, block it. If you're offended by songs on a particular radio station, turn the dial. Artists will continue making their music and the industry will continue distributing what they think will sell, but if you don't like it, don't buy it. America needs to stop passing the blame and take things into their own hands. It's not that hard.

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