Reviews

Newhouse Press Service Feature on Eric Nuzum and Parental Advisory
(April 3, 2001)

Copyright 2001 Newhouse News Service All Rights Reserved

Newhouse News Service

April 3, 2001 Tuesday

SECTION: LIFESTYLE

LENGTH: 773 words

HEADLINE: Don't Blame Teen Behavior on Songs, Says Censorship Critic

BYLINE: By CLINT O'CONNOR; Clint O'Connor is a reporter for The Plain Dealer of Cleveland. He can be reached at coconnor(at)plaind.com

BODY:

The loud, continuous loop of anti-music commentary from politicians and various special-interest groups suggests that certain songs make teen-agers want to kill people, or themselves. Eric Nuzum believes such diatribes are classic self-serving bunk.

"It's grandstanding, I think it's very distracting," says Nuzum. "If someone says that Marilyn Manson causes people to commit suicide, I say 'Prove it! How do you know that?'"

Nuzum, of Kent, Ohio, is the author of the new book "Parental Advisory: Music Censorship in America" (HarperPerennial, $15 paperback). Nuzum is as horrified by school killings as anyone, but says that blaming music is always a bad idea.

"The real problem is, after a Columbine, politicians should come out and say this is terrible, but it is out of our control. But that's political suicide. So they blame Marilyn Manson."

As for the latest bad, bad boy of music, Eminem, Nuzum says, "he represents something that happens periodically. He becomes an icon, a way to get media attention. You start to get all the shouldn'ts: He shouldn't be able to perform, he shouldn't get an award. Those are terrible ideas. It buys into the logic that somehow music is bad for you."

Obviously Nuzum, 34, is for free speech. The book, despite its saucy subject matter, is a rather dry, well-researched overview of censorship.

Nuzum's full-time job is as program director of the National Public Radio affiliate at Kent State University. There, he does not push the envelope for obscene lyrics and controversial rappers. The station plays the relatively tame strains of Bach and Mozart. Nuzum, who writes free-lance articles for the Free Times and other publications, also contributes occasional commentaries to "Marketplace" on NPR.

Although his book alludes to several historic incidents, its primary focus is the rock era, especially the past two decades, ever since the Parents Music PAGE 2 Newhouse News Service April 3, 2001 Tuesday

Resource Center started demanding parental advisory warning labels on albums.

The center was founded in 1984 by Tipper Gore and eight others, after Gore objected to references to masturbation in Prince's "Darling Nikki," from the "Purple Rain" soundtrack.

"Boy, was I lit up about that," says Nuzum. "I couldn't believe that someone accused something I loved so much of being so wrong, so corrupted. I thought, 'This isn't right. This isn't a negative influence.'"

The problem was, he didn't really have anywhere to go with all those fired-up feelings. Until now.

Nuzum says he has always been a passionate music fan. In his younger years he was into punk and new wave, and bounced in and out of a few bands. He went to Kent State, dropped out, then returned in the mid-1990s to finish his degree. As a project for a class called Speech in a Free Society, he developed a Web page, "A Brief History of Banned Music" (now found at www.ericnuzum.com). He figured his mother and few friends might click by, and that would be the end of it.

But the site was featured on Netscape's "What's Cool on the Net," and suddenly he was getting hundreds of e-mails a day. One was from an editor at William Morrow (since acquired by HarperCollins) who suggested turning his findings into a book.

In "Parental Advisory" he notes that there is nothing new about reactionary censorship, it just comes with different names and faces. Nuzum suggests that it is also another form of racial discrimination.

He argues that there is little difference between the sentiments of Eric Clapton's 1974 hit "I Shot the Sheriff," a cover of the Bob Marley song, and "Cop Killer," rapper Ice-T's controversial 1992 song first recorded by his band Body Count. Except that Clapton is white and Ice-T is black. "Racial discrimination is so ingrained in music," Nuzum writes, "that it is sometimes difficult to separate the two." He makes a good point. But it should also be noted that "Cop Killer" includes liberal use of the F-word, with a few M-F-words, which contributed to its nefarious status.

Nuzum concedes that the battle over alleged "evil" songs would be waged more effectively if those with the biggest microphones came forward more often. "This would be much less of a problem if artists stood up for themselves," he says. "You're selling 2 million records and somebody's putting up a stink at a Wal-Mart who cares?"

As for protecting kids from questionable CDs, Nuzum believes that responsibility lies with parents, not government agencies. He stresses that kids, teens and young adults have a lot more to worry about anyway.

"Of all the ways to screw up your life," he says, "music is a relatively minor one."