Reviews

Associated Press Review of Parental Advisory
(April 16, 2001)

The Associated Press

April 16, 2001, Monday, BC cycle

SECTION: Lifestyle

HEADLINE: BOOKS 4-16; Pop Culture: The roots of our shopping obsession

BYLINE: By TED ANTHONY, AP National Writer

BODY:

--<snip>-- Those who tried to stop the singing

Wherever art has appeared in history, someone hasn't been happy. Human expression is nothing if not controversial. In "Parental Advisory: Music Censorship in America"@ (Perennial, 349 pages, $15 paperback), pop-culture writer Eric Nuzum tries to make sense of why music has so angered people in America, and how artists and their would-be censors fight a continual battle over what music should reach the public.

Nuzum's work - obviously a labor of love and deep personal interest, as he explains in his preface - represents a staggering amount of research into congressional testimony, religious history and, most significantly, the efforts of Tipper Gore's Parents Music Resource Center to impact the way records are bought and sold. Nuzum has the cultural critic's eye for the quietly fascinating, but never lets his musings get in the way of the mountain of facts he has gathered.

In writing his book, he says: "I tested some long-held beliefs about right and wrong. Some of those tenets survived the process; some did not, and new ones were born along the way." He helps the reader do that as well.

That's what good books - and, come to think of it, good, provocative music - are all about.

--<snip>--