stuff that pisses me off
Take a look at the cover of Rufus Wainwright's latest album.
What do you see there in the bottom left-hand corner, spoiling the lovely artwork?
See how they had to move the "A" and the "I" around just to make room for the stupid thing?
Must contain lots and lots of bad words, right?
Nope. None. Not one single curse word.
It does, however, contain a song called "Gay Messiah" in which Rufus sings: "No it will not be me, Rufus the baptist I be, No I won't be the one baptised in cum. What will happen instead, someone will demand my head, and then I will kneel down and give it to them looking down"
It's naughty, true... but take a look at this record...
The latest from Martha Wainwright, Rufus' sister.
A pristine, lovely, perfect album cover, not at all marred by a hideous Parental Advisory sticker.
Must be a pure and wholesome record filled with uplifting music to enlighten and strengthen the culture of life which our country holds so dear!
Oh... except for the opening track which is called "Bloody Motherfucking Asshole" -- a song she wrote about her father in which the chorus is simply her screaming those words over and over and over.
(But it's okay. She's not one of them queers.)
What do you see there in the bottom left-hand corner, spoiling the lovely artwork?
See how they had to move the "A" and the "I" around just to make room for the stupid thing?
Must contain lots and lots of bad words, right?
Nope. None. Not one single curse word.
It does, however, contain a song called "Gay Messiah" in which Rufus sings: "No it will not be me, Rufus the baptist I be, No I won't be the one baptised in cum. What will happen instead, someone will demand my head, and then I will kneel down and give it to them looking down"
It's naughty, true... but take a look at this record...
The latest from Martha Wainwright, Rufus' sister.
A pristine, lovely, perfect album cover, not at all marred by a hideous Parental Advisory sticker.
Must be a pure and wholesome record filled with uplifting music to enlighten and strengthen the culture of life which our country holds so dear!
Oh... except for the opening track which is called "Bloody Motherfucking Asshole" -- a song she wrote about her father in which the chorus is simply her screaming those words over and over and over.
(But it's okay. She's not one of them queers.)
2 Comments:
Andrew, you bring sunshine to my day every day I'm blessed to be in your presence. :-)
Hey Joni,
Look I'm down with 2 Live Crew and John Denver as much as the next guy. The Parental Advisory sticker is arbitrary, stupid, and ugly, but I felt a little clarification might be in order.
First, rest easy. I think further inspection of Rufus' cover art will reveal that although it is obscured in the bottom left hand corner by the rather unaesthetic warning, the art itself was probably not changed to accomodate it. Check out the way he spaces his first name, R U FU S. I think it a bit of a stretch to assume that grouping the WA and the IN together wasn't the original intention of the artist.
Beyond that, if you are going to set up a rating system, regardless of if you consider 'cum' to be a curse word or not; surely you would agree that cumming on someone would be catagorized as explicit content. It doesn't really matter if it's gay or straight, bukkake trumps cursing.
Lastly, it would probably be more fun if the evil PMRC was showing it's homophobic hand in not slapping a label on Martha's disc, but I fear the answer is more mundane. Rufus is just a bigger artist. He's signed to Geffen. His sister produced her album on spec and released it on Zoe, which is distributed by the bluegrass label Rounder Records. When the PMRC-driven witch hunt was over in 1989, no law was actually changed. The major labels just agreed to use the warning sticker as a form of self-policing in lieu of an actual rating system. Zoe is not a major label, so it wasn't in on the agreement, thus it doesn't have to use the warning. Of course that means Martha probably can't sell her wares at Wal-mart, but I doubt she was counting on their support anyway.
Stay Hungry,
Dee
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