Parental Advisory

In the span of about a year, two albums were released that I still know every lyric to every song. They were two albums that I should have had no idea about at the time. The albums that I speak of are seminal classics - Dr. Dre's The Chronic and Snoop Doggy Dogg's Doggystyle. One of my friends, when I was in 5th grade, had a purchased a copy of Snoop's work at a garage sale. We would sit in his room and listen to the album over and over again. I know I heard words and innuendos I shouldn't have at the time, but I never remember repeating them or understanding exactly what they meant. This was also the time that I realized there was such a thing as parental advisory labels. The parental advisory label was introduced in 1990. With its inception, it was only reserved for very explicit albums, but by 1992 there were 225 albums with the parental advisory label. It took me a while to realize that the albums I was purchasing at Walmart and Kmart were very different content-wise than the ones purchased at record stores and in the mall. Do you remember that they sold edited versions?

I remember those two albums not necessarily because of their music, but because of the videos that accompanied many of the albums' songs. The low riders, the White Sox hats, the Carhartt shirts (buttoned at the top button), the Chuck Taylors, the Ray-Ban Wayfarers - ALL.OF.IT. Sure there were gangster rap albums that preceded these two, but I remember these as the first commercially successful ones. Even our local, yokel radio station played What's My Name (they quickly changed the station's format and content). We would often call the station and request songs like What's My Name just to have the DJ become annoyed :). It seemed so real and it was a glimpse into a world that I had no idea existed. When I think of L.A., I think of the glitz and glam of Hollywood. I had no idea that the world that Dre and Snoop portrayed actually existed. Sure these two albums were popular, but one particular album during this time was actually bigger than both with the majority of my friends and it all had to do with one song. Warren G's - Regulate. I remember hearing this song for the first time via MTV and on the Above The Rim soundtrack. We simply could not get enough of that song (the album actually had several hits). I remember even certain teachers would let us listen to the edited version as a reward in class. It's a song that has definitely stood the test of time.


The West Coast scene was very popular in the early 90s and would only get bigger. These three albums also opened the doors for me to George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic. I'm 35 and still listen to these albums on occasion. No matter the content of the albums, they're still classics and will always be. They're a glimpse into a different time and era. For me, it was the time I realized that there was such a thing as Parental Advisory Explicit Content.