UK chart music review for parents – Jan 2017

What did I just hear you sing? Where did you learn THAT move? O.M.G. You’re only 4,7,12,16 …. Eeek
Age appropriate music – Every parents minefield?
Not any more!

Hart Entertainment is a family run bespoke party creation service for children of all ages, operating through Brighton, London and the surrounding areas. Directed by long term DJ and entertainer Zoe Hart. Here she writes about this months current UK chart hits from the perspective of what a child may see and hear should they type their new favourite song title into the dreaded internet search bar. What they hear on the radio is usually a ‘clean’ version and not often at all relational to what the search result will produce. Each listing comes with a brief description and an age rating for both the track and the video.

There has been a HUGE increase in the amount of requests for hip hop orientated dance music. Mainly due to kids wanting to dance together, and lets face it once out of the age range of black lace’s classics Agado, Superman and the Hokey Cokey what is there? From Psy’s Gangnam Style which includes ‘hey sexy lady’ through Silento’s Watch me Whip we’ve arrived at Lean and Dab and The Quan. It’s really easy to see how the music from these dance craze’s leads them to forming an ‘appreciation’ of tracks that are seemingly sounding similar but in reality are giving a very different message.

This month, I have taken the worst offenders from the top 50 UK listings in Spotify. Having recently moved over to using Spotify to DJ with, I am in charge of organising and playing the music and can monitor what is played when I put in the effort to organise the music.
However it is worth noting that Spotify does not come with any kind of filter for children unlike Apple Music. This means if you add your child to your family account they will have access to and will be shown without warning all content.
The only warning is the word explicit next to the track, which doesn’t even display on the phone version. There is no clean option or an ability to stop them from clicking on it. The radio stations play these tracks with the explicit words cut out but this may encourage young people to search for the full track. As a responsible parent, I urge you to please be very aware of the following tracks title and the artists. I’m flagging them due to the amount of young people requesting it for their 10th + birthday parties

WARNING The descriptions in these reviews are hard hitting and meant to give an insight into what your children are being exposed to. All videos required me to have my restricted settings on youtube turned to off. It’s really easy to do this at the bottom of every page if you are logged on.

 

1. Black Beatles – Rae Sremmurd
Personally I found the video and the lyrics humiliating and degrading to women. The imagery of smoking, drinking, drugs and smashing stuff up is rife.
Age rating 21+

2. Starboy – The Weekend
God even I love this guys music, but honestly I had no idea just how suggestive his lyrics are. I thought feel my face was a bit of a one off, but it would seem not. The opening scene in the video is of him killing someone through suffocation. He proceeds to smash everything up and refers to loving his B word cos she does something with white stuff that pleases him and uses the MF word in every chorus twice.
Age rating 21+

3. Fake Love – Drake
The song itself is not so bad lyrically. It only contains the S word once. The video on the other hand is full on. There’s sex, and a HUGE amount of violence, guns and real blood splattered when his girlfriend gets shot.
Age rating song 14+ video 18+

4. Side to Side – Ariana Grande feat Nicki Minaj
So the sisters are doing it to themselves too. Nicki Minaj from Frozen fame rapping here of riding a dick, calls herself a B word, says the F word and the imagery from the video is scantily clad women all the way. Nice one Nicki! NOT
Age rating 18+

5. Rockabye – Clean Bandit, Sean Paul & Anne Marie
The song is really catchy, and gives the message that single mums do whatever they have to in order to provide for their child which is a good message, however In this instance shes a pole dancer and clearly not happy about it. She wants her child to have a better life but is prepared to do things she doesn’t want to do in order to give it to them. Isn’t that a bit messed up? What about setting up your own business or just doing something that you would enjoy.
Age rating song 8+ video 16+

6. 24K Magic – Bruno Mars
I actually went to watch this to lighten things up. This video that is accessible to all is the same except it lacks the B word. The imagery is the same, talking about designer nonsense, drinking champagne covered in bling and ladies bottoms center camera.
Age rating song 8+ video 16+

I think it’s too easy to find things on the internet these days that once seen or heard can’t be unseen or unheard, which having spoken to adults some can find shocking, but imagine how that must be for a child. What do they feel and can we help guide them through this quagmire of easily obtained adult content?
I hope this review has gone someway to helping

References: Wikipedia, youtube, spotify, vevo