standards of decency in mainstream entertainment have dropped severely. that doesn’t mean that mine have to. it’s personal. just because the things you listed are happening, doesn’t make them right.
besides, a lot of streaming sites have parental codes to protect children from inappropriate content. the content itself is usually rated. the minimal age requirement to join social media platforms is usually age 13. radio stations usually edit out profanity from their songs.
parents who care will find ways to be active in their children’s lives, and instil values.
this situation is even worse than ‘thriller 40’. ‘we are the world’ was (in part) about the children. michael cared deeply about them. they were a large portion of the audience that he gained during the success of ‘thriller’. parents approved of michael as a role model for them, and it was one that he took serious pride in. he wouldn’t want them to be subjected to such foulness. he himself was known for not swearing during that time period.
it’s not just about children; there are clean living people of all ages. as I stated before, profanity was absent from the previous releases. there’s no reason for it to be present here. these posthumous releases are not honouring michael’s message.
I said nothing about your beliefs. I'm talking about the general public and the idea that newer generations can't find out who Michael Jackson is because a USA For Africa documentary has profanity in it. There's are a lot of parents who take their children, even babies, into R-rated movies at the theater. There's kids who take guns to school, their parents likely bought the guns for them. You can find a lot of photos of parents & kids posing together with guns. A lot of schools today have metal detectors. There's even some kids today who beat up the teachers, because they got their cell phone taken away. They film and post schoolyard fights on Youtube.
Mike himself used profanity on
This Time Around. Mike was also known for grabbing his crotch in the 1980s. Which some parents complained about at the time. He was even asked about the crotch grabbing in the Oprah interview. If she mentioned it, then it was obviously well known. He recorded a song about groupies (
Dirty Diana). I doubt
Dirty Diana was a message for children, because they likely wouldn't be around any groupies who had sex with musicians backstage or at a hotel. Even in the 1980s, if kids were listening to the radio or watching MTV, Michael Jackson wasn't the only artist played there. There were many other singers/bands who didn't have a clean image (Mötley Crüe, Van Halen, Madonna, Prince, George Michael, 2 Live Crew, Plasmatics, etc.). There was a really popular song called
Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, which was not a clean message at all.
Relax was not in some disguised double entendre form either, the lyrics are pretty clear on what it is about.
There were church people who didn't allow their children to listen to any secular music, only gospel & spirituals. They considered secular music the "devil's music". Michael Jackson would not qualify as a gospel or Christian singer.
besides, a lot of streaming sites have parental codes to protect children from inappropriate content. the content itself is usually rated. the minimal age requirement to join social media platforms is usually age 13. radio stations usually edit out profanity from their songs.
Do you really think all kids tell the truth about their age when joining a site (and the same for adults)? The radio does not matter if kids listen to music on Youtube, Spotify, TikTok and other streaming sites or satellite/subscription radio where the songs aren't the clean versions.