Umm. Cool. Maybe Xanga won’t turn into just another mall outlet for already-huge bands to get bigger like myspace did. All the “featured” bands there now are already nationwide; kind of kills the indie vibe they had when they first started with band sites.

And I don’t think ratings should be required for music because while there are pretty clear lines as to what constitutes ratings for video, music, since it deals more in abstract ideas and the listener is more involved interpretation-wise, is much more subjective.

Example.
The Rolling Stones did the song “Brown Sugar” which, without any use of “cuss” words, is about having sex with a black girl and indulges heavily in racial stereotypes. In plain english, it degrades black women. This song’s been all over the radio and was even in a Pepsi Super Bowl commercial in the late 90′s.

Then we’ve got “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails, with its famous line “I wanna fuck you like an animal”. The song as a whole is about how sex with someone “perfect” can distract from when things are otherwise a complete mess. This song (albeit censored) has also been all over the radio for over a decade.

“Brown Sugar”, riding on its catchy “old-time rock’n'roll” vibe and the exemption from normal standards due to being a “classic”, would never get any sort of disclaimer due to content. “Closer”, a sonically and psychologically uglier song with the word “fuck” used repeatedly, is an automatic disclaimer item. But which is more OFFENSIVE? I would say the overtly racist “Brown Sugar” is, but some people would disagree. Which is my point. Depends whether one person saying the wrong 4-letter word or saying “black women inherently sluts” is more offensive to your sensibilities. I’ll go with the latter. Show a boob in a movie and it’s an automatic R-rating. Music isn’t nearly so cut-and-dried, and is much more subjective as to what constitutes “offensive.” And some people, in an attempt to demonize certain music, will call things offensive that were totally unintended; like the idea that playing Stairway to Heaven backwards reveals satanic messages, Motley Crue has subliminal messages telling kids to kill themselves, and my favorite, how concerned parents caused the FBI to launch an investigation of the “real lyrics” of the Kingsmen song “Louie Louie” (trust me, you’ve heard it) in the 60′s, an investigation which lasted years and came up inconclusive.

So I would go with making music fairly free of ratings, with the option for bands to voluntarily rate for “explicit content”. Also, I wouldn’t create any age restrictions for audio listening.

An amusing related fact:
After Frank Zappa’s skirmish with Tipper Gore in Congress over objectionable lyrics in pop music, his next album was given a parental advisory disclaimer, which given Zappa’s normal lyrical fare isn’t that surprising, but this PARTICULAR album was a jazz INSTRUMENTAL album. To date it’s still the only instrumental album to receive the “explicit content” disclaimer.