My reviews are not meant to replace your good judgment!! Please be an active parent, not a robot!! If you disagree with me, I'd love to hear your opinion. Send comments, questions and suggestions for material to be reviewed to: Mwuggazer@redeemerbirmingham.org.

Ratings System:

Beyonce / B’Day / M

This new disc from Beyonce is her best yet.  Critics are calling it her best music to date, saying she has finally come of age.  I’m calling it her most mature because she relies more on her talent than on pushing the immature envelope.  Readers of this column know I’ve written Beyonce off in the past because she has used sex to sell records.  I’m not about to pronounce her Mother Teresa, but she has definitely backed off the extreme sexual image.  She is more likely to appear in an evening gown than lingerie.  She is definitely trying to cultivate an image of classic beauty than pin-up girl.  Beyonce’s lyrics on B’Day are more mature too.  She appears as a strong woman who knows what she wants, foregoing the highly sexual lyrics of the last CD.  There are a couple slip ups, especially on the track, Get Me Bodied.   No bad words, just a story of her and some friends going out to a club dancing, which becomes rather descriptive. 

Gwen Stephani / The Sweet Escape / XXX

Once upon a time, Gwen and Beyonce were similar, both came from bands with pretty clean images.  Both decided to step out and be risqué with their first solo CD.  If Beyonce has made a step back up the ladder, then Gwen has fallen several steps down.   Every track on the disc contain explicit lyrics.  Regular readers of this column know what I think of the clean versions of explicit lyrics songs – they are just as bad, because everybody knows (and sings) the words that are missing.  Stephani seems out to compete with the bad boys of rap, even inviting hard core rapper Akon into her disc.  Naughty Gwen.

Akon / Konvicted / XXX

Speaking of Akon, his new disc sets new standards for filth.  Worst yet, no less than four of the top ten iTunes downloads this week come from this disc.  That’s sad.  That should remind us all that it’s time for an iPod check.  I’ve suggested it before and I still think it’s a good idea to sit down with your kids once in a while and let them show you what is on their iPod.  Make it very positive, show and tell like.  Let them educate you – bring you up to date on music.  Show a real interest – don’t fake, FIND it.  Nothing builds bridges like real authentic interest in someone’s likes and dislikes, and nothing turns off a teenager more than if it’s fake. 

When it comes to removing objectionable content, I suggest you use your best judgment, but it’s always best when the decision to remove it is theirs, based on the questions you’ve asked and the discussions you’ve had. 

Shocked! 

According to a recent survey by the University of Southern California (although I really don’t like their football team, I suspect their research is first rate), 21% of parents say their kids spend too much time online.  I’m not shocked to hear that kids spend so much time online – hardly!  I’m shocked by the response of parents.  How is it possible that a kid spends anymore time online than their parents believe is good?  Ok, I’m not a parent, so please educate me if I’m missing something.  I know it’s not easy to regulate the amount of time kids spend doing anything.  The Internet, however, is so much easier to regulate than other activities.  Software such as Net Nanny (www.netnanny.com) allow you to set a specific amount of time for each of your kids.  If you think that your kids need to spend only one hour a day online, then set that feature, and boom-zap-kapow! At the end of 60 minutes, your kid is logged off.  Need extra time for homework?  Just ask Mom or Dad, and they will enter a password to give you extra time.

I remember when I was a kid and my Mom would limit our TV watching in random, emotionally driven ways.  She would get sick of hearing the TV, or see a commercial she didn’t like, or maybe she was just having a bad hair day, so she’d yell at us that we were watching too much TV.  It would make me feel guilty and defensive, especially when the accusation was random and emotional.  Then Mom wised up.  She set a specific parameter: One hour of TV a day.  We could watch whatever we wanted for one hour.  It could be after school, or prime time or whenever.  (Of course, this was in the 70’s when the worst morals on TV came from Gilligan’s Island.)  By setting this specific parameter, my brother and I could watch TV without fear of guilt.  Mom could bite her tongue knowing that we would have to turn off the TV soon and she would get what she wanted.  Gone were the arguments and fights, and we learned discipline and self-control over media consumption.  I’m pretty sure Mom would have had similar rules for the Internet.