STICKERS II: The MC5 album is not...

STICKERS II: The MC5 album is not the first potentially offensive rock reissue to be marketed without an advisory notice. There are no stickers on numerous older rock CDs that contain harsh language, including the Rolling Stones’ 1973 “Goat’s Head Soup” on Columbia, John Lennon’s 1970 “Plastic Ono Band” on Capitol/Apple and Prince’s 1980 “Dirty Mind” on Warner Bros.--all currently on sale at local record stores.

Suzie Talaat, executive director of the Parents Music Resource Center, the Arlington, Va.-based media watchdog group that engineered the voluntary record labeling agreement, believes that the industry should apply the same rules for stickers on reissues that they do for new releases.

“According to the agreement, any record that contains lyrics that are sexually explicit, violently explicit or promote substance abuse is supposed to have a label on it,” Talaat said. “It doesn’t matter how old it is; if it contains explicit language, parents need to know.”

Talaat said some record companies have a better track record than others when it comes to labeling reissues. She cited MCA Records, which placed a sticker on a reissue of Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Bummer Road” 1969 album from its Chess catalogue, and Warner Bros., which labeled a new compilation of Devo material--as examples of companies complying with the agreement.

But Bob Merlis, vice president and publicity director at Warner Bros., maintains that the record industry never agreed to label explicit albums released prior to 1985.

“As far as I know we are not obliged to go back in time and label every record that could possibly offend somebody,” Merlis said. “That would be an impossible task.”