ongress to hold hearings regarding the placement of warning labels on "offensive" albums. The National PTA also called for warning labels on violent, sexually explicit, or vulgar albums in their yearly address in 1984. During the Congressional hearings, several ideas were considered including warning labels, a ratings system, and singer/songwriter Frank Zappa's idea, which was to publish the actual lyrics of the album and put them on a sheet of paper inside the packaging. Zappa's idea was dismissed, but the ideas of warning labels and ratings were reviewed, with the eventual recommendation that recording companies label their music based on content. Who determined content, and how, became the issue as demonstrated by the treatment of the 1992 album "Death Certificate" by the "Gangsta" rapper, Ice Cube. This album was determined to be so profane that Billboard Magazine asked merchandisers to refuse to sell or advertise it. Ice Cube's British label, Island Records, then edited two of the album's tracks before selling it and without obtaining permission from Ice Cube to alter his recording. In one of these edited songs, "No Vaseline", Ice Cube raps about his former N.W.A. band mates with lyrics such as " Yo Dre… you been a *censored*, Eazy-E saw your ass and went in it quick. "Tried to dis Ice Cube but it wasn't worth it, cause the broomstick fits your ass so perfect." The language of these lyrics may be offensive to many, but if a buyer or a retailer is discouraged because of the warning label, listeners might also miss out on a song like "Alive on Arrival." In this song Ice Cube describes what it's like to seek treatment at South Central L.A.'s much under-funded Martin Luther King Hospital. "Look at the waiting room, it's filled to the brim like the County Jail day-room, nobody's getting help, since we're poor the hospital moves slow… then I begin the ass-kissin' just to get helped by an over-worked physician." There is also ...
