me problematic. Moreover, records are bought privately, so that there is no public forum involved, and they are bought voluntarily, so that no person has to be threatened by their messages because each individual is free not to buy the record (Coletti 1987:443-451; Kaufman 1986:254). Of all the legal debates, the one focusing on obscenity was most clear-cut. All legal articles that considered this issue before the Skywalker trial concluded that music could never be considered obscene. Particularly, it was claimed that records could never pass the "as a whole" test because on even the most explicit albums there will be some songs which are not obscene as defined by the standards of the Miller test (Berry and Wolin 1986:598; Block 1990:794-796; Coletti 1987:427-438; Goodchild 1986:177-180; Holt 1990:61-67; Kaufman 1986:254-257; Scheidemantel 1985-1986:479-482). Moreover, musical recordings by definition have artistic value, and they fail to pass the "dominant theme" test because lyrics are often secondary to the music or can in any case not be considered separate from the music (Judge Gonzalez did so anyway). Also, records do not appeal to the prurient interest, even when they are judged to be indecent (from a legal point of view indecency is not obscenity, see Scheidemantel 1985-1986:476). Other obscenity problems result from the fact that music is an art form and that words to music, unlike the written word, can never be proven to arouse sexual or violent conduct. Because the obscenity of music can never be clearly defined, any form of such legislation on music would be vague (vague laws are unconstitutional). Also, obscenity laws on music would be "constitutionally overbroad" because, when the target is the protection of children, any person regardless of age would be affected too, and because only one or a few of the songs on an entire album may constitute unprotected speech (Berry and Wolin 1986:604; Goodchild 1986:171-174). The over...
