Clueless About Song Lyrics? Translations Are Now Available

Charlie Gilreath’s parental instincts kicked in about a year ago when he came upon his fiancee’s 11-year-old daughter belting out the words to one of her favorite songs, “I Wanna Make Love to You” by Boyz II Men.

“That song details in tedium the act of stripping one’s partner naked,” said Gilreath, president of a Hollywood music management company. “That is great for adults, but for an 11-year-old, it started to concern me.”

It concerned him so much, in fact, that this month he is launching Entertainment Monitor, a magazine aimed at parents who share his apprehension about the messages children are getting through radio, television, movies and computers.

“I realized parents were clueless,” said Gilreath, who is Entertainment Monitor’s publisher and managing editor. “Many parents can’t compete with those influences because they don’t know about the content.”

Each issue of Entertainment Monitor will contain summaries of chart-topping songs in the pop, rock, rap, R&B;, dance and country music categories, along with warnings about potentially offensive lyrics and translations of the latest slang. The magazine will also include stories about television, film and the Internet to help parents keep tabs on industry trends and identify valuable programs, movies and cyberspace sites.

But the heart of Entertainment Monitor will be its 240 music summaries, carefully researched by a staff of five “decoders” for parents who are either too daunted or intimidated to go about deciphering the lyrics for themselves.

The premiere issue calls “Water Runs Dry” by Boyz II Men “a love song about the rekindling of love and the struggle of saving a relationship before it’s too late.” The magazine says “Dear Mama / Old School” by Interscope rapper 2Pac is a “description of the struggling life in the ghetto, the crime and [2Pac’s] appreciation for his mother and what she went through.”

“It’s a very arduous process,” David Baiz, one of Entertainment Monitor’s decoders, says of writing the summaries. “You have to listen to the song again and again.”

The decoders listen to the entire CD to make sure parents don’t unwittingly endorse songs they might feel are inappropriate for their children. Take the Montell Jordan single “This Is How We Do It,” for example.

“It appeared benign. It’s a happy, upbeat song,” Gilreath said. “But when you buy the song, the B-side is ‘I Just Wanna Get Laid,’ which talks about sex with no strings attached.”

Gilreath is hoping his publication will counter the appetite for mandatory record labeling that seems to be gaining momentum in Washington. Such labeling, he contends, would be arbitrary and tantamount to censorship.

“I believe ours is a better solution,” says Gilreath, who has signed up a few thousand subscribers so far. “We just give out the basic facts--what the lyric is saying and meaning. We simply believe in a person’s right to know.”

As president of the conservative Parents’ Music Resource Center in Arlington, Va., Barbara Wyatt worked with record companies in 1991 to establish warning labels to help parents keep an eye on the music their children listen to. Entertainment Monitor will help with that mission, she said.

“I think [Gilreath] has found a niche that is very much needed and will be appreciated by parents, especially since it’s expanded to include other forms of entertainment,” Wyatt said. “It gives parents an opportunity to know what is in a song before they make a purchase.”

So far, the Parents’ Music Resource Center is the most vocal supporter of Entertainment Monitor and its mission, but Gilreath says he is not catering to either conservatives or liberals: “We’re not looking at this from any set agenda.”

To underscore the magazine’s independence, Gilreath decided not to accept any advertising for Entertainment Monitor. For now, the $36-a-year subscriptions will fund the monthly publication. The magazine may sell some ads in the future, but it will never accept any funding from the entertainment industry, he said.

Still, that move will hardly guarantee the magazine’s success.

“Almost half of new magazines die within the first year, and roughly 30% of them do not even have a second issue,” said Samir Husni, head of the magazine program at the University of Mississippi’s journalism department in Oxford.

Entertainment Monitor’s narrow focus will give it a competitive edge in a market already flooded with entertainment magazines, Husni said. Gilreath says Entertainment Monitor will more closely resemble Consumer Reports than Entertainment Weekly.

Gilreath’s company, Gilreath Entertainment Co., is footing the start-up costs for Entertainment Monitor. He won’t say how much he’s invested in the magazine, but he expects it to turn a profit in six to 12 months.

For now, Entertainment Monitor is available by subscription only, although Gilreath hopes that music stores will begin selling the magazine in the coming months. Many stores have expressed interest in doing so, but they are waiting to see the first issue before making any commitments, he said.

A California native who came of age in the less-than-totally wholesome 1960s, the 35-year-old Gilreath is quick to note the irony of creating this magazine for a generation that warned never to trust anyone over 30.

“Parents who grew up in the ‘60s and ‘70s can’t imagine that there would be a generation gap here,” he says. “There’s a false sense of security in thinking that we’re still in touch.”

* To subscribe to Entertainment Monitor, call (800) 777-7016 or write to P.O. Box 81, Hollywood, CA 90099.