>and imo...less detrimental to the youth when there was a
>distinction between grown folks music and music for the
>young people...

prince was seen to be lowering moral standards with 'we can fuck until the dawn, songs about incest, oral sex, etc etc by a lot of older black music listeners. i remember an interview with a MPLS deejay at the time in the mid 80s who talked at great length about how prince was leading kids astray and instilling them with no values. sure it might not have pandered to the youth so blatantly today (prince did appeal to a cross section of ages) but listen to the purple rain concert, those are teenage girls screaming, not women in their 40s.

a guy like Prince was looked at as a rebel
>because he crossed the line on many occasions...but I still
>don't really see how Prince was doing was really promoting
>the type of behavior by young people that say...an R.Kelly
>would be promoting.

he was just promoting agressive near-rape sex (extra loveable), casual sex without relationships, sex with your sibling, etc etc.

i think youre looking at this a bit too conveniently. if you were 30 in 1981 i bet youd have thought prince was a disgrace. prince just wrote crass stuff better with more flair and imagination and in better songs. he made it into a virtual artform, lol. but it was still crass.