As Yogi Berra used to say, "it’s like Déjà vu all over again."

Not content with debating energy policy and the eternal round of problems at the FBI, the U.S. House of Representatives returned once more to one of its favorite whipping boys: the music industry. A House Subcommittee started yet another round of hearings on pop music, specifically whether the current voluntary music rating system is "adequate." The hearings were viewed by many who testified as a warm-up for Senate hearings called by Senator and failed V.P candidate Joseph "Man O’ God" Lieberman.

This, of course, is nothing new. Congress has been holding hearings on "what shall we do about pop music" as long as I can remember. Heck, back when Tipper Gore was just the wife of a junior senator from Tennessee, she was locking horns with the late Frank Zappa over rock and roll and the First Amendment. (Zappa, rock’s most brilliant satirist, took recordings of the hearings and incorporated them into his album "Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention." I have to tell you, I miss Frank more every day.)

The star of the latest hearings, even though he wasn’t even there, was Mr. Marshall Mathers of Detroit, Michigan, better known as Eminem. Eminem’s Grammy-winning "The Marshall Mathers LP" is particularly notable for having ticked off people across the entire political spectrum. Conservatives hate it because of its violent and sexual content. Liberals hate it because it contains disparaging references to women and gays. Somehow, however, "The Marshall Mathers LP" has sold umpty- million copies.

The record was prominently featured in the recent hearings, most hilariously when Montana Representative Barbara Cubin demanded that Hilary Rosen, President of the Recording Industry Association of America, read the lyrics to Eminem’s "Kill You" on the House floor. Personally, I would have loved to see that, especially if they brought in a rhythm section behind Rosen so she could really get into the groove. Unfortunately, Rosen refused. Maybe next time she’ll be better prepared.

Unlike many of Eminem’s critics, I’ve actually listened to "The Marshall Mathers LP." And I can tell you this: people who denounce Eminem as a sexist and a homophobe don’t know the half of it. It’s not just women and gays he has it in for. That dude hates everybody. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a record before where the first track contains a spoken-word message from the singer asserting that by buying the record "you have just kissed his [expletive deleted]…And he is going to kill you."

But that, of course, is the point. It’s something I’ve never heard before. It’s stuff that makes you laugh out loud, not because of its piercing wit, but because you’re going "I can’t believe he said that!" Eminem is pushing the envelope of pop music lyrics while, paradoxically, engaging in a tradition as old as rock and roll itself: the tradition of freaking parents out.

Since the 1950’s, Rock and roll has always been about music that makes parents hold their ears, scream in horror and write angry letters to their Congressmen demanding that something be done. I wonder if Elvis would have achieved his near-divine status in the musical pantheon had parents across America said to their kids "Why don’t you play that record by that Elvis fellow again? I think it’s so neat how he manages to sound like a black man. And he’s so limber!" You wouldn’t have been able to give his records away. What if parents had said, "Oh, look it’s that nice Jagger boy and his Rolling Stones. Honey, why don’t you grow your hair long like them?" Jagger would be working as a bank clerk right now, which would have at least spared us the rotting horror that was the Stones in the late 80’s and 90’s. Call it rap, call it rock, it’s all about rebellion.

Artists in the 90’s however, face a problem. How do you shock parents who grew up listening to lyrics like "Why Don’t We Do it in the Road?" and Prince’s "Darling Nikki"? Well, if you’re Eminem, you record songs like "Kill You" which contains references to Eminem raping and killing his mother, or "Kim", a fantasy about wife-killing which just happens to have the name of Eminem’s ex-wife as its title. One can’t help but wonder what Thanksgiving is like at the Mathers household.

Every time congressional hearings are held on Eminem, every time there’s another news story about a local government banning him from some concert venue, he becomes more and more a rebel. Congressional hearings about "the problem" are the ultimate validation of rebellion, the ultimate stamp of disapproval that lets kids know that "this is real, this is dangerous, this is stuff your parents don’t want you to hear." When that happens, Eminem rings up another million dollars. Heck, after holding congressional hearings on labeling of pop music, lawmakers ought to be demanding a cut of the album sales to augment the shrinking budget surplus. After all, they’re doing as much to hype those sales as the record companies ever dreamed of doing.

COPYRIGHT 2001 BY JERRY D. RHOADES, JR.