ABOUT - LDSDJ

General Guidelines and Introduction

"From a moral standpoint, it is the lyric that we should be concerned with. Here the issue is relatively simple. If the message tends to promote evil - it is evil! And even though we happen to like the music to which the evil message is set, it is still evil and should be avoided."

-Lex de Azevedo,"What About Pop Music?" New Era, Jan. 1971, 22

"Much of our confusion about music can be cleared up by becoming more conscious of the music we are listening to and of its effect on us. Once we recognize what the music is doing to us, we are in a better position to screen out the bad and enjoy the good."

-Lex de Azevedo, "A Closer Look at Popular Music," Ensign, Mar. 1985, 35

We rate songs according to their content, and then you decide what to do with it. The Lyrics Browser is the heart of the whole operation. It's easy to use, and actually pretty self-explanatory, but we'll give you the run-down anyway.

LDSDJ is run by a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS, or "Mormon"), although this website has no official connection to the church in any way. Because of our religious convictions, fairly conservative Christian standards are used to rate the songs. These standards are represented by icons to make things easier, which will be seen next to songs that we feel they apply to. If you want to know what an icon means, simply press the "Icons" button in the navigator at the top of the Lyrics Browser or Artist's Page. Each icon is accompanied by an explanation.

The standards, as well as the ratings, are provided as guidelines only. They do not take the place of your own good judgment.

Ratings are not based on whether or not we like a song or an artist. On the contrary, we have been unexpectedly surprised by inappropriate content in many of our own favorite songs.

Once you have browsed to an Artist's Page and begin to scroll through the songs, you will notice, first of all, that some songs are blue and some are black. Blue songs have been reviewed. Negative content will be represented with an icon. An "approved" song will have a green "GO" sign next to it.

Black songs have not been reviewed. This may be because we have only added an artist's songs to the page and not had time to review them, or we may be in need of lyrics. We do not assume different versions or remixes of a song have identical lyrics. Experience has shown that this is not always the case.

We may need translations of foreign songs, or foreign words in songs. You will see a note next to the song when this is the case.

What's This All About?

This entire website was conceived and created and is maintained by one person. The reasons are far too numerous for a complete listing, but the main concepts are these:

There's a lot of garbage out there and people don't pay attention to what they're listening to!
People tend to assume their favorite artists are beyond reproach. Ie, so-and-so would never sing about anything bad!
In the LDS church, local dance committees exist all over the world to approve music for dances. They all do the same thing, and their efforts are not consolidated or passed on.
There has never been a centralized resource like this that I am aware of and I always wished there was.

Because we have DJ'ed LDS dances since the late 80's, we have felt it necessary to address some of our content to these specific events.

We do not take lyric submissions unless specified (like when translations are needed).

A lot of effort has gone into this website and its content. If you find something that you feel is in error, please feel free to let us know! We would especially like to know if there are any changes to the functionality and content of third-party links.

Third-party links are beyond our control! Use at your own risk!

We hope you find this site useful in taking control of what goes into your head and home, and that you will share LDSDJ with your friends and family!

Well, get busy! Familiarize yourself with the lyrics that you grew up with, that your kids are interested in, that you're thinking about buying, etc! Don't buy it if it's inappropriate! And - tell others about us so they can clean up their act, too! Let's start a revolution! Viva Clean Music!

NOTE: Donations will me made to "American Gothic", our Paypal account.

[Please Note:]

This project is undergoing a complete overhaul and we hope that you will forgive any present imperfections. We are in the painstaking process of generating all necessary new content while simultaneously updating and correcting existing content to more appropriately fit the new format. Thanks!