WORK IN PROGRESS!

If you ever were unsure about which age rating to give your custom, here is a very over-detailed deep dive into what seems to fit within the FF, SR and M rating labels. This guide will also talk about how to handle slurs, so you don't end up with a karaoke party where people say a bunch of no-no words and ruins the fun.

Strong language ahead, for obvious reasons. Slurs have been mildly censored to avoid anything coming across as hate speech by accident.

This is the age rating everything playable in Lego Rock Band has, and as such should be okay for a E10+ audience. This means it can contain mild references to violence and thematic elements, and veiled terms relating to drinking and sexuality that kids won't understand and won't make their parents scandalized hearing them sing it.

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• Mild swears like “darn”, “crud”, “butt” and others you could feasibly hear in most PG-rated films should be okay. Context plays a part here of course; don't label a song talking about “butt stuff” family friendly, duh.

• General references to fighting, fantasy weaponry and such is fine. Don't label it as FF if there are references to guns, realistic violence or horror violence and the like.

• Only mild mentions of intimacy, such as lyrics about kissing and holding. However, if a song contains a dirty joke or euphemism that could mean something else and that won't sound weird coming out of a kid's mouth, its fine in moderation (hell, Lego Rock Band has “Summer of 69” in it).

• Only general references to drinks or medicine without mentions of drunkness or getting high or the like. Any mention of smoking or non-prescription drugs should not appear under family friendly.

• General stuff such as heart break, feeling sad and overcoming obstacles is fine. References to “loss” and the like is also usually fine. Anything heavier should not be labeled as FF.

• General references to God and other deities is fine. Hardcore blasphemy or going into scary details about Hell and like, not so much.

• Make sure the art doesn't contain nudity, blood, obscene gestures or stuff that could scare the kids. Harmonix should *NOT* have labeled “Party Hard” by Andrew WK as FF, for example.

Song should be acceptable for a T-rated game, such as Rock Band 3. Can contain some swears and suggestive language, as well as general references to things like violence, drinking/smoking, heavier topics and such. If a song contains language that would be allowed in official DLC, it should be fine in this age rating.

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• General swears like “damn”, “bitch”, “crap” and “piss” are fine within the SR-rating. Harder swears should be reserved for M.

• Most songs about violence should be fine with a SR rating. However, descriptions of extreme gory violence or songs describing in great detail real life atrocities might not, depending on context and extremity.

• General descriptions of sex and sexuality, including lyrics directly talking about sex, intimacy and pleasure, are fine in SR. More graphic descriptions of sexual acts, genitalia and hardcore fetishes are perhaps best labeled as M.

• Lyrics about drinking, smoking and mild recreational drug use are usually okay within SR. Mentions of harder drugs should be to show the negative effects of them, otherwise it should be labeled as M.

• Most lyrical themes are fine within SR, its more about how they're explored and which language is used.

• No big restrictions here; Harmonix were weird about the lyric “god damn” back in the day, but was later fully allowed uncensored, so yeah.

• Any nudity should be tasteful and artistic in nature. Mild blood and somewhat violent drawings and paintings are allowed within reason. In general make sure it would be allowed in a T-rated game.

Song would only be acceptable in a game with a M-rating, such as GTA or Saints Row, and would not fly in a normal Rock Band game uncensored. Includes hardcore swearing and sexual language (“fuck”, “shit”, etc.), promotion of hard drugs, immensely gory details and other stuff no child should be singing.

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• While everything sorta goes here, do remember people are streaming this game. If a song has art with pornography, real gore or anything that could be deemed illegal, just change it with a picture of the band's logo or something.

Depending on language and region, some words have different meanings or are considered less or more severe. Cultural context is thus usually good to keep in mind when trying to decide on an age rating.

• “F*g” is a anti-gay slur in the US, but refers to cigarettes in the UK. The former would require an M-rating, the latter a SR-rating.
• “Sp*stic” is an ableist term either way, but its considered a slur in the UK while its seen as a general synonym for stupidity in the US. The former would require an M-rating, the latter a SR-rating.

• “Fan”, “Faen”, “Fanden” and “Perkele” is the equivalent of saying “Fuck” in English, but directly translated just means “Satan”. As such, they're considered way less severe swears than fuck, and are fine within a SR rating.

• References to illegal drugs might be censored in a T-rated game in Japan even if it wouldn't in the US, and as thus songs in Japanese portraying drug use as a positive should probably be rated M. Obviously this doesn't affect mentions of medicine and the like.

For reasons that we hope is obvious, having songs with slurs in them charted to vocals can cause some very awkward situations. Harmonix would (mostly) avoid having to worry about this as most hard slurs would immediately qualify for a M-rating anyways. We, however, should consider how to handle this on a case to case basis.

First, context is important: In what way is this word used?

For example, if a song by a black artist have the lyric “N*gga” or a gay artist has the lyric “F*ggot” to refer to themself, it might be okay to leave it based on context… in theory. The problem comes from if other people sing this song and aren't in the position to reclaim it, as it then could be used as an excuse to say bigoted things.

In cases like this, you should think if you're in a position to reclaim the slur in question, and in the context of the song if you'd be comfortable with someone who isn't in that position singing it. Err on the side of caution, and if you're not sure you should avoid it.

If a song is about a topic such as racism or homophobia, it might make the song itself lose meaning by censoring a word. For example, Transgender Dysphoria Blues by Against Me uses the word “F*ggot” to describe the sort of discrimination the singer faces as a trans woman.

Think in a similar vein to with reclaimed slurs: Am I in a position to make a informed, lived decision on whether it would be okay for others to sing this line? Will it make people understand the struggle of the singer, or will it be an easy way for them to further bigotry?

If a song has a slur used as a direct insult to a person or group of people, then you really should never ever include it in the chart. This will most likely happen in older songs, were its used either because it wasn't widely known as an offensive word at the time, or simply has aged poorly.

If a song is entirely about the hate of a group of people, just don't chart it at all please.

When you have figured out if you need to work around a slur, here is how you'd go about doing it:

If a word is used in a certain context, sometimes you could simply replace the lyric with a similar word of the same meaning. This makes the original audio stay in tact, while also avoiding your next Rock Band party to suddenly make you second-guess who your friends are (hopefully).

Here are some examples:

• “N*gga” is often used in Hip-Hop by black people as a way to address friends or other rappers, and as such it can be replaced with “Fellas”, “Homies” and “Rappers”
• “R*tarded” should probably just be “Disabled”. If used as a spicy euphemism for someone being ignorant, “Moronic” and “Idiotic” still has edgy bite without being hardcore slurs.
• “G*psy” can easily be replaced with “Roma”. For the word “G*pped”, use the similar word with the same meaning that sound the same; “Duped”.

Sometimes a song has a radio edit or single edit that replaces the slur with a more radio-friendly word. In those cases, consider either charting that version, or use Demux stems for both to replace the slur with the less problematic word.

This is the most advanced way to handle this, and will only work if you have good quality multitracks and some familiarity with audio editing. The idea here is to edit the audio of the slur to either replace it with another word in the song, or to splice it to sound like a completely new word.

We have 2 examples of this in “B.O.B. (Rock Band Mix) by OutKast on the main Lane Breakers setlist: One use of the n-word is changed to “fella” via splicing different snippets of vowels together, and another use is replaced with “rappers” by copying that line from later in the song to here and adjusting the pitch to make it fit the flow and sound natural.