Pop is descending into porn, says Mike Stock

Pop music is descending into pornography and broadcasters need to put a stop to it, says one of British pop's most successful songwriters, Mike Stock of the 1980s Stock Aitken Waterman team.

Stock, who wrote such wholesome hits as Kylie Minogue's I Should Be So Lucky, attacked the "relentless torrent of sex-driven imagery" that young people are being exposed to today because of increasingly raunchy music videos and performances by the likes of Rihanna and Christina Aguilera.

"Pop music in this country is almost completely dominated by American acts who have taken sexualised imagery, dance moves and lyrical content way beyond the limits of decency," Stock wrote in an open letter calling for broadcasters and Ofcom to clamp down on explicit content. "As far as music is concerned, it has been a slow but unmistakable descent into pornography."

He singled out Nicole Scherzinger's "overtly sexual" performance on Britain's Got Talent, which is supposed to be a family show, and called on broadcasters to refuse to play videos or songs "they deem unfit". This would force record companies "to think again and clean up their act".

Stock's intervention follows the publication on May 30 of the Bailey Report into the commercialisation and sexualisation of young people by the media. Bailey called for British broadcasters to introduce cinema-style classifications and tighten up the 9pm watershed.

But Stock thinks Bailey doesn't go far enough. "I have concerns that the report has let the broadcasters off the hook. All broadcasters need to take responsibility for their own output," he said. "Eventually, even sites like YouTube will need to face up to their obligations."

He said the 9pm watershed was "irrelevant" in the digital age, because so many children now watch TV programming on line. And he lamented the disappearance of old-fashioned chart shows like Top of the Pops.

"Let's all get behind a weekly chart of the bestselling pop records. The promotion of which is something that the BBC and ITV should take the lead on. Everyone else will soon follow." ·