Parental Advisory - Availability

Availability

Oftentimes, an album will be released in two formats, an unedited version with the label, and an edited or amended version without the label, often called a "clean" version. American retailer Best Buy only carries uncensored albums in their physical stores, though customers can purchase the clean versions at its website for an additional fee, whereas in F.Y.E., a customer may purchase both explicit and clean albums in-store. (One notable exception is Guns N Roses' Chinese Democracy, which carries a Parental Advisory on some online copies, though Best Buy tends to carry only the clean version.)

Walmart is known for only selling edited albums. If no edited version of the album is available, Walmart will ask the artist to make one; if the artist refuses to make an edited version, Walmart will not carry the album. However, the chain's policy on carrying explicit versions of music albums in its stores seems to vary by country, as albums with the Parental Advisory label are found in Canadian stores, for example. Some albums are available in edited formats only at the Walmart website but are not available in the stores because of controversy. The company requested the band Green Day to edit its albums American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown in 2004 and 2009, respectively, or the retail chain would refuse to sell those two albums. In both cases, Green Day refused. Later, coinciding with the release of the Uno-Dos-Tres series, Green Day released a clean version of American Idiot.

In the United States, many retailers require that an individual be seventeen years of age to purchase Parental Advisory albums, while in some countries, including the United Kingdom and Australia, persons of any age may purchase the albums.

The label is also seen in the United Kingdom, Portugal, Germany, Greece, France, Finland, the Netherlands, Brazil, Denmark, South Africa, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Philippines, New Zealand, and Canada on albums of American origin. An album with the label is banned in some conservative countries (such as China and Saudi Arabia).