The Filthy Fifteen

Today I was reading about the formation of the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) – the group headed by Tipper Gore responsible for creating the “Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics” sticker. Given the current climate of censorship it’s always useful to go back and look at previous moral crusades. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, it all sounds very familiar.

In 1985 Tipper Gore decided that somebody had to think of the children after hearing Prince’s distinctly sexy song Darling Nikki on Purple Rain (featured in the vid above). She began to push for ratings on albums and made up the “Filthy Fifteen” list of songs considered to be the most objectionable. Those songs are:

-------------------------------------------------------
Advertisement

Support independent, ethically made, award-winning porn. Bright Desire features all of my erotic films and writing. A membership to Bright Desire gets you access to every movie I've ever made and lets me keep making female friendly porn!
Click here to find out more.
-------------------------------------------------------

1 Prince “Darling Nikki”
2 Sheena Easton “Sugar Walls”
3 Judas Priest “Eat Me Alive”
4 Vanity “Strap on Robbie Baby”
5 Mötley Crüe “Bastard”
6 AC/DC “Let Me Put My Love into You”
7 Twisted Sister “We’re Not Gonna Take It”
8 Madonna “Dress You Up”
9 W.A.S.P. “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)”
10 Def Leppard “High ‘n’ Dry (Saturday Night)”
11 Mercyful Fate “Into the Coven”
12 Black Sabbath “Trashed”
13 Mary Jane Girls “In My House”
14 Venom “Possessed”
15 Cyndi Lauper “She Bop”

As a child of the 80s, I regularly listened to music with explicit lyrics, including many songs on that list. I seem to have survived OK. As have the millions of other people my age. I fondly recall listening to Dress You Up at age 13, thinking that it was about… well, fashion, actually. And She Bop was about dancing.

But you know, I DID understand that Darling Nikki was a sexy song. I was a little shocked to hear the word “masturbating” but that’s what made it so damn cool. It made me feel sexy and it turned me on, which was pretty much the whole point. Beyond that… well, it was only a song. I can’t say it had any negative effect on my psyche or behaviour.

The PMRC also organised a senate hearing into “porn rock”. Those keen on censorship said that music had become dangerous because it no longer talked about sex in a subtle way.

Susan Baker testified that “There certainly are many causes for these ills in our society, but it is our contention that the pervasive messages aimed at children which promote and glorify suicide, rape, sadomasochism, and so on, have to be numbered among the contributing factors.” Naturally they didn’t provide any conclusive evidence to back up their claim. The PMRC also got their knickers in a knot over backmasking and supposed subliminal messages in music.

There were three opposing witnesses: Frank Zappa, Dee Snider from Twisted Sister and… John Denver. The latter had been through his own controversy thanks to people misinterpreting Rocky Mountain High. He said he was “strongly opposed to censorship of any kind in our society or anywhere else in the world.”

The PMRC won, of course. The stickers went out and major stores such as Wal-Mart then refused to stock the albums. The “voluntary” rating created a chilling effect within the music industry, with some labels urging bands to tone down lyrics for the sake of better distribution and sales. At the same time, there was quite a backlash, with heaps of artists deliberately using explicit lyrics as a statement of defiance.

Interestingly, one of the first albums to receive an “explicit lyrics” sticker was Jazz From Hell by Frank Zappa, an instrumental album with no lyrics whatsoever.

* I’ve plundered most of this blog post from the Wikipedia entry on the PMRC which is well worth reading – especially the section on the various anti-Tipper statements made by bands.

Best example: the sticker that appeared on Metallica’s 1986 album Master of Puppets which read: ‘THE ONLY TRACK YOU PROBABLY WON’T WANT TO PLAY IS “DAMAGE, INC.” DUE TO THE MULTIPLE USE OF THE INFAMOUS “F” WORD. OTHERWISE, THERE AREN’T ANY “SHITS,” “FUCKS,” “PISSES,” “CUNTS,” “MOTHERFUCKERS,” OR “COCKSUCKERS” ANYWHERE ON THIS RECORD’