885 Most Memorable Musical Moments: The PMRC vs. Musicians

Since the 1950s, rock 'n roll and parents have had a little trouble getting along. There's been concern about a perceived loosening of morals and traditional family structure, and less respect for authority. But there had never been a concerted effort to actually attack the musicians and the labels who produce the music.

That changed in the mid-1980s. Mary "Tipper" Gore, wife of Sen. Al Gore (D-TN), along with their daughter Karenna, was shocked to hear sexual references in Prince's "Darling Nikki". Along with Susan Baker, wife of U.S. Treasury Secretary James Baker, and other "Washington wives", they formed a committee, the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), to lobby the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to adopt album content stickers, outside lyric sheets, restrictions on sales to minors, and to reassess the contracts of artists with "objectionable" music.

On September 19, 1985, the Commerce, Science, and Transporation Committee of the U.S. Senate held a hearing on labeling records, and 3 musicians offered testimony. As expected, Dee Snider of Twisted Sister and Frank Zappa declared their opposition to the PMRC's proposals. Zappa was particularly pointed in his criticism of the PRMC's "ill-conceived piece of nonsense". In a discussion with committee member Senator Gore, Zappa voiced his concern about a hidden agenda, that even without a new national law, there were parts of the country where laws or regulations would be passed that would take his place in raising his children as he sees fit:

I want them to grow up in a country where they can think what they want to think, be what they want to be, and not what somebody's wife or somebody in Government makes them be.

In a surprise to many, country/folk singer-songwriter John Denver also objected to censorship. He recalled that some radio stations had banned "Rocky Mountain High" due to misinterpreting his lyrics. He offered that:

Discipline and self-restraint when practiced by an individual, a family, or a company is an effective way to deal with this issue. The same thing when forced on a people by their government or, worse, by a self-appointed watchdog of public morals, is suppression and will not be tolerated in a democratic society.

Unfortunately, a few weeks before, the RIAA had caved in to pressure from the PMRC and other groups and agreed to put a simple "Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics" label on select albums. This led to a refusal by some retailers to carry these records. The following year, the Dead Kennedys were unsuccessfully prosecuted for the use of a poster included in their album Frankenchrist. In 1990, a store clerk in Florida was arrested on obscenity charges for selling a copy of a 2 Live Crew record. The controversy over racist, violent, and misogynist lyrics, particularly in rap and hip-hop, continues to this day.

UPDATE: My post on the XPN MMMM site can be found here