Parents Music Resource Center

Time to put on some Music

Soundtrack

Straight edge Saint John Coltrane Church National anthem Earthdance Kurt Cobain murder conspiracy theories Goth

Musicians

Frank Zappa Saga Tom Lehrer Hendrik Möbus Insane Clown Posse Bill Clinton v - t - e

“”"Thank you Tipper (Gore) and Jesse (Helms) for making sure that as long as there are a few four-letter words on the album, it’ll sell an extra million copies!"

—Steve Tyler, lead singer of Aerosmith, MTV Video Music Awards, 1990[2]

The Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) was a government committee active during the 1980s. The goals of the committee were to increase parental control over access by children to music deemed to have violent, drug-related, occult, or sexual themes,^[3] and unintentionally increase record sales of a few previously obscure heavy metal musicians.^[4]

Origins and goals[edit]

The PMRC was founded in 1985, in the shadows of rising political conservatism under president Ronald Reagan, by a group of "Washington Wives" that included Susan Baker (wife of the then Secretary of the Treasury James Baker, Peatsy Hollins (wife of Sen. Ernest Hollings of South Carolina), and many other Washington socialites (such as Pam Hower and Sally Nevius). Most notably, the group included Tipper Gore, wife of then-Senator, later-Vice President and inventor of the Internet Al Gore, who became the group's most outspoken member.^[5][6] Amazingly enough, a musician provided initial funding for the non-profit group (Mike Love of the Beach Boys,^[7] cementing Love's status as the Official Asshole of the beloved 1960s surf rock band).^[8]

There are several stories floating around on what inspired the PMRC to come together. The most popular one is that Tipper Gore was so upset to find her daughter listening to "Darling Nikki" by Prince, what with its lyrics about masturbation in a hotel lobby, that she put two and two together and decided rock‘n’roll was to blame for teen suicide, murder, Satanism, drug and alcohol use, and worse.^[9]

The goal of the PMRC was to save America from the menace of "filthy" music (and apostrophes, judging by its name). Initially, pairing with the national United States PTA,^[10] the group came up with six stringent demands for the recording industry to implement, including "reassess(ing) the contracts of performers who engage in violence and explicit sexual behavior onstage" and "establish(ing) a citizen and record-company media watch that would pressure broadcasters not to air “questionable-talent.”^[11] By the time Senate hearings were held on the subject, however, the list of demands was reduced to a simple warning label put on records with explicit content. (In return, the "politics" of the deal was that, by implementing this label, the RIAA would theoretically get a blank recording tape tax passed through the Senate.^[12] Of course, the blank tape tax never did actually get pushed through.^[13])

Explicit content is then defined as... well, whatever the artists and/or their labels think is explicit enough to warrant the label. In its current form, it ended up being a mere voluntary tool for artists to self-identify material they don't think is for the kiddies. (Nothing wrong with that, really. It could have been far, far worse.)^[7]

Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children?!?[edit]

The PMRC released a "Filthy Fifteen" list of the "most offensive" songs.^[4] While the list included some popular artists at the time (such as Cyndi Lauper and Madonna), it also included many artists from the then relatively obscure genre of heavy metal. The list ended up helping the more obscure artists' record sales. Longtime Washington DC radio host Cerphe Colwell believes that one of the reasons heavy metal took off in popularity in the late 1980s was precisely because the PMRC shined a spotlight on the genre. (After all, what better way for a teenager to rebel than listening to music that stiff Washington socialites thought was "filthy?")^[9]

The group then instigated a Senate hearing on "porn rock" in August 1985, at which testimony in opposition to the PMRC and censorship was delivered by Frank Zappa,^{[note 1]} Dee Snider of Twisted Sister,^{[note 2]} and John Denver.^{[note 3][13]} All three were concerned that the PMRC was merely the start of a slippery slope to a full censorship effort.

Results[edit]

In the wake of the hearings, the PMRC achieved an agreement with the RIAA, which introduced Parental Advisory stickers but refused a ratings system, a ban on explicit album cover artwork, or any other demand. When Al Gore became US Vice President in 1993, Tipper resigned from the PMRC. The organisation has since quietly disappeared.^[13]

In the end, the uproar and fury caused little of note from a practical standpoint. Certain artists embraced the stickers as a badge of honor,^[17] but there is not much evidence that sales were impacted one way or another. (It did give a way for certain retailers such as Wal-Mart to market themselves as "family-friendly" by refusing to sell records with the sticker, and in more explicit, rebellious genres, such as heavy metal or hip-hop, the censorship effort might have actually backfired, increasing sales — particularly of the artists on the "Filthy Fifteen" list.^[18] But that's about it.)^[7]

Perhaps the biggest impact of the PMRC was giving musicians fresh new material to write about — as seen by the Wikipedia article on the PMRC, where the musician reaction section (documenting the many lyrics which poked fun at the PMRC, and other protests) is the largest part of the article.

Censorship and monopoly[edit]

While not truly censorship, the warnings did enable de facto censorship and restrictions on the music industry. For instance, Walmart refuses to carry any offensive material, which meant that the albums had to be heavily edited to be sold in Walmart or not sold at all. From the industry side, this meant printing out two different versions of the album, which was inefficient for reasons that should be obvious, making a "wholesome" artist slightly more valuable than a "rougher" artist even if they sell the same number of albums. From the consumer side, Walmart had obliterated the small town shops, including the independent record store. If you wanted the unedited album, you either had to buy from Walmart or travel several hours to the nearest major city. Luckily, we have the Internet now.

Unofficially? It was nothing more than a distraction from a proposed blank tape tax, according to Frank Zappa.^[19] The idea behind it was that if blank tapes cost as much as the ones from the album store, then piracy would be uneconomical. But the unmentioned result would also be that independent artists would also have to pay more for blank tapes, making it all but impossible for an independent music group to get started, unless of course they signed with the record company.

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

References[edit]