#pmrc

Protesters outside of the PMRC senate hearings.

Are you a victim of rock? Well maybe you aren't, but all the way back in 1985 a group of prominent D.C wives felt that they were.

These women, with the help of Beach Boys member Mike Love and Joseph Coors, the owner of Coors Beers, formed the PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center).

Their reasoning for forming as co-founder Susan Baker put it:

"It started because one day my 7-year-old came in and started quoting some of Madonna's lyrics to me, wanting to know what they meant. And I was shocked. I knew that you had to be concerned about movies and TV, but I didn't have a clue that my 7-year-old would be exposed to inappropriate songs."

The goal of the PMRC was to give parents more control over what their children could listen to. As well as implementing a rating system for music with bad language, sexual themes, and anti-Christian messages just to name a few. Eventually the group made a list of the fifteen worst songs, in their opinion and labeled them "The Filthy Fifteen".

(And it also happens to make a killer playlist)

Besides a rating system and lyrics printed on album covers the PMRC had several other goals including:

"...records with explicit covers be wrapped or kept under the counter; that record companies reassess contracts with performers who engage in sexual or violent acts on stage; that broadcasters be pressured to exhibit "voluntary restraint" by not airing offending music videos, which would also be rated."

All that noise coming from the PMRC culminated on September 19th, 1985. When a hearing in the senate occurred. Two musicians were called in on behalf of the music industry, Frank Zappa and Dee Snider of Twisted Sister. Two of musics most studious and serious creatives.

Zappa and Snider both gave eloquent defenses of what they deemed to be free speech.

But the PMRC had a trick up their sleeves... or so they thought.

They'd also invited John Denver to speak that day, assuming that he would stand with the side of "family values" but they were mistaken.

John Denver's testimony was the most scathing that day. He cited his own experience with having some of his music banned from radio. Even going as far as comparing the PMRC and groups like it to Nazi book burnings.

So what did the PMRC end up accomplishing? You know those tiny explicit labels in the corner of some albums? You can thank the PMRC for those. When they were originally introduced they were called "Tipper Stickers" after one of more outspoken PMRC members Tipper Gore (wife of Al Gore).

So while we didn't exactly take it, for a time we almost did. And thanks to testimony from Frank Zappa, John Denver, and Dee Snider, we can regularly enjoy any kind of music we want to- even the songs that promote the occult.

The "Filthy Fifteen"

In 1985, the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), founded and run by Washington wives and avocational bluenoses Tipper Gore, Susan Baker, Pam Howar, and Sally Nevius, compiled a list of fifteen songs in popular music that they, knowing best for America, found the most objectionable.

(For context, the PMRC was funded by the Beach Boy no-one likes, Mike Love, and right-wing ideologue and purveyor of piss-water beer Joseph Coors. While ostensibly "bipartisan," the PMRC basically did the work of the conservatives waging the culture war in Reagan-era America.)

The naïveté, ignorance, and cluelessness demonstrated by the project and by the pearl-clutching women of privilege behind it who picked the Filthy Fifteen are really quite awe-inspiring—I certainly hope porn-mongers Cyndi Lauper and Sheena Easton were ostracized by decent society!

The one upside is that none of the pale females of the PMRC, apparently, ever listened to Black music, thereby sparing funk, soul, and rap from appearing on the list. And sparing the Washington Wives from ever listening to, for example, Schoolly D's "PSK What Does It Mean" ("Copped some brew, some J, some coke/Tell you now, brother, this ain't no joke/She got me to the crib, she laid me on the bed/I fucked her from my toes to the top of my head"), which might've seriously dented their AquaNetted hair.

The Recording Industry Association of America, an organization that has worked hard for years to make music lovers around the country hate it, in response, created the "Parental Advisory" sticker, which served to warn young consumers which albums had the good shit they wanted to hear.