#pmrc

May 31, 1985

Jeremy Black, the author and former professor of history at the University of Exeter, said the warnings were unnecessary. “Glasgow University’s wish to warn that the values of the past are dangerous and disturbing offers a hilarious commentary on its present mindedness,” he said. “All such trigger warnings do is provide a form of confirmation bias for the follies of the present.”

40 anni fa vi fu un processo contro alcuni musicisti e band per via dei loro testi troppo espliciti, alcune mogli di senatori annoiate e puritane diedero vita all'associazione PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) con l'intento di fermare la produzione di musica oscena. Alla sbarra c'era anche lo zio Frank, c'era Dee Snider cantante dei Twisted Sisters e tanti altri. Taglio corto, vi metto il link wikipiede in fondo, alla fine venne deciso di appiccicare su ogni album censurato il famoso adesivo Parental Advisor explicit content, in apparenza una vittoria per la censura puritana di queste donnine, che chissà cosa facevano nel tempo libero quando i maritini erano in senato, ma in realtà fu una vittoria degli artisti che videro le vendite salire proprio per quell'adesivo. Potete trovare i video degli interventi di tutti i musicisti online metto quello dello zio Frank che come sempre fu pungente e diretto.

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.