Parents Music Resource Center
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]
Time to put on some Music |
Soundtrack |
Musicians |
v - t - e |
“”The PMRC proposal is an ill-conceived piece of nonsense which fails to deliver any real benefits to children, infringes the civil liberties of people who are not children, and promises to keep the courts busy for years, dealing with the interpretational and enforcemental problems inherent in the proposal’s design. |
—Frank Zappa[1] |
“”"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 |
Origins and Goals
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 Bakerand 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
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
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
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?!?
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
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
Results
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
See also
- Backward masking
- Comics Code Authority
- Dungeons and Dragons
- Moral panic
- Mothers Against Drunk Driving
- Satanic panic
- Streisand effect
- Frank Zappa
Notes
- Zappa went on to use recordings of the hearings on his track "Porn Wars", which lampooned the controversy.[14]
- The band's song "We're Not Gonna Take It" was one of the "Filthy Fifteen".
- It seemed odd at the time that someone with as wholesome of a reputation as he had[15] would testify in support of "porn rock". However, even John Denver had run-ins with censorship. As explained in his testimony to the Senate, his song "Rocky Mountain High
File:Wikipedia's W.svg " was bizarrely banned from some radio stations for supposedly being drug related, and some newspapers refused to print advertisements for the George BurnsFile:Wikipedia's W.svg /John Denver comedy movie Oh, God!File:Wikipedia's W.svg on the grounds that they were "using the name of our Lord in vain."[16]
References
- Frank Zappa, Opening Statement to and Q&A with the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on Rock Lyrics and Record Labeling, 19 September 1985. American Rhetoric, 16 December 2018.
- "MTV: The Naughty Envelope, Please : Television: The MTV Video Music Awards program provides impromptu stage for musicians addressing the issue of censorship." by Chris Willman, Los Angeles Times, 1990 September 8
- "Back in the Day: Rockers vs. Parents Music Resource Center in 1985" by Tony Wade, Solano County Daily Republic, 2018 October 12
- "PMRC’s ‘Filthy 15’: Where Are They Now?" by Kory Grow, Rolling Stone, 2015 September 17
- Larson, Thomas E. (2004) "History of Rock and Roll". (pp. 250 "The PMRC") Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company
- "Tipper Gore Reflects on PMRC 30 Years Later" by Kory Grow, Rolling Stone, 2015 September 14
- "You Ask, We Answer: 'Parental Advisory' Labels — The Criteria And The History" by Tom Cole, NPR, 2010 October 29
- "Mike Love Is Kind Of An Asshole" by Luke Winkie, Vice, 2012 Oct 2
- "Parental Advisory Forever: An Oral History of the PMRC's War on Dirty Lyrics" by Zach Schonfeld, Newsweek, 2015 September 19
- "Industry Threatened : ‘Porn Rock’: The Sound Draws Fury" by Dennis McDougal, Los Angeles Times, 1985 November 1
- "6.66 Heavy Metal Highlights of the PMRC Hearings" by Mike McPadden, VH1 Classic, 2015 September 21
- "Frank Zappa Meets The PMRC" by John Anthony Wilcox and Robert J. Sodaro, Relix, October 1986
- "The Day Twisted Sister Went To War With The PMRC" by Johnny Black, Louder Classic Rock, 2016 September 19
- "How Frank Zappa's 'Mothers of Prevention' Responded to the PMRC" by James Stafford, Ultimate Classic Rock.com, 2015 November 21
- "John Denver —Pop Music's Wholesome Guru" by Grace Lichtenstein, New York Times, 1976 March 28
- "Senate Statement on Rock Lyrics & Record Labeling" by John Denver, delivered 19 September 1985, archived on American Rhetoric: Online Speech Bank
- Arp, Robert. (2013) 1001 Ideas that Changed the Way We Think. (pp. 895 "Parental Advisory Label") Atria Books
- Slagel, Brian and Eglinton, Mark. (2017) For The Sake of Heaviness: The History of Metal Blade Records (pp. 123)