Was the PMRC censorship in disguise?

to keep it clean. But we are talking about some dirty, dirty stuff, stuff that should never be uttered by anyone. And uh, I for one would like to tip my hat to tip her Gore for being an American hero of all time. What Actually, it's funny as I was reading some of this and this is we're talking about the p MRC. As everyone will soon find out, UM

and Ed put this one together. UM and he points out that yes, if you look at this the stuff that they were trying to do the Parents Music Resource Center, they were basically saying, like we need to be able to have a heads up that this record album has UM lyrics on it that we wouldn't want our little eight year old kid to listen to. That's really all

we're asking for. The thing is that's not all they were asking for, And it's a slippery slope of doing that where you're you're basically ringing the dinner triangle for anybody who's got a beef with any dirty lyrics or any worldview that opposes theirs to come out and say, yeah, I like that idea, and while we're at it, let's put him in jail if they don't comply. And you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, but it's too late. The cats out of the bag.

And this all happened in real life in the eighties, which, by the way, I'm on record is saying the seventies were the greatest decade of all time. I think the eighties were one of the most interesting. At least, A lot of icky still pent down in the You got the Satanic panic, Yeah, the whole backmasking thing that was kind of part of it. You've got this, um A

bunch of other stuff happened in the eighties too. Uh, spatial program was going pretty strong, there was a shuttle disaster even I mean like it was an interesting, provocative decade.

So there you have a chuck. There's the intro Yeah, this is uh, this was a commissioned piece because I remember very distinctly, uh, all of this going on when I was younger and paying pretty close attention as a music fan what was happening, and not getting as a kid that it was it meant more than an explicit lyrics label, right, you know, there was more at stake. But also as a kid, you probably were exclusively like,

hey man, they can't do that. That's not cool, that censorship without understanding the nuance of that the other position as well. Right, Uh, No, I was too young to spout so see things like that. Right, so you're just like flipping off, like newspaper pictures of Tipper Gore in your bedroom. No, I mean I was I was little. I mean I was like eleven or twelve. I wasn't. I wasn't a discerning reader of the newspaper. I didn't know who Tippergore was. You didn't know, are you? Yeah?

I knew who eight years old, and yeah, I mean she was on like Donna Hue and all these shows like it was a big deal. She was the face of this whole thing. Yeah, I knew who Tipper Core was. Not to imply that I was anymore discerning than you were as far as reading newspaper. And I knew her name, but I certainly had no idea who she was or what any of this meant at that age. Well, some people say knowing her name and by proxy her husband's name was the whole point of all this, but we'll

get to that later. Yeah. So the Parents Music Resource Center, Um, well, I mean it was sort of an extension of the grand tradition of adults saying that new music is bad for kids, and that's and happening since there's been music. It's this chamber music amadeus. Maybe it's quite possible, I mean, it's it all we we should do an episode just

on that. I'm being threatened by of with getting old, threatened by youth, I guess, yeah, But I think it's you're projecting onto youth where you're really threatened by your your imminent mortality is what it is, Yeah, and you're just projecting it onto the next generation because it's weird and strange and you're being pushed out of the out of control. Well, this we can find the origins of the PMRC in this case. Uh In nine, when Tipper

Gore's daughter. I think she was eleven. Um turned on her new Prince album and the song very awesome song Darling Nikki came on with the very famous line about masturbation, and uh, I I remember being a young church kid thinking like, WHOA, I probably shouldn't be listening to Yeah, it was a dirty, dirty song. Did you keep listening? Uh? Yeah, because it's a it's a great song. It is a great song. Yeah. And if you put it even further,

it's a great song on its own. But in context with the movie Purple Rain, that song shows up because Prince is trying to humiliate his girlfriend who he's just struck, um, because he found out that she was working for Morris Day, which was Prince's rival in Purple Rain. So like it's a it's a song to humiliator. Right on its own, it's a great song. It is a racy song, but it also has context that Tippergore didn't have at her fingertips when she listened to that song. Yeah, and she

wrote a book a few years after that. Um, and I don't remember I didn't own this book. You didn't read that book when you were left And I write it when I was eight, No, I was sixteen by this point, but I remember I had it for some reason. I might have done a some sort of school thing on this on the PMRC, the whole thing. I definitely had a copy of this book. And it wasn't like because I was like, this is great and awesome, like

I read it for some school project. But it's called Raising PG Kids in an X Rated Society and uh.

In it, she talks about how not only was she worried and afraid for her kids, but she was afraid herself about just these images that she was seeing on MTV an Ozzy Osbourne crawling out of a swamp as a swamp beast, and instead of laughing at that like everyone else on the planet, it scared her or just taking it as part of the your formative years that you eventually grow out of and don't do, aren't aren't brought to worship or hail Satan as a result. Yeah,

because she was a drummer. I mean she was and an all all women band called the Wildcats. Yeah, so she Uh, I don't know, it's kind of a lot of this is surprising. It is very surprising, and it's not like she was, you know, just a Democrat. Yeah, you know, well, so here's the thing. The from what I've seen, if you were on the industry side of this, the opposing side to the p MRC at the time, UM,

you were pretty convinced. And I think some people still are that the the whole thing that Yes, Tipper Gore was like, this is this is terrible. I can't believe I listen to this is my eleven year old and said something to some other some other people sees friends with around Washington, and they were like, you know, we should do something about this. It would probably help Owl's um exposure to the nation and get them ready for

a run at the presidency. And that that was actually like this, the the impetus for this whole quagmire was to make al Gore a prominent national figure. That's what a lot of people think this And whether that was Tipper and Owl's idea or whether they were kind of led into it depends on you know who you are. But that's um, that's that's very much out there in the zeitgeist that that was the whole basis of the

entire thing. Huh, well, I don't buy that, um. And in fact, that the pre PMR c uh and Cincinnata, Ohio. There was a school PTA group that Delshare Elementary School p t A who also heard Darling Nikki and also didn't think that it was just a great jam, and they got all up in arms about it and drafted a statewide association letter that basically said, Hey, Recording Industry Association of America, we're just gonna call it the r i A A probably on this show, but um, maybe

you should have a voluntary system of ratings. Uh, kind of like movies too with the m p a A. What's the big deal, right, And they're like, call us back, we want to talk about it, and I are a A never called them back. Yeah, they said, we'll get right on that. Yeah, exactly because they don't they want to do that. They were scared of this idea to begin with. They were really worried it was gonna hurt sales.

If you have, like a an album that specifically says this is not kids, there are some stores in some parts of the country that just won't carry that album, and you want to be able to sell those albums. You want to either have albums that a store would be happy to sell, or at least slide it in underhand at least, so the stores don't know what they're

selling and just the kids do. UM. So they were afraid of this kind of idea, but they also, I mean, it's the music industry in the eighties, like they could afford to be like be quiet, Cincinnati School District, we're not listening to you. When Tipper Gore came into the mix with some of her friends from Washington, UM, the dynamics of it changed for a number of reasons, not just because they were connected to government, but because the R A R I A A and government specifically UM

had something going on. Yeah, So they formed the PMRC in UH on May fift They got a grant from Mike Love of the Beach Boys, which is just further cements him as one of the leading jerks and the history of music. So what why is he jerk? Because I saw that, I was like, what was my clove doing that? And I know, I know he wasn't the Manson one. That was Dennis. Wasn't it the one who hung out with the Manson family for a little while. That was Dennis Wilson. Okay, why is my clove a jerk?

Because God made him that way. He's just that way. No, I mean he's he's he's a notorious I mean, I can't use words that I want to use, but he isn't. Just google Mike Love jerk and go down the rabbit hole of of stories about this guy. Does he yell like at basketball players courtside and stuff like that kind of jerk? He's just you just go read some articles. He's just he's just a jerk. I wish I had already. Uh So, it does not surprise me that he gave

five thousand dollars to kick off the PMRC. But what you were talking about is is the tape tax, which was very interesting at the time. The recording industry was suffering, or not suffering, but they were just beginning to struggle a bit with the fact that UM cassette tapes were pretty inexpensive. UM or they could be super cheap if you got really crutty ones. Yeah, but the the neon

C through ones, those are expensive. The Maxels, Yeah, I had the black Maxels, but do you remember like the C three ones they had like kind of fluorescent and neon colors to them, like the kind that Emilia Westevez and Charlie Sheen find and men at work? No, I haven't seen that either. You never saw men at work? It's a good one, is it? Okay? Um? Yeah, so they people were. You know, if you grew up in the eighties, you made tapes. You've recorded stuff off the radio,

you made mix tapes. If your friend had a tape, you would dub that tape you had, set it in front of your speaker and record your albums. Do you remember figuring out how to record tapes that have been made so you couldn't record them? There was like a way that you could break off a tape. They were like these two things and if they were broken off while there were two tabs on top, if they were broken off, then they couldn't be either recorded from or

recorded onto. I can't really means you can't record over what's there. So if you make a tape you really wanted to keep, you snap those tabs there for yeah, okay, but you can put tape over those things in full whatever sense them, and that you can record right over it again, that's right. But do you remember being a kid and wondering if you were going to get in trouble for recording a song from the radio, like knowing that you were in some gray legal area that you

weren't quite really. Yeah, yeah, I didn't worry about it. I worried about getting in trouble for it. Not from my parents because they clearly didn't care, but my my local law enforcement officers. Games. Yeah, you come to your house, come to your house and play you out of your

upstairs bedroom. Uh. So that the tape industry, the cassette tape industry, was UM putting a dent in record sales, and they were really threatened by it, and basically went to Congress and said, hey, listen, I'd like you to pass an act, the Home Audio Recording Act, that UM puts a pretty heavy tax on these cassettes, on these tape to tape decks that everyone's buying these days. And then we want all that money, like hundreds of millions of dollars a year. And the in the music industry

was like, and we've got a great system worked out. Um, ten percent of all that is going to go to all the artists and is going to go to the record labels. Some thing's never changed, right, So UM they had this thing there was it was a house bill HR eleven, and it was in the Commerce Committee, and the Commerce Committee was going to decide whether the R I A A got this text money, a special text just for the music industry to kind of offset some

of these perceived albums sale losses. Um that same committee, the Commerce Committee or this committee, and I'm sorry the Yeah, the Commerce Committee. UM also was decided to hold the hearing on the p m r c UH and it's it's desired to start labeling records as explicit. So was I mean that was a senatorial hearing? Was that the Commerce Committee specifically? Yes? Okay, because I thought the conflict was the fact that members of the PMRCY were married

to people on that committee. I didn't know that was an actual Commerce Committee hearing. Yeah, I guess it wouldn't have been because it was HR twenty nine eleven, so that would have been the Commerce Committee then would have been in the in the House. And you're right, this was a Senate hearing. So yeah, no conflict whatsoever, totally fine. Well, like I said, the conflict was the fact that four members of the PMRCY were married to Congressman, right, So

there was a conflict there. Basically, the record industry wanted something from Congress, and Congress now all of a sudden wanted something from the record industry, which was to label their records as potentially offense of two whomever, which is a big deal. And some people say that if the this, if the record industry hadn't been greedy and wanted the HR eleven out of Congress, they probably would have fought

this tooth and nail. And a lot of people in the industry stood up and said, we're not going to take it to make a lot more sense in a couple of minutes, and UM pushed back and like did a lot of media tour and did a lot of interviews and spoke out about this, and rallied like their listeners to say, like, this is wrong, and they may have successfully fought it had they not had the industry ultimately wanted hr UM eleven to pass, this tape tax to pass, and so they decided that they were going

to play ball. Yeah, and this was before the very famous hearing even happened. Nineteen record labels got on board and said, yeah, well we'll do this. We'll figure out a good system. And so the very famous hearing on September uh with strange collection of humans, John Denver, Frank Zappa, and Dee Snyder twist its sister. It was moot at that point. So let's what before we get into the hearing, and we gotta back up a little bit. Let's take a break real quick. He wants to ye, okay, we'll

be right back. Everybody, don't go anywhere, and things chop stop, shot, shot, all right, chuck, So we should say, I gotta amend something I just said. I can't believe this is so dumb. It's It's possible the record industry would have fought this a lot harder than they did had that ape Tex not been in existence as a proposed bill. But that's not to say necessarily that they did. Because we've got to give a little more background on the p m

r C and what they did. One of the things that they were able to do because of their connections and because of their visibility, was a media blitz. Over just a handful of months. They went from meeting in the in a church in Washington, d C. I think they were originally like nine members or something, to being on Donahue, The Today Show, um editorials across the country.

They just they made this a topic of national They made a national conversation about explicit lyrics on album on on albums and whether the recording industry should do something about it. Out of overnight, they made it a thing. So as a result of that, um legislation in state among the states started to pop up saying, forget why the federal m is going to do it or not, we can do this ourselves. If you want to sell that record here in our state, you have to put

a label on it. And I think they're at least a dozen states over over a very brief period of time that that came up with legislation proposed legislation for this. So the the R I A A would have had a hard time of fighting this off once the Once the cat was out of the bag from the p mr c UM, they could have still tried to fight it. The A c l U was like, we're writing right here, you guys, go ahead and pass one and see what happens. But it still would have been just a huge enormous problem.

So the p MRC did start this and some of the states took it up. So whether it was just the tape text or not, or whether it was to try to stem off this legislation. Um, the the r I a A Said okay, we'll play ball, And like you said, they said, okay, we'll do this, and then they still held that sentence hearing hearing, which I think goes to further the idea that this this was to to bolster al Gore's image because he was on that

signate hearing. Yeah. So what the PMRC called for, um, it was forced explicit tags UH rated X and just you know, they kind of followed the m p a a's example of movie ratings, which we did a great episode on that too. Yeah, that was a good one. UM rated X for explicit sex or foul language, uh D A for drugs or alcohol, V for violence, oh for a cult, which meant anything that's not you know,

good strong Christian values, anything weird. Uh. And so to to illustrate this, they trotted out what is now known as the Filthy fifteen UM and I think we should go through these. It's a list of fifteen songs and what they were tagged for. We can't say all the titles. Darling Nikki of course, UM was tagged for for sex at the top of the list. From what I understand. Oh yeah, I think this is the accurate list, and I think like it may have been in some sort

of order. I don't think, hey, we're ranked. Is like this is the dirtiest of them all. I don't know. This is the one that got tipper uh Shena Easton's sugar Walls. You remember that tune? No? And I went back and listened in Cherry's nodding, and uh I I didn't recognize it at all. Yeah, this was her big image change song because she was sort of not all American because she wasn't American, but you know, just sort of that clean image. And then she came out with

sugar Walls, and everyone's like, you know what that's about? Right? Easton knows about sex? Uh, judas priests eat me alive. That's sex and violence depending on who you're talking to. But all right, if it's if it's consensual sex and violence and is it really violent? Uh? I haven't heard a bunch of these. Actually, strap On Robbie Baby from Vanity and I've never heard that one. I haven't either, but I can guess what it's about. Motley Crue song

Bastard for violence in language. I didn't know the song, but I looked up the lyrics. It is a rape revenge song. Oh really, Yeah, it's about a woman like killing a man who tried to rape her. That raises a really good point here, Chuck, and we'll get into this a little more. But I just want to point this out to everybody listening right now. I can't wait

any longer. One of the great things about the p mr C is that they provided endless amounts of entertainment to people who were opposed to them by grossly misinterpreting the lyrics of songs and and that that's a really good example, Yeah for sure. Um and there are a few examples of that. Um. A C. D C has let Me Put My Love into You. That's sweet song about love. Let Me put my Love into You, Open

your heart to my love. Twisted sisters, we're not going to take it, which it says violence for that that that is hysterical because there's nothing violent in that song, not at all. And zero. The Snyder at the Senate hearings was like, apparently somebody saw the video and with the guy from Animal House, yeah, and mistook this cartoonish violence. If you if you want to know this was I collect cartoons, and every single one of those acts of violence was taken from some of my favorite cartoons of

all time. So there's nothing in the song. So what's the what are you talking about here? Why would there be explicit an explicit lyrics warning on my album when there's no explicit lyrics and it's cartoonish violence in the video this but this was on the list of fifteen that they used to say this is a good example

of what's going on in the music industry. I read a good interview with him, it was like thirty years on about the PMR, and he said who they really wanted was Vince Neil because Vince it was a party guy and not super articulate, and it would have been a blood bass. Did they confuse them because they looked similar. No, no, no, I mean I don't think they accidentally got d Snyder. But he said that's kind of who they wanted, was

Vince Neil, but what they got instead was me. D Snyder very famously didn't drink or smoke or do drugs. It was very articulate, kind of well spoken family man. And he throws a little shade to the Gore's way and he's like, I'm still married and the Gores are separated and one of their kids was busted for drugs, and like he's he was even nice about it now, He's like, look, marriage is hard. I don't want to make fun of them, but it's just interesting that I'm

the one that they were picking on. I'm still married to my wife thirty nine years later. He also called her out because this whole thing started because she failed to read the lyrics of the Prince album before she listened to it with her little kid. And he's like, I've always read the lyrics or listened to an album before I've shared it with my kids. That's a parent's job. I've always done this, and like he he goes even like when Tenacious D's first album came out, he said

his whole family loved it, but he made um. He made a version of it without one of the songs. And I know it's so, but you do um for his kids so they can enjoy Tenacious D. But they weren't ready for this other song. D Snyder is basically one of the top heroes of this if not the top hero of this whole thing. Yeah, sure, um, And do you remember we met him kind of said high, oh wait, where was that? The Whatever show with Alexis and Jennifer was on at the same time as us.

That's right, yep, because he was in Rock of Ages, so he was on. I totally forgot about that. It was It was wonderful. One of them was Martha Stewart's daughter. Alexis was interesting. Yeah, totally forgot about that whole thing you did. Yeah, uh Madonna dress you up? Yeah, Madonna. If you read quotes from her about this, she's like, yeah, whatever, it's like a Tuesday for me. The band Wasp, if you remember them, we are sex perverts, is what WASP

stands for. They were like a proto guir kind of and please don't kill me if you're a guar faint and I'm way off it makes sense to outsiders. Did that really stand for that or was that like kids in Satan's Service? No, that's what it stood for. They were like there was like a big stage show and like human black lawless right, yes, and he remember he wore a cod piece that shot out. It was wired

to pyrotechnics and like shot sparks out. There was also a cod piece with like a saw I think a chainsaw on it, okay, kind of like a presage that whole horrible scene in seven. I think I think the one, the way he was approaching was a little more funny

and just kind of lighthearted than the seven one. Uh So their song animal, sex, language, and violence, it covered all three, but not a cult, no no, no occult, def Leppard, high and dry, parentheses, Saturday Night it was about drinking, all right, uh and they even said like, yeah, it's about drinking. People like to have fun on Saturday Night. Sometimes um Merciful Fate into the Coven and I think was um King Diamond's band originally, Yes, he was Merciful

Fate singer. So they there's was a cult, and it was like overtly occult stuff like come come serve Satan with me. It's fun, kill your parents kind of thing, but don't really, your little psychotic sixteen year old, this is not for real. This is just music and I'm trying to sell records by banning my face. Plus also, one of the other points that I think a lot of people made too was you're not gonna find Merciful Fates into the coven on Casey Caysum's Top forty ever,

like you would really have to go find this thing. Yeah, there were no songs on the radio. And even if you do find it, well, then if your kids listening to Merciful Fate, have a conversation with your kid about what they're listening to and what Merciful Fate saying and just how real or non real it is to engage your child. And also, um, you will not be the one parent in the history of the world that stops your child from listening to or watching something that they

want to listen to or watch. Yeah, when it's impossible. When License the Ill came out, um, I knew like every word on the album front to back, and uh one of them. I was singing it out loud to my parents about smoking that dust at St. Anthony's Feast and they were like it was funny. They didn't say anything immediately, but they did look at each other, and like a day or two later, they approached me and like, Josh, you know that song, that BC Boys song where they're

talking about smoking dust? Are they talking about Angel dust PCP? And I was like I don't know, probably, and they're like, you can't listen to that anymore. Yeah, And but that's one of the points though, that it makes in this article is that like a kid probably doesn't know. And I think research has even shown that lyrically, people are

more prone to bring their own experience into something, especially kid. Well. Also, I legitimately remember I can put myself back at that time and hearing that I wasn't like angel does time a try. That's a great idea. I really didn't think like that, and I think most people don't. Ironically, if you're under the influence of angel dust, then lyrics are super suggestive, probably, but you have to do the angel dust first. Uh. Sabbaths trashed obviously about drugs and alcohol.

That's not Osborne or Dio Sabbath either. It's not either one of those who ian Gill him now I don't even know. I had to look him up. It's fine. It sounds a bit like um, a little more melodic motor head Okay, it sounds motor heady. It's not my kind of Sabbath. Mary Jane girls in my house. I don't know anything about that dude that's been in my head all day. Yeah, I don't know that girl. Is it? What is it in my house. Is it rapper? Is it in my house? Well, that doesn't clue me in anymore.

It's not rap. It's the Mary Jane Girls. Um. They were like a girl girl group that Rick James put together super eighties like sexy. Um, it's fine, like it like it wouldn't you would not bat an eyelash over it today. Venom possessed, never heard of a cult. And then finally this is Cindy law her with her very famous masturbation song she Bop So you know it's about masturbation. No, okay, until I read the words today and I'm like, oh,

well that's about masturbation. Yes, she said that she she like Bapa Day kept the doctor away, so she was recommending it and that's why she made that song. I got the impression she's a little embarrassed as an adult for having released that song, but not apologetic. No, she Cyndy Lauper apologizes to no man. We saw a show of hers once. She's good concert. Yeah, I um, you know I went to that christ that Halloween party of

hers one time. No in the nineties. My she has big Halloween bash every year at her place in New York and my friend John Abraham was a member of the fan club, and I think you could get like early tickets or something. Oh that's cool. So you got us all tickets and we went and I met Cyndy lawpers party to her Halloween party, which was so much fun. She's um, like, she spends a lot of time and money like helping out l g B t Q youth who have been kicked out onto the street by this. Yeah,

it's like a legitimately great person. Yeah, she's totally and talented to very much. So she pops Cindy, that's right. Uh So that's the Filthy fifteen, that's what they trotted out. Um, and this is when I guess we need to get in a little bit to the fact that it seems sort of okay even me as apparent now to be like, well, you know what, there's nothing wrong with a rating system because as a parent you want to know what's going on, and that just helps us. That's a bit of shorthand

for us. But um, it wasn't a voluntary thing because very on what started happening is uh, they started people started doing interviews and on the PMRC, people in the government, and it was clear that they were trying to get get be rid of this stuff. Well, yeah, get it out of stores, them out of business. Yeah, kind of that, like we have. They have different views in ours. We don't like it. They considered themselves the moral majority, UM, which was ascendant thanks to uh basically a pact with

Ronald Reagan. They helped out Reagan or get Reagan elected, and Reagan like made the Christian right, UM very prominent in in powerful in American politics in the eighties. And there I read this. One of my favorite things to do, Chuck, when we're researching stuff like this is to read contemporary articles at the time, like they don't know the outcome, and they also know tons of details that get lost

to time over history. But I was reading this like long form l a Times article about this whole thing, written right smack dab in the middle of it, and um, they quoted this one guy who was like, this is part of a movement. Like everybody's looking at it, like, um, it's just about censoring records. They're like, No, these same people tried to get rid of the Last Temptation of Christ.

They tried to get funding pulled for the National Endowment for the Humanities, this is like part of a larger thing that they're trying to do, and they're trying to sanitize American popular culture to their tastes. And what you were saying, I think is that in interviews and at the Senate hearings, some of the people on the p MRC side, including p m p MRC members, basically said like, yeah, we're trying to censor this, which it's one thing if you go into it saying that, because then the people

who are opposed to you know where you stand. But the PMRC, their whole position, they talked out of both sides of their mouth, and one of the sides of the side that they said the loudest was we're not trying to censor anything. We're trying to get the record industry to do this voluntarily. We just happened to be a group, right, We just happened to be married to these senators and these congressmen and like these cabinet members um,

and that has nothing to do with anything. But if you look at the context of everything, it was it's voluntary. But if you don't do it, we're going to put you out of business, or we're going to have the government do it, and that is censorship. It's also unconstitutional when the government gets into that, that's unconstitutional. And probably every single law like this would have been thrown right out by the Supreme Court. Yeah, well, which is one big reason why this wasn't a law that was never

legislation proposed. It was always voluntary from a private group to a corporation. But Frank Zappa at those hearings said, well, wait a minute, if this has nothing to do with legislation, if this has nothing to do with law, why are we holding Senate hearings on a private group trying to get a private action, voluntary action undertake him? What are

we doing here? And he really revealed, like the the theater behind the whole thing, I got rid of all the set dressing and showed it for what it was, which was a stab at censorship. This guy, Jeff Ling, part of the PMRC, said do I think it should be out of stores? Sure? I do. I think label Ling will do that. Another p M MARC member, Sally Nevius, said, we want the industry to police itself. If they refuse, we're going to look into legal ways to stop what

we feel is contributing to the delinquencies of miners. Pat Boone very famously said that's what the Constitution had in mind, self imposed majority approved censorship. Uh so, I mean they were blatant about it, about the fact that not only were they trying to legislate morality, if it came pushed, came to shove, they would try and do that. But uh, pet to Pat Boone straight up saying like, yeah, if if the majority wants it, sure sensor art, which is

just really scary. Oh, it is scary. There was a woman named Judith Tough who introduced legislation in Maryland for record labeling, and um she apparently told Frank Zappa to stop worrying about civil rights, which is not a phrase you want to go down in history, as is famously saying, yeah, and and Frank Zappa is the last person I want to say that too. You know, Vince Neil probably would have been like, all right, fine, where's the Jack Daniels.

Uh And even though it was a senator, a Democratic senator there named James Exson of Nebraska, and he even said, like, what are we doing here? Well, okay? And I was like, hero, Guy's a hero for saying that. No, not a hero for saying that he wanted to know because he was in favor of of censoring. Yeah, but he he was like, there was no legislation on the floor, Like, why is it here in front of the commerce I took it to mean like he was like, well, what are this is?

This is this is inappropriate? Then this is not right? But no, he was like, well, I thought we were here to a censor thing. It turns out did you watch the Frank Zappa testimony, Um, it happens in the first couple of minutes that whole thing. Oh yeah, I watched a lot of this row. I watched it back in the day, so I'm too, but rewatched some of it. Um.

John Denver was great. He was He had the most impact of everyone because I think they thought John Denver was going to come in there and Pat Boon Mr. Squeaky Clean. Yeah, and Pat booned up and he came out hard on a couple of things. He was like, first of all, you think my song Rocky Mountain Highs about smoking dope. It's not like you're wrong. I wrote it. It's about feeling the euphoria of nature in the Rockies. Yeah, and the Rockies in Colorado. Uh and not only that,

but um, you shouldn't be doing this. And they were like, wait, we called you in here because we thought you might be friendly. Committee to Denver and he said, hey, I am friendly, I'm John Denver, but you shouldn't be doing this and they all clapped. It's funny if you watch the Frank Zappa testimony. They introduced him, and my brain was like waiting for applause and like cheers, and I was like, oh, yeah, have to senate here. They don't do that there. Um. But so yeah, let's pause for

a second here and and point something out, chuck. Um. We just talked about a Senate hearing where John Denver, Frank Zappa, and Dee Snyder from Twisted Sister testified. That's a pretty significant Senate hearing and the eighties it is it really is. I think it is. I think it's landmark. Now. Um, so you want to talk a little more about the

hearings and then we'll take a break in a little bit. Uh. Okay, So the guy who's most frequently actually all three of them are, but Frank Zappa really kind of laid it down. He brought Moon Unit and Dweezel with him, and uh, they were I don't know if they got to testify, but they came so that they could testify as concerned teens who were worried about their speech. And Frank's apple really pointed it out. He said that, first of all,

I think this is the parents concerned, not the government's concerned. Um, and that, uh, I've got four children, two of them are here. That was moon Unit Deweesel. Just like saying both of their names. 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. It's is pretty pretty wise words, although he does say

there's a little watchword in there. Wife. Wife got thrown around a lot during this from the opposing side, and it just danced along the edge of being denigrading. I think, like, you're a Washington wife, stay in your lane, don't worry about big stuff like this. You know, almost kind of smacked of it whenever it came up Washington wives or wives or ladies. It just seemed just just kind of denigrating. Here there go back and list and you'll see it. I heard heard it, but I had a different take

than you did. Yeah, um and Frank Zapp actually was mislabeled too. Later he had a a word lyric free instrumental album that was tagged with explicit lyric because somebody in a record store was like, oh yeah, he testified against the p MRC. Man, it's so sad. What's going on with his family? What's going on with his family? Just in fighting, divided side suing each other. Oh yeah, it's awful. Our Moon union, Deweezel on the same side are opposing sides. I believe, um man, I went down

the rabbit hole on this not too long ago. I think Dweezel, well, I know Dweezel and I Met are completely on opposite sides. And I think I Met and the mom have control of I think the mom's dead. No, no, I think they're in control of a catalog and we're like, you can't play Dad's music anymore. Uh. And so I think Dweezel and Moon I think are on one side and there's another sister. But yeah, it's a complete house divided. That's sad. It's really sad. Oh yeah, it's all money,

all right. Let's take a break because I'm bummed out now and shoot, all right, we're back. We shook off the whole Zeppa drama. Well now it's back again. So part of the problem here with these stickers was and is that, Um, well, it's there's a few things. First of all, what we've been talking about with misinterpreting these lyrics, you've got somebody else deciding, well, this is what this person meant when they wrote it, so it deserves a sticker,

whether it's John Denver or Twisted Sister. With their song under the Blade, it was about you know, the guitarists for that band was having throat surgery and was scared. So d Snyder wrote a song about that being scared going into surgery and going under the blade. And they thought it was a song about like killing people with a knife. So that's a big problem. That's a big

problem in and of itself. While you get past that by training somebody, right, I mean you, You you find a an elite group of people who have all studied comparative literature extensively, probably of doctorates in it, and you pay them a significant amount of money to work at each record label to go through the songs that come out and decide which ones deserved songs that come out

each year. Right, that's what you do. And that's what they did, right, Okay they did, and I knew they didn't know, And it's funny to go back that under the blade thing. Uh. The Snyder very famously was like that, that's not about B D s M. That is all in Tipper Goore's mind. Apparently, Well, and I got mad, He got really mad. Oh yeah, he was livid in the series in this hearing. Yeah yeah, I didn't see that part. Yeah, he was really ticked off at d Snyder.

So yeah, de Snyder said that, and that became kind of a talking point. Um on the opposing side was like basically painting Tipper Gore is like this lascifious, like like pent up housewife who like couldn't couldn't, couldn't stop herself from talking about B D s M and things like that. Um. And then not just not just Tipper,

but also some of the other people. UM, they were kind of painted as people who were just basically getting off on talking about this stuff on the Today Show or Good Morning America, which like just brings him right up to the line between like earnestness and performance art, and like they were they were almost saying like these people are are like putting you on, almost because I mean the idea that somebody's walking around getting off on it's just such a cartoonish, Freudian sketch of a person

that But that's is this is where the talking points were on both sides, Princes talking about Darling Nikki masturbating. All you wanna do is talk about masturbating in the in the in the mass media, and it was basically verbatim quotes is what I just said. Well, I mean, that's the irony of it all is the word masturbata probably not been used that much in public like ever right then because of these hearings, and certainly not only

not on Good Morning America or anything like that. But it was the very people who were decrying it who were the ones that were bringing it to the masses. Oh dear a few more songs. Azzie's Uh Suicide Solution song, which is anti suicide about alcoholism, was promoted by the PMRC as a suicide encouraging song. So they're just getting it all wrong. They are so okay, So you've got a subjective thing by definition, judging lyrics and interpreting them

is pretty subjective. Subjective, you're not going to go to the trouble of of training people to do this job correctly. At least you're going to come up with a set of coherent criteria and guidelines that can be applied across the board. Right now, they didn't do any of that, and it wasn't applied across the board because in the end, uh and this was a survey in Portland, Oregon only.

Let's say we could extrapolate this across the country. UM, eight percent of CDs and cassettes total had parental advisory stickers. Rap albums, heavy metal, one percent, mainstream pop, and no country albums had stickers, which is pretty rich considering there's a guy named David allen Coe and Hank Jr. And Walk Tass and all that. All they said saying about

was drinking and doing drugs again in fights and stuff. Yeah, but sex violence and drugs and drinking yep, yep, And they had zero parental advisory So that's smacked of all And again that's an extremely narrow sample record stores in Portland, Oregon, but it gets across some people's points on the opposing side like, no, this isn't this isn't about like values, it's about what they're threatened by. They're threatened by like rap music and heavy metal. They're okay with everything else.

And this is proof positive of that. They probably didn't even run the country songs through the process. That'd be my guess. I'm sure they just targeted groups, you know. So finally, um, well, like we said, they already are a a had already decided pre hearing that they were going to do this, and they said, all right, we're gonna figure this out. Should just take us about five years. And what the plan may have been was like maybe this will all just go away. I think that, yeah,

that was part of it. But I think also, um, they realized that like they were gonna, they were gonna have to it would stem off that legislation, and it worked. If you read some of the contemporary reports with legislators who brought legislation to their state houses, they say, well, since they agreed to play ball, we're sending our bill, but we've got it over here if they don't end up playing ball after all. So it really did work.

But they did it like a couple of days or a couple of weeks before the UM the committee, the Commerce Committee voted on the tape tax, and the r A didn't get their tape tax. No, they did not, UM. But what did happen was the stickers in March started coming out. Remember going to the store and seeing those for the first time. I gotta buy that one. Well, that's kind of what happened too. In some cases. Do you know what the first album that had the first

sticker was? Was there a first album? If you could guess, yes, if you could guess what album that came out in just guess who would have gotten the first explicit lyrics. I don't know. Jan's Addiction to Live Crew, Oh of course, Banned in the USA was the first album to get an explicit lyrics sticker. Yeah, And so you know, these stickers started coming out and I had a had a ripple effect in a big way, but in a lot

of ways, UM. Everything from Steven Tyler getting on stage and saying thank you, Chipper Gore because you throw some four letter words on an album and now you're gonna get another million in sales because kids were looking to buy those records. It just it's forbidden fruit all the way to the other side of the coin, which is Walmart or certain states, saying we're not even going to

carry these records. That was part of it. In stores, it also became an easy target for local law enforcement that decided that they were going to enact their own laws, like UM in Broward County, Florida, which is around Miami where Miami is UM, the Brower County Sheriff sent out some deputies with their badges full uniform to go buy record stores and said, Hey, just wanted to give you a friendly little heads up. If you guys sell any more of those two Live Crew albums, we're gonna arrest you.

We don't want to, but we wanted to give your heads up. First. Two Live Crew found out about it, and we're like, m that's prior restraint on free speech. And they won. They won in the Supreme Court actually, but this kind of thing, it was like, as as the Grabster put it, the censors were emboldened by the the the um. The response from the PMRC's album and these labels were Hey, go after these guys and not just the records. Like when artists came to town, they

would get arrested for their performances. In nine performers were arrested in Georgia alone for their concerts. Yeah, from Bobby Brown to Gene Simmons. Yeah, And that's what D Snyder and that that sort of thirty years later things said, is you know, it worked in one way because they sequestered, which is maybe all they wanted was they sequestered a

certain group of artists from the rest. And that sequestration, like you said, range from now they can they're following where they're touring and cops are gonna show up there to uh, Walmarn't saying not not going to carry this unless you change this album cover or this lyric or the song title to something ridiculous like Nirvana's song rape Me was very famously changed on the album the title to wait for Me. Nothing about the song, but they

didn't change the song itself. But if you look on the back of that in utero, mcumbers says wait for Me, but it's even like crossed out and they're written in sharp wave. It's not, but it should have been. Uh so it you know, it had a big ripple effect in a lot of ways. People were um and and I guess before this they had always had radio safe

versions of some songs. Well, yeah, you just weren't gonna get radio play, right, But now it's like the albums need to be like radio safe or else Walmart won't sell them or whatever. That's a big retailer, it was even back then. Um So, so there was a negative, that slippery slope that the PMRC had had carried the nation across. We started to slide down it and actual legitimate censorship took place as a result. And then the way that all of this happened, the way it was

able to happen, was because there was a gatekeeper. There was a funnel for the record industry to the public, and the PMRC was able to go to them and say, you've got something, We've got something you want, you've got something we want. We're gonna make this happen. And just by the fact that the record industry is not like it was back then, they're no longer the gatekeepers. Like, if you make music, you can sell directly to your

your fans. Um you've got some you know, a few digital platforms that that do some kind of explicit stuff and and or labeling or something, and there it's there and I think if you still can buy a record, I didn't know anybody still bought like physical CDs or whatever, but it can still come with a sticker. Um. But it's just changed. It's just different. And if you listen to stuff today and then you listen to that filthy fifteen,

you're like, you're you've got to be kidding me. So it's almost like the the the PMRC went and put their finger in a dike that didn't even really need it, and in doing so, they exploded in the floodgates. The flood just came and overwhelmed them. And just by the number of of of songs that were released and the amount of just filthiness that was attendant in those songs, it's just it became normalized rather than the exact opposite,

which is what the PMRC was was working for. Yeah, And what what didn't happen is our generation, which was the generation of the seventies and eighties. It turns out we did not grow up to just be a bunch of degenerates. Well, that was going to be the ruin of our country. It's true though, because of music, and I think that that is ultimately like what what parents tell themselves they're really worried about is that their their kids going to become morally unhygienic and the country will

go down the hill one way or another. But but I mean, it just doesn't seem to pan out ever, despite it being such an ongoing and old worry. You know, jazz was going to be the end of moral society then rock and roll, that's true, although I have to say the p MRC did give us Glenn Danzig's song Mother, which is apparently an O two Tipper Gore in the PMRC. Really, if you go and read the lyrics, you're like, Okay,

PMRC was in a bunch of songs. I mean, those those four letters appeared in a lot of rock and roll songs, hip hop songs. They got a lot of attention, and maybe that's all they wanted. Well, we just gave him some more. Well they're no longer around. They they broke up the band in the nineties. And do you know when do you know when Tipper quit uh became vice president? Yeah? And then now you can see her sitting in with the Grateful Dead on drums smoking grass.

All she talks about his grass. Now, if you want to know more about the p MRC. Well, I don't think there is anything more to know, but go look around read some contemporary articles. It's fun. And since I said contemporary articles, it is time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this short and sweet. Remember in the Olive Oil episode, I said something about Greeks and Italians, like what's the difference? I got support on that from a

Greek aleman. Apparently it's a thing, he said. I think you'll be pleased Chuck to find out that you didn't offend anyone when you said Greeks and Italians are the same. In fact, there's actually a phrase una faccia raza or in Greek mia fatsa mia razza, meaning one face, one race, often used to express the perception of close cultural affinities between Greeks and Italians. Keep keep up the good work, guys. That is from Nick Kantos. Well done, Chuck, and I

bets you. Nick Kantos is Greek. I'm good. Hey, it doesn't matter, yeah, don't um. Well thanks a lot, Nick, that was very nice email in the sind to support Chuck because I left him hanging high and dry. Um, if you want to get in touch with US. You can go onto our website stuff you Should Know dot com and you'll find our social links all over the place. I also have a website called the Josh Clark Way dot com and you can send me, Chuck and Jerry an email at Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com.

For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. M HM