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Was the PMRC censorship in disguise? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
0:13
Speaker 1: Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry over there,
0:16
Speaker 1: and this is stuff you should know. And we're going
0:18
Speaker 1: to mind our p's and ques because this is a
0:20
Speaker 1: family show, So everybody don't get all excited like we're
0:25
Speaker 1: gonna drop the S word or anything like that. So
0:29
Speaker 1: next or not, Yes, just said it. Oh, we're going
0:35
Speaker 1: to keep it clean. But we are talking about some dirty,
0:38
Speaker 1: dirty stuff, stuff that should never be uttered by anyone.
0:42
Speaker 1: And uh, I for one would like to tip my
0:44
Speaker 1: hat to tip her Gore for being an American hero
0:47
Speaker 1: of all time. What Actually, it's funny as I was
0:51
Speaker 1: reading some of this and this is we're talking about
0:53
Speaker 1: the p MRC. As everyone will soon find out, UM
0:56
Speaker 1: and Ed put this one together. UM and he points
1:00
Speaker 1: out that yes, if you look at this the stuff
1:02
Speaker 1: that they were trying to do the Parents Music Resource Center,
1:06
Speaker 1: they were basically saying, like we need to be able
1:08
Speaker 1: to have a heads up that this record album has
1:12
Speaker 1: UM lyrics on it that we wouldn't want our little
1:15
Speaker 1: eight year old kid to listen to. That's really all
1:17
Speaker 1: we're asking for. The thing is that's not all they
1:21
Speaker 1: were asking for, And it's a slippery slope of doing
1:24
Speaker 1: that where you're you're basically ringing the dinner triangle for
1:29
Speaker 1: anybody who's got a beef with any dirty lyrics or
1:33
Speaker 1: any worldview that opposes theirs to come out and say, yeah,
1:37
Speaker 1: I like that idea, and while we're at it, let's
1:40
Speaker 1: put him in jail if they don't comply. And you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa,
1:43
Speaker 1: but it's too late. The cats out of the bag.
1:45
Speaker 1: And this all happened in real life in the eighties, which,
1:49
Speaker 1: by the way, I'm on record is saying the seventies
1:52
Speaker 1: were the greatest decade of all time. I think the
1:56
Speaker 1: eighties were one of the most interesting. At least, A
1:59
Speaker 1: lot of icky still pent down in the You got
2:01
Speaker 1: the Satanic panic, Yeah, the whole backmasking thing that was
2:05
Speaker 1: kind of part of it. You've got this, um A
2:08
Speaker 1: bunch of other stuff happened in the eighties too. Uh,
2:12
Speaker 1: spatial program was going pretty strong, there was a shuttle
2:15
Speaker 1: disaster even I mean like it was an interesting, provocative decade.
2:20
Speaker 1: So there you have a chuck. There's the intro Yeah,
2:23
Speaker 1: this is uh, this was a commissioned piece because I
2:26
Speaker 1: remember very distinctly, uh, all of this going on when
2:30
Speaker 1: I was younger and paying pretty close attention as a
2:33
Speaker 1: music fan what was happening, and not getting as a
2:37
Speaker 1: kid that it was it meant more than an explicit
2:41
Speaker 1: lyrics label, right, you know, there was more at stake.
2:45
Speaker 1: But also as a kid, you probably were exclusively like,
2:48
Speaker 1: hey man, they can't do that. That's not cool, that
2:50
Speaker 1: censorship without understanding the nuance of that the other position
2:55
Speaker 1: as well. Right, Uh, No, I was too young to
2:58
Speaker 1: spout so see things like that. Right, so you're just
3:02
Speaker 1: like flipping off, like newspaper pictures of Tipper Gore in
3:05
Speaker 1: your bedroom. No, I mean I was I was little.
3:07
Speaker 1: I mean I was like eleven or twelve. I wasn't.
3:12
Speaker 1: I wasn't a discerning reader of the newspaper. I didn't
3:14
Speaker 1: know who Tippergore was. You didn't know, are you? Yeah?
3:18
Speaker 1: I knew who eight years old, and yeah, I mean
3:23
Speaker 1: she was on like Donna Hue and all these shows
3:25
Speaker 1: like it was a big deal. She was the face
3:28
Speaker 1: of this whole thing. Yeah, I knew who Tipper Core was.
3:30
Speaker 1: Not to imply that I was anymore discerning than you
3:32
Speaker 1: were as far as reading newspaper. And I knew her name,
3:35
Speaker 1: but I certainly had no idea who she was or
3:37
Speaker 1: what any of this meant at that age. Well, some
3:39
Speaker 1: people say knowing her name and by proxy her husband's
3:44
Speaker 1: name was the whole point of all this, but we'll
3:45
Speaker 1: get to that later. Yeah. So the Parents Music Resource Center, Um, well,
3:50
Speaker 1: I mean it was sort of an extension of the
3:54
Speaker 1: grand tradition of adults saying that new music is bad
3:58
Speaker 1: for kids, and that's and happening since there's been music.
4:02
Speaker 1: It's this chamber music amadeus. Maybe it's quite possible, I mean,
4:08
Speaker 1: it's it all we we should do an episode just
4:11
Speaker 1: on that. I'm being threatened by of with getting old,
4:16
Speaker 1: threatened by youth, I guess, yeah, But I think it's
4:19
Speaker 1: you're projecting onto youth where you're really threatened by your
4:22
Speaker 1: your imminent mortality is what it is, Yeah, and you're
4:26
Speaker 1: just projecting it onto the next generation because it's weird
4:29
Speaker 1: and strange and you're being pushed out of the out
4:31
Speaker 1: of control. Well, this we can find the origins of
4:35
Speaker 1: the PMRC in this case. Uh In nine, when Tipper
4:40
Speaker 1: Gore's daughter. I think she was eleven. Um turned on
4:44
Speaker 1: her new Prince album and the song very awesome song
4:48
Speaker 1: Darling Nikki came on with the very famous line about masturbation,
4:54
Speaker 1: and uh, I I remember being a young church kid
4:57
Speaker 1: thinking like, WHOA, I probably shouldn't be listening to Yeah,
5:01
Speaker 1: it was a dirty, dirty song. Did you keep listening? Uh? Yeah,
5:04
Speaker 1: because it's a it's a great song. It is a
5:06
Speaker 1: great song. Yeah. And if you put it even further,
5:09
Speaker 1: it's a great song on its own. But in context
5:11
Speaker 1: with the movie Purple Rain, that song shows up because
5:16
Speaker 1: Prince is trying to humiliate his girlfriend who he's just struck, um,
5:21
Speaker 1: because he found out that she was working for Morris Day,
5:24
Speaker 1: which was Prince's rival in Purple Rain. So like it's
5:28
Speaker 1: a it's a song to humiliator. Right on its own,
5:30
Speaker 1: it's a great song. It is a racy song, but
5:34
Speaker 1: it also has context that Tippergore didn't have at her
5:38
Speaker 1: fingertips when she listened to that song. Yeah, and she
5:41
Speaker 1: wrote a book a few years after that. Um, and
5:43
Speaker 1: I don't remember I didn't own this book. You didn't
5:45
Speaker 1: read that book when you were left And I write
5:46
Speaker 1: it when I was eight, No, I was sixteen by
5:49
Speaker 1: this point, but I remember I had it for some reason.
5:53
Speaker 1: I might have done a some sort of school thing
5:56
Speaker 1: on this on the PMRC, the whole thing. I definitely
6:00
Speaker 1: had a copy of this book. And it wasn't like
6:03
Speaker 1: because I was like, this is great and awesome, like
6:06
Speaker 1: I read it for some school project. But it's called
6:08
Speaker 1: Raising PG Kids in an X Rated Society and uh.
6:12
Speaker 1: In it, she talks about how not only was she
6:15
Speaker 1: worried and afraid for her kids, but she was afraid
6:18
Speaker 1: herself about just these images that she was seeing on
6:22
Speaker 1: MTV an Ozzy Osbourne crawling out of a swamp as
6:26
Speaker 1: a swamp beast, and instead of laughing at that like
6:30
Speaker 1: everyone else on the planet, it scared her or just
6:33
Speaker 1: taking it as part of the your formative years that
6:36
Speaker 1: you eventually grow out of and don't do, aren't aren't
6:39
Speaker 1: brought to worship or hail Satan as a result. Yeah,
6:43
Speaker 1: because she was a drummer. I mean she was and
6:45
Speaker 1: an all all women band called the Wildcats. Yeah, so
6:49
Speaker 1: she Uh, I don't know, it's kind of a lot
6:51
Speaker 1: of this is surprising. It is very surprising, and it's
6:54
Speaker 1: not like she was, you know, just a Democrat. Yeah,
6:58
Speaker 1: you know, well, so here's the thing. The from what
7:02
Speaker 1: I've seen, if you were on the industry side of this,
7:06
Speaker 1: the opposing side to the p MRC at the time, UM,
7:10
Speaker 1: you were pretty convinced. And I think some people still
7:12
Speaker 1: are that the the whole thing that Yes, Tipper Gore
7:15
Speaker 1: was like, this is this is terrible. I can't believe
7:17
Speaker 1: I listen to this is my eleven year old and
7:19
Speaker 1: said something to some other some other people sees friends
7:22
Speaker 1: with around Washington, and they were like, you know, we
7:24
Speaker 1: should do something about this. It would probably help Owl's
7:27
Speaker 1: um exposure to the nation and get them ready for
7:31
Speaker 1: a run at the presidency. And that that was actually
7:34
Speaker 1: like this, the the impetus for this whole quagmire was
7:39
Speaker 1: to make al Gore a prominent national figure. That's what
7:43
Speaker 1: a lot of people think this And whether that was
7:47
Speaker 1: Tipper and Owl's idea or whether they were kind of
7:50
Speaker 1: led into it depends on you know who you are.
7:53
Speaker 1: But that's um, that's that's very much out there in
7:57
Speaker 1: the zeitgeist that that was the whole basis of the
8:00
Speaker 1: entire thing. Huh, well, I don't buy that, um. And
8:04
Speaker 1: in fact, that the pre PMR c uh and Cincinnata, Ohio.
8:10
Speaker 1: There was a school PTA group that Delshare Elementary School
8:13
Speaker 1: p t A who also heard Darling Nikki and also
8:18
Speaker 1: didn't think that it was just a great jam, and
8:22
Speaker 1: they got all up in arms about it and drafted
8:24
Speaker 1: a statewide association letter that basically said, Hey, Recording Industry
8:30
Speaker 1: Association of America, we're just gonna call it the r
8:33
Speaker 1: i A A probably on this show, but um, maybe
8:36
Speaker 1: you should have a voluntary system of ratings. Uh, kind
8:39
Speaker 1: of like movies too with the m p a A.
8:41
Speaker 1: What's the big deal, right, And they're like, call us back,
8:43
Speaker 1: we want to talk about it, and I are a
8:45
Speaker 1: A never called them back. Yeah, they said, we'll get
8:47
Speaker 1: right on that. Yeah, exactly because they don't they want
8:50
Speaker 1: to do that. They were scared of this idea to
8:52
Speaker 1: begin with. They were really worried it was gonna hurt sales.
8:55
Speaker 1: If you have, like a an album that specifically says
8:59
Speaker 1: this is not kids, there are some stores in some
9:02
Speaker 1: parts of the country that just won't carry that album,
9:04
Speaker 1: and you want to be able to sell those albums.
9:06
Speaker 1: You want to either have albums that a store would
9:09
Speaker 1: be happy to sell, or at least slide it in
9:11
Speaker 1: underhand at least, so the stores don't know what they're
9:13
Speaker 1: selling and just the kids do. UM. So they were
9:16
Speaker 1: afraid of this kind of idea, but they also, I mean,
9:19
Speaker 1: it's the music industry in the eighties, like they could
9:22
Speaker 1: afford to be like be quiet, Cincinnati School District, we're
9:25
Speaker 1: not listening to you. When Tipper Gore came into the
9:29
Speaker 1: mix with some of her friends from Washington, UM, the
9:33
Speaker 1: dynamics of it changed for a number of reasons, not
9:36
Speaker 1: just because they were connected to government, but because the
9:39
Speaker 1: R A R I A A and government specifically UM
9:43
Speaker 1: had something going on. Yeah, So they formed the PMRC
9:46
Speaker 1: in UH on May fift They got a grant from
9:50
Speaker 1: Mike Love of the Beach Boys, which is just further
9:54
Speaker 1: cements him as one of the leading jerks and the
9:58
Speaker 1: history of music. So what why is he jerk? Because
10:00
Speaker 1: I saw that, I was like, what was my clove
10:02
Speaker 1: doing that? And I know, I know he wasn't the
10:04
Speaker 1: Manson one. That was Dennis. Wasn't it the one who
10:06
Speaker 1: hung out with the Manson family for a little while.
10:07
Speaker 1: That was Dennis Wilson. Okay, why is my clove a jerk?
10:11
Speaker 1: Because God made him that way. He's just that way. No,
10:15
Speaker 1: I mean he's he's he's a notorious I mean, I
10:17
Speaker 1: can't use words that I want to use, but he isn't.
10:20
Speaker 1: Just google Mike Love jerk and go down the rabbit
10:25
Speaker 1: hole of of stories about this guy. Does he yell
10:28
Speaker 1: like at basketball players courtside and stuff like that kind
10:31
Speaker 1: of jerk? He's just you just go read some articles.
10:34
Speaker 1: He's just he's just a jerk. I wish I had already.
10:38
Speaker 1: Uh So, it does not surprise me that he gave
10:40
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars to kick off the PMRC. But what
10:45
Speaker 1: you were talking about is is the tape tax, which
10:48
Speaker 1: was very interesting at the time. The recording industry was suffering,
10:54
Speaker 1: or not suffering, but they were just beginning to struggle
10:56
Speaker 1: a bit with the fact that UM cassette tapes were
11:00
Speaker 1: pretty inexpensive. UM or they could be super cheap if
11:04
Speaker 1: you got really crutty ones. Yeah, but the the neon
11:07
Speaker 1: C through ones, those are expensive. The Maxels, Yeah, I
11:10
Speaker 1: had the black Maxels, but do you remember like the
11:12
Speaker 1: C three ones they had like kind of fluorescent and
11:14
Speaker 1: neon colors to them, like the kind that Emilia Westevez
11:17
Speaker 1: and Charlie Sheen find and men at work? No, I
11:20
Speaker 1: haven't seen that either. You never saw men at work?
11:24
Speaker 1: It's a good one, is it? Okay? Um? Yeah, so
11:28
Speaker 1: they people were. You know, if you grew up in
11:30
Speaker 1: the eighties, you made tapes. You've recorded stuff off the radio,
11:33
Speaker 1: you made mix tapes. If your friend had a tape,
11:36
Speaker 1: you would dub that tape you had, set it in
11:38
Speaker 1: front of your speaker and record your albums. Do you
11:41
Speaker 1: remember figuring out how to record tapes that have been
11:45
Speaker 1: made so you couldn't record them? There was like a
11:48
Speaker 1: way that you could break off a tape. They were
11:50
Speaker 1: like these two things and if they were broken off
11:52
Speaker 1: while there were two tabs on top, if they were
11:54
Speaker 1: broken off, then they couldn't be either recorded from or
11:57
Speaker 1: recorded onto. I can't really means you can't record over
12:00
Speaker 1: what's there. So if you make a tape you really
12:02
Speaker 1: wanted to keep, you snap those tabs there for yeah, okay,
12:05
Speaker 1: but you can put tape over those things in full
12:08
Speaker 1: whatever sense them, and that you can record right over
12:11
Speaker 1: it again, that's right. But do you remember being a
12:13
Speaker 1: kid and wondering if you were going to get in
12:16
Speaker 1: trouble for recording a song from the radio, like knowing
12:18
Speaker 1: that you were in some gray legal area that you
12:21
Speaker 1: weren't quite really. Yeah, yeah, I didn't worry about it.
12:26
Speaker 1: I worried about getting in trouble for it. Not from
12:28
Speaker 1: my parents because they clearly didn't care, but my my
12:32
Speaker 1: local law enforcement officers. Games. Yeah, you come to your house,
12:38
Speaker 1: come to your house and play you out of your
12:40
Speaker 1: upstairs bedroom. Uh. So that the tape industry, the cassette
12:44
Speaker 1: tape industry, was UM putting a dent in record sales,
12:47
Speaker 1: and they were really threatened by it, and basically went
12:51
Speaker 1: to Congress and said, hey, listen, I'd like you to
12:53
Speaker 1: pass an act, the Home Audio Recording Act, that UM
12:58
Speaker 1: puts a pretty heavy tax on these cassettes, on these
13:02
Speaker 1: tape to tape decks that everyone's buying these days. And
13:05
Speaker 1: then we want all that money, like hundreds of millions
13:08
Speaker 1: of dollars a year. And the in the music industry
13:12
Speaker 1: was like, and we've got a great system worked out. Um,
13:15
Speaker 1: ten percent of all that is going to go to
13:17
Speaker 1: all the artists and is going to go to the
13:19
Speaker 1: record labels. Some thing's never changed, right, So UM they
13:23
Speaker 1: had this thing there was it was a house bill
13:25
Speaker 1: HR eleven, and it was in the Commerce Committee, and
13:30
Speaker 1: the Commerce Committee was going to decide whether the R
13:33
Speaker 1: I A A got this text money, a special text
13:36
Speaker 1: just for the music industry to kind of offset some
13:39
Speaker 1: of these perceived albums sale losses. Um that same committee,
13:45
Speaker 1: the Commerce Committee or this committee, and I'm sorry the Yeah,
13:50
Speaker 1: the Commerce Committee. UM also was decided to hold the
13:54
Speaker 1: hearing on the p m r c UH and it's
13:58
Speaker 1: it's desired to start labeling records as explicit. So was
14:04
Speaker 1: I mean that was a senatorial hearing? Was that the
14:06
Speaker 1: Commerce Committee specifically? Yes? Okay, because I thought the conflict
14:10
Speaker 1: was the fact that members of the PMRCY were married
14:14
Speaker 1: to people on that committee. I didn't know that was
14:16
Speaker 1: an actual Commerce Committee hearing. Yeah, I guess it wouldn't
14:25
Speaker 1: have been because it was HR twenty nine eleven, so
14:27
Speaker 1: that would have been the Commerce Committee then would have
14:29
Speaker 1: been in the in the House. And you're right, this
14:34
Speaker 1: was a Senate hearing. So yeah, no conflict whatsoever, totally fine. Well,
14:39
Speaker 1: like I said, the conflict was the fact that four
14:41
Speaker 1: members of the PMRCY were married to Congressman, right, So
14:44
Speaker 1: there was a conflict there. Basically, the record industry wanted
14:48
Speaker 1: something from Congress, and Congress now all of a sudden
14:51
Speaker 1: wanted something from the record industry, which was to label
14:56
Speaker 1: their records as potentially offense of two whomever, which is
15:02
Speaker 1: a big deal. And some people say that if the this,
15:06
Speaker 1: if the record industry hadn't been greedy and wanted the
15:09
Speaker 1: HR eleven out of Congress, they probably would have fought
15:13
Speaker 1: this tooth and nail. And a lot of people in
15:16
Speaker 1: the industry stood up and said, we're not going to
15:19
Speaker 1: take it to make a lot more sense in a
15:21
Speaker 1: couple of minutes, and UM pushed back and like did
15:25
Speaker 1: a lot of media tour and did a lot of
15:26
Speaker 1: interviews and spoke out about this, and rallied like their
15:29
Speaker 1: listeners to say, like, this is wrong, and they may
15:32
Speaker 1: have successfully fought it had they not had the industry
15:36
Speaker 1: ultimately wanted hr UM eleven to pass, this tape tax
15:41
Speaker 1: to pass, and so they decided that they were going
15:44
Speaker 1: to play ball. Yeah, and this was before the very
15:46
Speaker 1: famous hearing even happened. Nineteen record labels got on board
15:50
Speaker 1: and said, yeah, well we'll do this. We'll figure out
15:53
Speaker 1: a good system. And so the very famous hearing on
15:57
Speaker 1: September uh with strange collection of humans, John Denver, Frank Zappa,
16:04
Speaker 1: and Dee Snyder twist its sister. It was moot at
16:09
Speaker 1: that point. So let's what before we get into the hearing,
16:12
Speaker 1: and we gotta back up a little bit. Let's take
16:13
Speaker 1: a break real quick. He wants to ye, okay, we'll
16:16
Speaker 1: be right back. Everybody, don't go anywhere, and things chop stop, shot, shot,
16:48
Speaker 1: all right, chuck, So we should say, I gotta amend
16:50
Speaker 1: something I just said. I can't believe this is so dumb.
16:54
Speaker 1: It's It's possible the record industry would have fought this
16:57
Speaker 1: a lot harder than they did had that ape Tex
17:00
Speaker 1: not been in existence as a proposed bill. But that's
17:04
Speaker 1: not to say necessarily that they did. Because we've got
17:07
Speaker 1: to give a little more background on the p m
17:09
Speaker 1: r C and what they did. One of the things
17:11
Speaker 1: that they were able to do because of their connections
17:13
Speaker 1: and because of their visibility, was a media blitz. Over
17:19
Speaker 1: just a handful of months. They went from meeting in
17:22
Speaker 1: the in a church in Washington, d C. I think
17:24
Speaker 1: they were originally like nine members or something, to being
17:28
Speaker 1: on Donahue, The Today Show, um editorials across the country.
17:34
Speaker 1: They just they made this a topic of national They
17:37
Speaker 1: made a national conversation about explicit lyrics on album on
17:41
Speaker 1: on albums and whether the recording industry should do something
17:44
Speaker 1: about it. Out of overnight, they made it a thing.
17:48
Speaker 1: So as a result of that, um legislation in state
17:55
Speaker 1: among the states started to pop up saying, forget why
17:59
Speaker 1: the federal m is going to do it or not,
18:01
Speaker 1: we can do this ourselves. If you want to sell
18:02
Speaker 1: that record here in our state, you have to put
18:05
Speaker 1: a label on it. And I think they're at least
18:07
Speaker 1: a dozen states over over a very brief period of
18:09
Speaker 1: time that that came up with legislation proposed legislation for this.
18:15
Speaker 1: So the the R I A A would have had
18:17
Speaker 1: a hard time of fighting this off once the Once
18:22
Speaker 1: the cat was out of the bag from the p
18:24
Speaker 1: mr c UM, they could have still tried to fight it.
18:27
Speaker 1: The A c l U was like, we're writing right here,
18:29
Speaker 1: you guys, go ahead and pass one and see what happens.
18:32
Speaker 1: But it still would have been just a huge enormous problem.
18:36
Speaker 1: So the p MRC did start this and some of
18:38
Speaker 1: the states took it up. So whether it was just
18:40
Speaker 1: the tape text or not, or whether it was to
18:43
Speaker 1: try to stem off this legislation. Um, the the r
18:48
Speaker 1: I a A Said okay, we'll play ball, And like
18:50
Speaker 1: you said, they said, okay, we'll do this, and then
18:53
Speaker 1: they still held that sentence hearing hearing, which I think
18:56
Speaker 1: goes to further the idea that this this was to
19:00
Speaker 1: to bolster al Gore's image because he was on that
19:02
Speaker 1: signate hearing. Yeah. So what the PMRC called for, um,
19:06
Speaker 1: it was forced explicit tags UH rated X and just
19:12
Speaker 1: you know, they kind of followed the m p a
19:13
Speaker 1: a's example of movie ratings, which we did a great
19:16
Speaker 1: episode on that too. Yeah, that was a good one.
19:18
Speaker 1: UM rated X for explicit sex or foul language, uh
19:22
Speaker 1: D A for drugs or alcohol, V for violence, oh
19:25
Speaker 1: for a cult, which meant anything that's not you know,
19:28
Speaker 1: good strong Christian values, anything weird. Uh. And so to
19:33
Speaker 1: to illustrate this, they trotted out what is now known
19:36
Speaker 1: as the Filthy fifteen UM and I think we should
19:40
Speaker 1: go through these. It's a list of fifteen songs and
19:44
Speaker 1: what they were tagged for. We can't say all the titles.
19:48
Speaker 1: Darling Nikki of course, UM was tagged for for sex
19:51
Speaker 1: at the top of the list. From what I understand.
19:54
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think this is the accurate list, and
19:56
Speaker 1: I think like it may have been in some sort
19:58
Speaker 1: of order. I don't think, hey, we're ranked. Is like
20:01
Speaker 1: this is the dirtiest of them all. I don't know.
20:04
Speaker 1: This is the one that got tipper uh Shena Easton's
20:07
Speaker 1: sugar Walls. You remember that tune? No? And I went
20:11
Speaker 1: back and listened in Cherry's nodding, and uh I I
20:15
Speaker 1: didn't recognize it at all. Yeah, this was her big
20:17
Speaker 1: image change song because she was sort of not all
20:21
Speaker 1: American because she wasn't American, but you know, just sort
20:23
Speaker 1: of that clean image. And then she came out with
20:25
Speaker 1: sugar Walls, and everyone's like, you know what that's about? Right?
20:28
Speaker 1: Easton knows about sex? Uh, judas priests eat me alive.
20:35
Speaker 1: That's sex and violence depending on who you're talking to.
20:38
Speaker 1: But all right, if it's if it's consensual sex and
20:41
Speaker 1: violence and is it really violent? Uh? I haven't heard
20:45
Speaker 1: a bunch of these. Actually, strap On Robbie Baby from
20:48
Speaker 1: Vanity and I've never heard that one. I haven't either,
20:51
Speaker 1: but I can guess what it's about. Motley Crue song
20:55
Speaker 1: Bastard for violence in language. I didn't know the song,
20:59
Speaker 1: but I looked up the lyrics. It is a rape
21:01
Speaker 1: revenge song. Oh really, Yeah, it's about a woman like
21:05
Speaker 1: killing a man who tried to rape her. That raises
21:08
Speaker 1: a really good point here, Chuck, and we'll get into
21:11
Speaker 1: this a little more. But I just want to point
21:13
Speaker 1: this out to everybody listening right now. I can't wait
21:15
Speaker 1: any longer. One of the great things about the p
21:19
Speaker 1: mr C is that they provided endless amounts of entertainment
21:22
Speaker 1: to people who were opposed to them by grossly misinterpreting
21:27
Speaker 1: the lyrics of songs and and that that's a really
21:30
Speaker 1: good example, Yeah for sure. Um and there are a
21:33
Speaker 1: few examples of that. Um. A C. D C has
21:35
Speaker 1: let Me Put My Love into You. That's sweet song
21:38
Speaker 1: about love. Let Me put my Love into You, Open
21:42
Speaker 1: your heart to my love. Twisted sisters, we're not going
21:46
Speaker 1: to take it, which it says violence for that that
21:49
Speaker 1: that is hysterical because there's nothing violent in that song,
21:52
Speaker 1: not at all. And zero. The Snyder at the Senate
21:55
Speaker 1: hearings was like, apparently somebody saw the video and with
21:59
Speaker 1: the guy from Animal House, yeah, and mistook this cartoonish violence.
22:04
Speaker 1: If you if you want to know this was I
22:06
Speaker 1: collect cartoons, and every single one of those acts of
22:09
Speaker 1: violence was taken from some of my favorite cartoons of
22:12
Speaker 1: all time. So there's nothing in the song. So what's
22:16
Speaker 1: the what are you talking about here? Why would there
22:18
Speaker 1: be explicit an explicit lyrics warning on my album when
22:22
Speaker 1: there's no explicit lyrics and it's cartoonish violence in the
22:26
Speaker 1: video this but this was on the list of fifteen
22:30
Speaker 1: that they used to say this is a good example
22:32
Speaker 1: of what's going on in the music industry. I read
22:34
Speaker 1: a good interview with him, it was like thirty years
22:37
Speaker 1: on about the PMR, and he said who they really
22:41
Speaker 1: wanted was Vince Neil because Vince it was a party
22:45
Speaker 1: guy and not super articulate, and it would have been
22:47
Speaker 1: a blood bass. Did they confuse them because they looked similar. No, no, no,
22:51
Speaker 1: I mean I don't think they accidentally got d Snyder.
22:54
Speaker 1: But he said that's kind of who they wanted, was
22:56
Speaker 1: Vince Neil, but what they got instead was me. D
22:59
Speaker 1: Snyder very famously didn't drink or smoke or do drugs.
23:03
Speaker 1: It was very articulate, kind of well spoken family man.
23:06
Speaker 1: And he throws a little shade to the Gore's way
23:09
Speaker 1: and he's like, I'm still married and the Gores are
23:12
Speaker 1: separated and one of their kids was busted for drugs,
23:16
Speaker 1: and like he's he was even nice about it now,
23:19
Speaker 1: He's like, look, marriage is hard. I don't want to
23:21
Speaker 1: make fun of them, but it's just interesting that I'm
23:24
Speaker 1: the one that they were picking on. I'm still married
23:27
Speaker 1: to my wife thirty nine years later. He also called
23:29
Speaker 1: her out because this whole thing started because she failed
23:32
Speaker 1: to read the lyrics of the Prince album before she
23:36
Speaker 1: listened to it with her little kid. And he's like,
23:39
Speaker 1: I've always read the lyrics or listened to an album
23:43
Speaker 1: before I've shared it with my kids. That's a parent's job.
23:45
Speaker 1: I've always done this, and like he he goes even
23:48
Speaker 1: like when Tenacious D's first album came out, he said
23:51
Speaker 1: his whole family loved it, but he made um. He
23:53
Speaker 1: made a version of it without one of the songs.
23:56
Speaker 1: And I know it's so, but you do um for
23:59
Speaker 1: his kids so they can enjoy Tenacious D. But they
24:02
Speaker 1: weren't ready for this other song. D Snyder is basically
24:05
Speaker 1: one of the top heroes of this if not the
24:07
Speaker 1: top hero of this whole thing. Yeah, sure, um, And
24:10
Speaker 1: do you remember we met him kind of said high,
24:13
Speaker 1: oh wait, where was that? The Whatever show with Alexis
24:16
Speaker 1: and Jennifer was on at the same time as us.
24:19
Speaker 1: That's right, yep, because he was in Rock of Ages,
24:22
Speaker 1: so he was on. I totally forgot about that. It
24:26
Speaker 1: was It was wonderful. One of them was Martha Stewart's daughter.
24:29
Speaker 1: Alexis was interesting. Yeah, totally forgot about that whole thing
24:36
Speaker 1: you did. Yeah, uh Madonna dress you up? Yeah, Madonna.
24:42
Speaker 1: If you read quotes from her about this, she's like, yeah, whatever,
24:46
Speaker 1: it's like a Tuesday for me. The band Wasp, if
24:48
Speaker 1: you remember them, we are sex perverts, is what WASP
24:51
Speaker 1: stands for. They were like a proto guir kind of
24:54
Speaker 1: and please don't kill me if you're a guar faint
24:56
Speaker 1: and I'm way off it makes sense to outsiders. Did
25:00
Speaker 1: that really stand for that or was that like kids
25:02
Speaker 1: in Satan's Service? No, that's what it stood for. They
25:05
Speaker 1: were like there was like a big stage show and
25:07
Speaker 1: like human black lawless right, yes, and he remember he
25:11
Speaker 1: wore a cod piece that shot out. It was wired
25:15
Speaker 1: to pyrotechnics and like shot sparks out. There was also
25:17
Speaker 1: a cod piece with like a saw I think a
25:19
Speaker 1: chainsaw on it, okay, kind of like a presage that
25:23
Speaker 1: whole horrible scene in seven. I think I think the one,
25:27
Speaker 1: the way he was approaching was a little more funny
25:30
Speaker 1: and just kind of lighthearted than the seven one. Uh
25:33
Speaker 1: So their song animal, sex, language, and violence, it covered
25:37
Speaker 1: all three, but not a cult, no no, no occult,
25:42
Speaker 1: def Leppard, high and dry, parentheses, Saturday Night it was
25:46
Speaker 1: about drinking, all right, uh and they even said like, yeah,
25:50
Speaker 1: it's about drinking. People like to have fun on Saturday Night.
25:53
Speaker 1: Sometimes um Merciful Fate into the Coven and I think
26:00
Speaker 1: was um King Diamond's band originally, Yes, he was Merciful
26:05
Speaker 1: Fate singer. So they there's was a cult, and it
26:08
Speaker 1: was like overtly occult stuff like come come serve Satan
26:12
Speaker 1: with me. It's fun, kill your parents kind of thing,
26:15
Speaker 1: but don't really, your little psychotic sixteen year old, this
26:19
Speaker 1: is not for real. This is just music and I'm
26:22
Speaker 1: trying to sell records by banning my face. Plus also,
26:26
Speaker 1: one of the other points that I think a lot
26:27
Speaker 1: of people made too was you're not gonna find Merciful
26:30
Speaker 1: Fates into the coven on Casey Caysum's Top forty ever,
26:35
Speaker 1: like you would really have to go find this thing. Yeah,
26:38
Speaker 1: there were no songs on the radio. And even if
26:39
Speaker 1: you do find it, well, then if your kids listening
26:42
Speaker 1: to Merciful Fate, have a conversation with your kid about
26:44
Speaker 1: what they're listening to and what Merciful Fate saying and
26:47
Speaker 1: just how real or non real it is to engage
26:49
Speaker 1: your child. And also, um, you will not be the
26:53
Speaker 1: one parent in the history of the world that stops
26:56
Speaker 1: your child from listening to or watching something that they
26:59
Speaker 1: want to listen to or watch. Yeah, when it's impossible.
27:02
Speaker 1: When License the Ill came out, um, I knew like
27:05
Speaker 1: every word on the album front to back, and uh
27:10
Speaker 1: one of them. I was singing it out loud to
27:12
Speaker 1: my parents about smoking that dust at St. Anthony's Feast
27:17
Speaker 1: and they were like it was funny. They didn't say
27:19
Speaker 1: anything immediately, but they did look at each other, and
27:21
Speaker 1: like a day or two later, they approached me and like, Josh,
27:24
Speaker 1: you know that song, that BC Boys song where they're
27:26
Speaker 1: talking about smoking dust? Are they talking about Angel dust PCP?
27:31
Speaker 1: And I was like I don't know, probably, and they're like,
27:33
Speaker 1: you can't listen to that anymore. Yeah, And but that's
27:36
Speaker 1: one of the points though, that it makes in this
27:39
Speaker 1: article is that like a kid probably doesn't know. And
27:43
Speaker 1: I think research has even shown that lyrically, people are
27:47
Speaker 1: more prone to bring their own experience into something, especially kid. Well. Also,
27:53
Speaker 1: I legitimately remember I can put myself back at that
27:57
Speaker 1: time and hearing that I wasn't like angel does time
28:02
Speaker 1: a try. That's a great idea. I really didn't think
28:06
Speaker 1: like that, and I think most people don't. Ironically, if
28:10
Speaker 1: you're under the influence of angel dust, then lyrics are
28:13
Speaker 1: super suggestive, probably, but you have to do the angel
28:16
Speaker 1: dust first. Uh. Sabbaths trashed obviously about drugs and alcohol.
28:22
Speaker 1: That's not Osborne or Dio Sabbath either. It's not either
28:26
Speaker 1: one of those who ian Gill him now I don't
28:30
Speaker 1: even know. I had to look him up. It's fine.
28:32
Speaker 1: It sounds a bit like um, a little more melodic
28:36
Speaker 1: motor head Okay, it sounds motor heady. It's not my
28:40
Speaker 1: kind of Sabbath. Mary Jane girls in my house. I
28:43
Speaker 1: don't know anything about that dude that's been in my
28:45
Speaker 1: head all day. Yeah, I don't know that girl. Is it?
28:49
Speaker 1: What is it in my house. Is it rapper? Is
28:52
Speaker 1: it in my house? Well, that doesn't clue me in anymore.
28:56
Speaker 1: It's not rap. It's the Mary Jane Girls. Um. They
28:58
Speaker 1: were like a girl girl group that Rick James put
29:01
Speaker 1: together super eighties like sexy. Um, it's fine, like it
29:06
Speaker 1: like it wouldn't you would not bat an eyelash over
29:09
Speaker 1: it today. Venom possessed, never heard of a cult. And
29:16
Speaker 1: then finally this is Cindy law her with her very
29:21
Speaker 1: famous masturbation song she Bop So you know it's about masturbation. No, okay,
29:26
Speaker 1: until I read the words today and I'm like, oh,
29:28
Speaker 1: well that's about masturbation. Yes, she said that she she
29:32
Speaker 1: like Bapa Day kept the doctor away, so she was
29:35
Speaker 1: recommending it and that's why she made that song. I
29:37
Speaker 1: got the impression she's a little embarrassed as an adult
29:40
Speaker 1: for having released that song, but not apologetic. No, she
29:45
Speaker 1: Cyndy Lauper apologizes to no man. We saw a show
29:48
Speaker 1: of hers once. She's good concert. Yeah, I um, you
29:53
Speaker 1: know I went to that christ that Halloween party of
29:55
Speaker 1: hers one time. No in the nineties. My she has
30:00
Speaker 1: big Halloween bash every year at her place in New
30:02
Speaker 1: York and my friend John Abraham was a member of
30:06
Speaker 1: the fan club, and I think you could get like
30:08
Speaker 1: early tickets or something. Oh that's cool. So you got
30:11
Speaker 1: us all tickets and we went and I met Cyndy
30:12
Speaker 1: lawpers party to her Halloween party, which was so much fun.
30:15
Speaker 1: She's um, like, she spends a lot of time and
30:18
Speaker 1: money like helping out l g B t Q youth
30:22
Speaker 1: who have been kicked out onto the street by this. Yeah,
30:24
Speaker 1: it's like a legitimately great person. Yeah, she's totally and
30:27
Speaker 1: talented to very much. So she pops Cindy, that's right.
30:32
Speaker 1: Uh So that's the Filthy fifteen, that's what they trotted out. Um,
30:38
Speaker 1: and this is when I guess we need to get
30:40
Speaker 1: in a little bit to the fact that it seems
30:42
Speaker 1: sort of okay even me as apparent now to be like, well,
30:46
Speaker 1: you know what, there's nothing wrong with a rating system
30:49
Speaker 1: because as a parent you want to know what's going on,
30:51
Speaker 1: and that just helps us. That's a bit of shorthand
30:54
Speaker 1: for us. But um, it wasn't a voluntary thing because
30:59
Speaker 1: very on what started happening is uh, they started people
31:03
Speaker 1: started doing interviews and on the PMRC, people in the government,
31:09
Speaker 1: and it was clear that they were trying to get
31:12
Speaker 1: get be rid of this stuff. Well, yeah, get it
31:16
Speaker 1: out of stores, them out of business. Yeah, kind of that,
31:21
Speaker 1: like we have. They have different views in ours. We
31:24
Speaker 1: don't like it. They considered themselves the moral majority, UM,
31:28
Speaker 1: which was ascendant thanks to uh basically a pact with
31:31
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan. They helped out Reagan or get Reagan elected,
31:35
Speaker 1: and Reagan like made the Christian right, UM very prominent
31:39
Speaker 1: in in powerful in American politics in the eighties. And
31:43
Speaker 1: there I read this. One of my favorite things to do, Chuck,
31:46
Speaker 1: when we're researching stuff like this is to read contemporary
31:49
Speaker 1: articles at the time, like they don't know the outcome,
31:52
Speaker 1: and they also know tons of details that get lost
31:55
Speaker 1: to time over history. But I was reading this like
31:57
Speaker 1: long form l a Times article about this whole thing,
32:01
Speaker 1: written right smack dab in the middle of it, and um,
32:04
Speaker 1: they quoted this one guy who was like, this is
32:06
Speaker 1: part of a movement. Like everybody's looking at it, like, um,
32:10
Speaker 1: it's just about censoring records. They're like, No, these same
32:13
Speaker 1: people tried to get rid of the Last Temptation of Christ.
32:17
Speaker 1: They tried to get funding pulled for the National Endowment
32:20
Speaker 1: for the Humanities, this is like part of a larger
32:23
Speaker 1: thing that they're trying to do, and they're trying to
32:25
Speaker 1: sanitize American popular culture to their tastes. And what you
32:31
Speaker 1: were saying, I think is that in interviews and at
32:33
Speaker 1: the Senate hearings, some of the people on the p
32:35
Speaker 1: MRC side, including p m p MRC members, basically said like, yeah,
32:40
Speaker 1: we're trying to censor this, which it's one thing if
32:43
Speaker 1: you go into it saying that, because then the people
32:45
Speaker 1: who are opposed to you know where you stand. But
32:48
Speaker 1: the PMRC, their whole position, they talked out of both
32:52
Speaker 1: sides of their mouth, and one of the sides of
32:53
Speaker 1: the side that they said the loudest was we're not
32:56
Speaker 1: trying to censor anything. We're trying to get the record
32:58
Speaker 1: industry to do this voluntarily. We just happened to be
33:01
Speaker 1: a group, right, We just happened to be married to
33:03
Speaker 1: these senators and these congressmen and like these cabinet members um,
33:07
Speaker 1: and that has nothing to do with anything. But if
33:09
Speaker 1: you look at the context of everything, it was it's voluntary.
33:13
Speaker 1: But if you don't do it, we're going to put
33:15
Speaker 1: you out of business, or we're going to have the
33:17
Speaker 1: government do it, and that is censorship. It's also unconstitutional
33:21
Speaker 1: when the government gets into that, that's unconstitutional. And probably
33:25
Speaker 1: every single law like this would have been thrown right
33:28
Speaker 1: out by the Supreme Court. Yeah, well, which is one
33:30
Speaker 1: big reason why this wasn't a law that was never
33:33
Speaker 1: legislation proposed. It was always voluntary from a private group
33:37
Speaker 1: to a corporation. But Frank Zappa at those hearings said, well,
33:41
Speaker 1: wait a minute, if this has nothing to do with legislation,
33:44
Speaker 1: if this has nothing to do with law, why are
33:47
Speaker 1: we holding Senate hearings on a private group trying to
33:51
Speaker 1: get a private action, voluntary action undertake him? What are
33:55
Speaker 1: we doing here? And he really revealed, like the the
33:58
Speaker 1: theater behind the whole thing, I got rid of all
34:01
Speaker 1: the set dressing and showed it for what it was,
34:03
Speaker 1: which was a stab at censorship. This guy, Jeff Ling,
34:07
Speaker 1: part of the PMRC, said do I think it should
34:10
Speaker 1: be out of stores? Sure? I do. I think label
34:12
Speaker 1: Ling will do that. Another p M MARC member, Sally Nevius, said,
34:17
Speaker 1: we want the industry to police itself. If they refuse,
34:20
Speaker 1: we're going to look into legal ways to stop what
34:22
Speaker 1: we feel is contributing to the delinquencies of miners. Pat
34:26
Speaker 1: Boone very famously said that's what the Constitution had in mind,
34:30
Speaker 1: self imposed majority approved censorship. Uh so, I mean they
34:35
Speaker 1: were blatant about it, about the fact that not only
34:39
Speaker 1: were they trying to legislate morality, if it came pushed,
34:43
Speaker 1: came to shove, they would try and do that. But uh,
34:46
Speaker 1: pet to Pat Boone straight up saying like, yeah, if
34:49
Speaker 1: if the majority wants it, sure sensor art, which is
34:53
Speaker 1: just really scary. Oh, it is scary. There was a
34:55
Speaker 1: woman named Judith Tough who introduced legislation in Maryland for
35:01
Speaker 1: record labeling, and um she apparently told Frank Zappa to
35:05
Speaker 1: stop worrying about civil rights, which is not a phrase
35:09
Speaker 1: you want to go down in history, as is famously saying, yeah,
35:12
Speaker 1: and and Frank Zappa is the last person I want
35:14
Speaker 1: to say that too. You know, Vince Neil probably would
35:17
Speaker 1: have been like, all right, fine, where's the Jack Daniels.
35:22
Speaker 1: Uh And even though it was a senator, a Democratic
35:25
Speaker 1: senator there named James Exson of Nebraska, and he even said, like,
35:32
Speaker 1: what are we doing here? Well, okay? And I was like, hero,
35:35
Speaker 1: Guy's a hero for saying that. No, not a hero
35:38
Speaker 1: for saying that he wanted to know because he was
35:40
Speaker 1: in favor of of censoring. Yeah, but he he was like,
35:44
Speaker 1: there was no legislation on the floor, Like, why is
35:48
Speaker 1: it here in front of the commerce I took it
35:51
Speaker 1: to mean like he was like, well, what are this is?
35:53
Speaker 1: This is this is inappropriate? Then this is not right?
35:57
Speaker 1: But no, he was like, well, I thought we were
35:58
Speaker 1: here to a censor thing. It turns out did you
36:01
Speaker 1: watch the Frank Zappa testimony, Um, it happens in the
36:04
Speaker 1: first couple of minutes that whole thing. Oh yeah, I
36:07
Speaker 1: watched a lot of this row. I watched it back
36:09
Speaker 1: in the day, so I'm too, but rewatched some of it. Um.
36:12
Speaker 1: John Denver was great. He was He had the most
36:15
Speaker 1: impact of everyone because I think they thought John Denver
36:18
Speaker 1: was going to come in there and Pat Boon Mr.
36:22
Speaker 1: Squeaky Clean. Yeah, and Pat booned up and he came
36:25
Speaker 1: out hard on a couple of things. He was like,
36:28
Speaker 1: first of all, you think my song Rocky Mountain Highs
36:30
Speaker 1: about smoking dope. It's not like you're wrong. I wrote it.
36:35
Speaker 1: It's about feeling the euphoria of nature in the Rockies. Yeah,
36:40
Speaker 1: and the Rockies in Colorado. Uh and not only that,
36:44
Speaker 1: but um, you shouldn't be doing this. And they were like, wait,
36:49
Speaker 1: we called you in here because we thought you might
36:51
Speaker 1: be friendly. Committee to Denver and he said, hey, I
36:55
Speaker 1: am friendly, I'm John Denver, but you shouldn't be doing
36:57
Speaker 1: this and they all clapped. It's funny if you watch
37:00
Speaker 1: the Frank Zappa testimony. They introduced him, and my brain
37:03
Speaker 1: was like waiting for applause and like cheers, and I
37:05
Speaker 1: was like, oh, yeah, have to senate here. They don't
37:07
Speaker 1: do that there. Um. But so yeah, let's pause for
37:12
Speaker 1: a second here and and point something out, chuck. Um.
37:16
Speaker 1: We just talked about a Senate hearing where John Denver,
37:19
Speaker 1: Frank Zappa, and Dee Snyder from Twisted Sister testified. That's
37:23
Speaker 1: a pretty significant Senate hearing and the eighties it is
37:27
Speaker 1: it really is. I think it is. I think it's landmark. Now. Um,
37:33
Speaker 1: so you want to talk a little more about the
37:35
Speaker 1: hearings and then we'll take a break in a little bit. Uh. Okay,
37:38
Speaker 1: So the guy who's most frequently actually all three of
37:43
Speaker 1: them are, but Frank Zappa really kind of laid it down.
37:47
Speaker 1: He brought Moon Unit and Dweezel with him, and uh,
37:51
Speaker 1: they were I don't know if they got to testify,
37:53
Speaker 1: but they came so that they could testify as concerned
37:57
Speaker 1: teens who were worried about their speech. And Frank's apple
38:02
Speaker 1: really pointed it out. He said that, first of all,
38:04
Speaker 1: I think this is the parents concerned, not the government's concerned. Um,
38:08
Speaker 1: and that, uh, I've got four children, two of them
38:11
Speaker 1: are here. That was moon Unit Deweesel. Just like saying
38:13
Speaker 1: both of their names. I want them to grow up
38:16
Speaker 1: in a country where they can think what they want
38:18
Speaker 1: to think, be what they want to be, and not
38:20
Speaker 1: what somebody's wife or somebody in government makes them be.
38:23
Speaker 1: It's is pretty pretty wise words, although he does say
38:27
Speaker 1: there's a little watchword in there. Wife. Wife got thrown
38:32
Speaker 1: around a lot during this from the opposing side, and
38:36
Speaker 1: it just danced along the edge of being denigrading. I think, like,
38:40
Speaker 1: you're a Washington wife, stay in your lane, don't worry
38:44
Speaker 1: about big stuff like this. You know, almost kind of
38:49
Speaker 1: smacked of it whenever it came up Washington wives or
38:52
Speaker 1: wives or ladies. It just seemed just just kind of denigrating.
38:57
Speaker 1: Here there go back and list and you'll see it.
39:00
Speaker 1: I heard heard it, but I had a different take
39:03
Speaker 1: than you did. Yeah, um and Frank Zapp actually was
39:08
Speaker 1: mislabeled too. Later he had a a word lyric free
39:13
Speaker 1: instrumental album that was tagged with explicit lyric because somebody
39:19
Speaker 1: in a record store was like, oh yeah, he testified
39:22
Speaker 1: against the p MRC. Man, it's so sad. What's going
39:25
Speaker 1: on with his family? What's going on with his family?
39:28
Speaker 1: Just in fighting, divided side suing each other. Oh yeah,
39:34
Speaker 1: it's awful. Our Moon union, Deweezel on the same side
39:37
Speaker 1: are opposing sides. I believe, um man, I went down
39:43
Speaker 1: the rabbit hole on this not too long ago. I
39:45
Speaker 1: think Dweezel, well, I know Dweezel and I Met are
39:50
Speaker 1: completely on opposite sides. And I think I Met and
39:53
Speaker 1: the mom have control of I think the mom's dead. No, no,
39:58
Speaker 1: I think they're in control of a catalog and we're like,
40:02
Speaker 1: you can't play Dad's music anymore. Uh. And so I
40:06
Speaker 1: think Dweezel and Moon I think are on one side
40:09
Speaker 1: and there's another sister. But yeah, it's a complete house divided.
40:14
Speaker 1: That's sad. It's really sad. Oh yeah, it's all money,
40:18
Speaker 1: all right. Let's take a break because I'm bummed out
40:20
Speaker 1: now and shoot, all right, we're back. We shook off
40:52
Speaker 1: the whole Zeppa drama. Well now it's back again. So
40:56
Speaker 1: part of the problem here with these stickers was and
40:59
Speaker 1: is that, Um, well, it's there's a few things. First
41:05
Speaker 1: of all, what we've been talking about with misinterpreting these lyrics,
41:08
Speaker 1: you've got somebody else deciding, well, this is what this
41:12
Speaker 1: person meant when they wrote it, so it deserves a sticker,
41:15
Speaker 1: whether it's John Denver or Twisted Sister. With their song
41:20
Speaker 1: under the Blade, it was about you know, the guitarists
41:24
Speaker 1: for that band was having throat surgery and was scared.
41:28
Speaker 1: So d Snyder wrote a song about that being scared
41:32
Speaker 1: going into surgery and going under the blade. And they
41:34
Speaker 1: thought it was a song about like killing people with
41:36
Speaker 1: a knife. So that's a big problem. That's a big
41:39
Speaker 1: problem in and of itself. While you get past that
41:41
Speaker 1: by training somebody, right, I mean you, You you find
41:44
Speaker 1: a an elite group of people who have all studied
41:48
Speaker 1: comparative literature extensively, probably of doctorates in it, and you
41:52
Speaker 1: pay them a significant amount of money to work at
41:54
Speaker 1: each record label to go through the songs that come
41:57
Speaker 1: out and decide which ones deserved songs that come out
42:01
Speaker 1: each year. Right, that's what you do. And that's what
42:03
Speaker 1: they did, right, Okay they did, and I knew they
42:06
Speaker 1: didn't know, And it's funny to go back that under
42:08
Speaker 1: the blade thing. Uh. The Snyder very famously was like that,
42:13
Speaker 1: that's not about B D s M. That is all
42:15
Speaker 1: in Tipper Goore's mind. Apparently, Well, and I got mad,
42:19
Speaker 1: He got really mad. Oh yeah, he was livid in
42:22
Speaker 1: the series in this hearing. Yeah yeah, I didn't see
42:25
Speaker 1: that part. Yeah, he was really ticked off at d Snyder.
42:28
Speaker 1: So yeah, de Snyder said that, and that became kind
42:30
Speaker 1: of a talking point. Um on the opposing side was
42:33
Speaker 1: like basically painting Tipper Gore is like this lascifious, like
42:39
Speaker 1: like pent up housewife who like couldn't couldn't, couldn't stop
42:42
Speaker 1: herself from talking about B D s M and things
42:45
Speaker 1: like that. Um. And then not just not just Tipper,
42:48
Speaker 1: but also some of the other people. UM, they were
42:51
Speaker 1: kind of painted as people who were just basically getting
42:54
Speaker 1: off on talking about this stuff on the Today Show
42:57
Speaker 1: or Good Morning America, which like just brings him right
43:00
Speaker 1: up to the line between like earnestness and performance art,
43:04
Speaker 1: and like they were they were almost saying like these
43:06
Speaker 1: people are are like putting you on, almost because I
43:11
Speaker 1: mean the idea that somebody's walking around getting off on
43:13
Speaker 1: it's just such a cartoonish, Freudian sketch of a person
43:17
Speaker 1: that But that's is this is where the talking points
43:19
Speaker 1: were on both sides, Princes talking about Darling Nikki masturbating.
43:23
Speaker 1: All you wanna do is talk about masturbating in the
43:25
Speaker 1: in the in the mass media, and it was basically
43:29
Speaker 1: verbatim quotes is what I just said. Well, I mean,
43:32
Speaker 1: that's the irony of it all is the word masturbata
43:34
Speaker 1: probably not been used that much in public like ever
43:37
Speaker 1: right then because of these hearings, and certainly not only
43:41
Speaker 1: not on Good Morning America or anything like that. But
43:43
Speaker 1: it was the very people who were decrying it who
43:45
Speaker 1: were the ones that were bringing it to the masses.
43:48
Speaker 1: Oh dear a few more songs. Azzie's Uh Suicide Solution song,
43:53
Speaker 1: which is anti suicide about alcoholism, was promoted by the
43:59
Speaker 1: PMRC as a suicide encouraging song. So they're just getting
44:03
Speaker 1: it all wrong. They are so okay, So you've got
44:05
Speaker 1: a subjective thing by definition, judging lyrics and interpreting them
44:10
Speaker 1: is pretty subjective. Subjective, you're not going to go to
44:13
Speaker 1: the trouble of of training people to do this job correctly.
44:18
Speaker 1: At least you're going to come up with a set
44:20
Speaker 1: of coherent criteria and guidelines that can be applied across
44:24
Speaker 1: the board. Right now, they didn't do any of that,
44:28
Speaker 1: and it wasn't applied across the board because in the end,
44:34
Speaker 1: uh and this was a survey in Portland, Oregon only.
44:39
Speaker 1: Let's say we could extrapolate this across the country. UM,
44:43
Speaker 1: eight percent of CDs and cassettes total had parental advisory stickers.
44:48
Speaker 1: Rap albums, heavy metal, one percent, mainstream pop, and no
44:53
Speaker 1: country albums had stickers, which is pretty rich considering there's
44:56
Speaker 1: a guy named David allen Coe and Hank Jr. And
45:00
Speaker 1: Walk Tass and all that. All they said saying about
45:03
Speaker 1: was drinking and doing drugs again in fights and stuff. Yeah,
45:07
Speaker 1: but sex violence and drugs and drinking yep, yep, And
45:11
Speaker 1: they had zero parental advisory So that's smacked of all
45:14
Speaker 1: And again that's an extremely narrow sample record stores in Portland, Oregon,
45:20
Speaker 1: but it gets across some people's points on the opposing
45:23
Speaker 1: side like, no, this isn't this isn't about like values,
45:27
Speaker 1: it's about what they're threatened by. They're threatened by like
45:31
Speaker 1: rap music and heavy metal. They're okay with everything else.
45:35
Speaker 1: And this is proof positive of that. They probably didn't
45:37
Speaker 1: even run the country songs through the process. That'd be
45:41
Speaker 1: my guess. I'm sure they just targeted groups, you know.
45:46
Speaker 1: So finally, um, well, like we said, they already are
45:50
Speaker 1: a a had already decided pre hearing that they were
45:52
Speaker 1: going to do this, and they said, all right, we're
45:55
Speaker 1: gonna figure this out. Should just take us about five years.
46:00
Speaker 1: And what the plan may have been was like maybe
46:04
Speaker 1: this will all just go away. I think that, yeah,
46:07
Speaker 1: that was part of it. But I think also, um,
46:09
Speaker 1: they realized that like they were gonna, they were gonna
46:11
Speaker 1: have to it would stem off that legislation, and it worked.
46:15
Speaker 1: If you read some of the contemporary reports with legislators
46:18
Speaker 1: who brought legislation to their state houses, they say, well,
46:22
Speaker 1: since they agreed to play ball, we're sending our bill,
46:25
Speaker 1: but we've got it over here if they don't end
46:27
Speaker 1: up playing ball after all. So it really did work.
46:30
Speaker 1: But they did it like a couple of days or
46:34
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks before the UM the committee, the
46:38
Speaker 1: Commerce Committee voted on the tape tax, and the r
46:42
Speaker 1: A didn't get their tape tax. No, they did not, UM.
46:47
Speaker 1: But what did happen was the stickers in March started
46:52
Speaker 1: coming out. Remember going to the store and seeing those
46:55
Speaker 1: for the first time. I gotta buy that one. Well,
46:59
Speaker 1: that's kind of what happened too. In some cases. Do
47:01
Speaker 1: you know what the first album that had the first
47:03
Speaker 1: sticker was? Was there a first album? If you could guess, yes,
47:07
Speaker 1: if you could guess what album that came out in
47:11
Speaker 1: just guess who would have gotten the first explicit lyrics.
47:16
Speaker 1: I don't know. Jan's Addiction to Live Crew, Oh of course,
47:20
Speaker 1: Banned in the USA was the first album to get
47:23
Speaker 1: an explicit lyrics sticker. Yeah, And so you know, these
47:27
Speaker 1: stickers started coming out and I had a had a
47:30
Speaker 1: ripple effect in a big way, but in a lot
47:34
Speaker 1: of ways, UM. Everything from Steven Tyler getting on stage
47:39
Speaker 1: and saying thank you, Chipper Gore because you throw some
47:42
Speaker 1: four letter words on an album and now you're gonna
47:44
Speaker 1: get another million in sales because kids were looking to
47:47
Speaker 1: buy those records. It just it's forbidden fruit all the
47:50
Speaker 1: way to the other side of the coin, which is
47:52
Speaker 1: Walmart or certain states, saying we're not even going to
47:56
Speaker 1: carry these records. That was part of it. In stores,
47:59
Speaker 1: it also became an easy target for local law enforcement
48:02
Speaker 1: that decided that they were going to enact their own laws,
48:05
Speaker 1: like UM in Broward County, Florida, which is around Miami
48:09
Speaker 1: where Miami is UM, the Brower County Sheriff sent out
48:13
Speaker 1: some deputies with their badges full uniform to go buy
48:16
Speaker 1: record stores and said, Hey, just wanted to give you
48:17
Speaker 1: a friendly little heads up. If you guys sell any
48:20
Speaker 1: more of those two Live Crew albums, we're gonna arrest you.
48:23
Speaker 1: We don't want to, but we wanted to give your
48:25
Speaker 1: heads up. First. Two Live Crew found out about it,
48:27
Speaker 1: and we're like, m that's prior restraint on free speech.
48:31
Speaker 1: And they won. They won in the Supreme Court actually,
48:33
Speaker 1: but this kind of thing, it was like, as as
48:36
Speaker 1: the Grabster put it, the censors were emboldened by the
48:40
Speaker 1: the the um. The response from the PMRC's album and
48:45
Speaker 1: these labels were Hey, go after these guys and not
48:49
Speaker 1: just the records. Like when artists came to town, they
48:51
Speaker 1: would get arrested for their performances. In nine performers were
48:57
Speaker 1: arrested in Georgia alone for their concerts. Yeah, from Bobby
49:01
Speaker 1: Brown to Gene Simmons. Yeah, And that's what D Snyder
49:05
Speaker 1: and that that sort of thirty years later things said,
49:07
Speaker 1: is you know, it worked in one way because they sequestered,
49:12
Speaker 1: which is maybe all they wanted was they sequestered a
49:14
Speaker 1: certain group of artists from the rest. And that sequestration,
49:20
Speaker 1: like you said, range from now they can they're following
49:23
Speaker 1: where they're touring and cops are gonna show up there
49:27
Speaker 1: to uh, Walmarn't saying not not going to carry this
49:30
Speaker 1: unless you change this album cover or this lyric or
49:36
Speaker 1: the song title to something ridiculous like Nirvana's song rape
49:42
Speaker 1: Me was very famously changed on the album the title
49:45
Speaker 1: to wait for Me. Nothing about the song, but they
49:49
Speaker 1: didn't change the song itself. But if you look on
49:51
Speaker 1: the back of that in utero, mcumbers says wait for Me,
49:54
Speaker 1: but it's even like crossed out and they're written in
49:56
Speaker 1: sharp wave. It's not, but it should have been. Uh
50:01
Speaker 1: so it you know, it had a big ripple effect
50:03
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. People were um and and
50:06
Speaker 1: I guess before this they had always had radio safe
50:08
Speaker 1: versions of some songs. Well, yeah, you just weren't gonna
50:11
Speaker 1: get radio play, right, But now it's like the albums
50:15
Speaker 1: need to be like radio safe or else Walmart won't
50:20
Speaker 1: sell them or whatever. That's a big retailer, it was
50:23
Speaker 1: even back then. Um So, so there was a negative,
50:28
Speaker 1: that slippery slope that the PMRC had had carried the
50:33
Speaker 1: nation across. We started to slide down it and actual
50:37
Speaker 1: legitimate censorship took place as a result. And then the
50:42
Speaker 1: way that all of this happened, the way it was
50:44
Speaker 1: able to happen, was because there was a gatekeeper. There
50:48
Speaker 1: was a funnel for the record industry to the public,
50:52
Speaker 1: and the PMRC was able to go to them and say,
50:54
Speaker 1: you've got something, We've got something you want, you've got
50:57
Speaker 1: something we want. We're gonna make this happen. And just
51:00
Speaker 1: by the fact that the record industry is not like
51:04
Speaker 1: it was back then, they're no longer the gatekeepers. Like,
51:08
Speaker 1: if you make music, you can sell directly to your
51:10
Speaker 1: your fans. Um you've got some you know, a few
51:14
Speaker 1: digital platforms that that do some kind of explicit stuff
51:18
Speaker 1: and and or labeling or something, and there it's there
51:22
Speaker 1: and I think if you still can buy a record,
51:24
Speaker 1: I didn't know anybody still bought like physical CDs or whatever,
51:27
Speaker 1: but it can still come with a sticker. Um. But
51:30
Speaker 1: it's just changed. It's just different. And if you listen
51:33
Speaker 1: to stuff today and then you listen to that filthy fifteen,
51:37
Speaker 1: you're like, you're you've got to be kidding me. So
51:40
Speaker 1: it's almost like the the the PMRC went and put
51:43
Speaker 1: their finger in a dike that didn't even really need it,
51:46
Speaker 1: and in doing so, they exploded in the floodgates. The
51:49
Speaker 1: flood just came and overwhelmed them. And just by the
51:53
Speaker 1: number of of of songs that were released and the
51:58
Speaker 1: amount of just filthiness that was attendant in those songs,
52:02
Speaker 1: it's just it became normalized rather than the exact opposite,
52:06
Speaker 1: which is what the PMRC was was working for. Yeah,
52:09
Speaker 1: And what what didn't happen is our generation, which was
52:13
Speaker 1: the generation of the seventies and eighties. It turns out
52:16
Speaker 1: we did not grow up to just be a bunch
52:18
Speaker 1: of degenerates. Well, that was going to be the ruin
52:21
Speaker 1: of our country. It's true though, because of music, and
52:23
Speaker 1: I think that that is ultimately like what what parents
52:26
Speaker 1: tell themselves they're really worried about is that their their
52:30
Speaker 1: kids going to become morally unhygienic and the country will
52:33
Speaker 1: go down the hill one way or another. But but
52:37
Speaker 1: I mean, it just doesn't seem to pan out ever,
52:40
Speaker 1: despite it being such an ongoing and old worry. You know,
52:43
Speaker 1: jazz was going to be the end of moral society
52:46
Speaker 1: then rock and roll, that's true, although I have to
52:50
Speaker 1: say the p MRC did give us Glenn Danzig's song Mother,
52:54
Speaker 1: which is apparently an O two Tipper Gore in the PMRC. Really,
52:58
Speaker 1: if you go and read the lyrics, you're like, Okay,
53:00
Speaker 1: PMRC was in a bunch of songs. I mean, those
53:04
Speaker 1: those four letters appeared in a lot of rock and
53:07
Speaker 1: roll songs, hip hop songs. They got a lot of attention,
53:10
Speaker 1: and maybe that's all they wanted. Well, we just gave
53:13
Speaker 1: him some more. Well they're no longer around. They they
53:16
Speaker 1: broke up the band in the nineties. And do you
53:18
Speaker 1: know when do you know when Tipper quit uh became
53:24
Speaker 1: vice president? Yeah? And then now you can see her
53:27
Speaker 1: sitting in with the Grateful Dead on drums smoking grass.
53:32
Speaker 1: All she talks about his grass. Now, if you want
53:35
Speaker 1: to know more about the p MRC. Well, I don't
53:38
Speaker 1: think there is anything more to know, but go look
53:40
Speaker 1: around read some contemporary articles. It's fun. And since I
53:43
Speaker 1: said contemporary articles, it is time for listener mail. I'm
53:48
Speaker 1: gonna call this short and sweet. Remember in the Olive
53:52
Speaker 1: Oil episode, I said something about Greeks and Italians, like
53:55
Speaker 1: what's the difference? I got support on that from a
53:59
Speaker 1: Greek aleman. Apparently it's a thing, he said. I think
54:03
Speaker 1: you'll be pleased Chuck to find out that you didn't
54:06
Speaker 1: offend anyone when you said Greeks and Italians are the same.
54:09
Speaker 1: In fact, there's actually a phrase una faccia raza or
54:15
Speaker 1: in Greek mia fatsa mia razza, meaning one face, one race,
54:21
Speaker 1: often used to express the perception of close cultural affinities
54:25
Speaker 1: between Greeks and Italians. Keep keep up the good work, guys.
54:28
Speaker 1: That is from Nick Kantos. Well done, Chuck, and I
54:32
Speaker 1: bets you. Nick Kantos is Greek. I'm good. Hey, it
54:35
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, yeah, don't um. Well thanks a lot, Nick,
54:38
Speaker 1: that was very nice email in the sind to support
54:41
Speaker 1: Chuck because I left him hanging high and dry. Um,
54:44
Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch with US. You
54:46
Speaker 1: can go onto our website stuff you Should Know dot
54:48
Speaker 1: com and you'll find our social links all over the place.
54:51
Speaker 1: I also have a website called the Josh Clark Way
54:54
Speaker 1: dot com and you can send me, Chuck and Jerry
54:56
Speaker 1: an email at Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com.
55:04
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
55:07
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. M HM