Storytime: That One Time Dee Snider Went To The Senate · 6:54am Apr 24th, 2013
Since I've mostly run out of genre's interesting enough to actually devote blogs to (the most interesting one I can think of right now is post-metal, which is really just one stroke away from musical masturbation, really), we are gonna have a little story time. This week, the infamous Parent's Music Resource Center, or the PMRC. They are the reason most CD's have the explicit content warnings on them, even if they do next to nothing.
Way back, in the ye olden days of 1985, back before Master Of Puppets, back before nu-metal, back before Guns n' Roses Appetite For Destruction, when MTV actually was Music Television, a group of "Washington Wives" decided they wanted to get rid of the filth of modern music. They were devoted to giving more control to parents on what their kids listened to, God forbid they actually get their mitts on something like Cyndi Lauper. Their master plan was creating a rating system, much like movies, that would allow parents to choose what they want, or outright remove it from store shelves like it was hardcore porn. If that didn't smell like bullshit already, artists who had their stuff rated "obscene", based on rules that were really arbitrary, they would have to donate a certain amount of funds from the album to a certain charity. They charity? The PMRC.
The real action started with the hearings. If you have the time to read the entire transcript, here you go, but I'll give you the run down of the highlights of the trial.
First at bat was one Paula Hawkins, then-senator from Florida. She presented the covers of several albums, including Def Leppard's Pyromania, and claimed "Much has changed since Elvis' seemingly innocent times." Or y'know, the time where the phrase "Sex, drugs, and rock n' roll" was coined. Next was Susan Baker, who claimed that this filth caused every social in society from truancy to sadomasochism to suicide. Rob Halford (I think, might have been Ozzy Osbourne) said "Why would we put hidden messages in our albums telling our audience to kill themselves? We'd say "Buy our merch and albums", if nothing else." The rest of the witnesses for the PMRC went along the same lines. One psychiatrist called heavy metal "a religion", which is a step up from a cult, if nothing else.
The defense was where it gets really interesting. First was Frank "Motherfucking" Zappa, who is quoted as saying:
...the PMRC proposal is an ill-conceived piece of nonsense which fails to deliver any real benefits to children, infringes the civil liberties of people who are not children, and promises to keep the courts busy for years dealing with the interpretation and enforcement problems inherent in the proposal's design.
He also voiced concerns it was a front for making money, in particular as a distraction to allow a so-called "blank-tape tax" to go through, in order to either cut down on recording music via tape player from radio (the old farts among us might fondly remember swapping recorded songs with friends on tapes) or put more money in their pockets to account for "lost sales". He also delivered this line to the US Senate:
"A couple of blowjobs here and there and Bingo! — you get a hearing."
The next was one John Denver, which the PMRC expected to side with them. They were dead wrong, as Denver claimed people would misinterpret lyrics, as they did with his song "Rocky Mountain High", and said that censorship was counterproductive, using the forbidden fruit metaphor:
Consequently, a great deal of time and energy is spent trying to get at what is being kept from you.
Now the real show was Dee Snider, lead singer of Twisted Sister, the man , the myth, the legend. Now he normally doesn't look like it, but Dee Snider is actually an incredibly well-spoken and eloquent individual. Now the PMRC expected him to act liken a drunken stoned scapegoat for all the evils and excess of metal. And he showed up to the Senate, dressed like he just got back from an all-night rager. Ripped jeans, giant dirty 80's hair, probably smelling like sin personified, covered in more body glitter than a particularly trashy stripper, whole nine yards. He then took his prepared speech, wadded up in his back pocket, and delivered the single greatest verbal beatdown the senate has ever witnessed. To quote:
the only sadomasochism, bondage, and rape in this song is in the mind of Ms. Gore.
The full responsibility for defending my children falls on the shoulders of my wife and I, because there is no one else capable of making these judgments for us
It brought a tear to my eye. It was beautiful.
Of course, the PMRC won, probably due to a good part of the PMRC being mostly wives of senators or congressmen. But it really doesn't do much. The sticker shows up on albums, but its not really much more than that. Most stores still carry the albums, and don't really screen against minors getting their hands on them. It's become more well-known by parody than as an actual thing. For a list, here it is. Note that Frank Zappa, for his trouble of defending himself and his livelihood, he remains the only person to get an explicit content sticker on an entirely instrumental album, which later got a Grammy.
So there you have it. Next up: how famous bands got their names.
Very interesting. I know next to nothing about this side of music history; as I said, interesting.
I'm all in favour of rating systems, and even some censorship on occasion, when it comes to movies (it's only fair to let people know what they're in for when seeing something, and stuff like Men Behind the Sun deserves limited exposure), but I've never heard of someone being traumatized by a song, or anyone going from stable to unstable over one either.
I do kinda like that they were citing Elvis as innocent. I wonder if in twenty years we'll be looking back at Bathory or Leviathan or something the same way, as an example of a simpler, more wholesome time...
At least the Parental Advisory sticker makes a good ornament.
I know that this is old, but I have to comment.
John was one hell of a song writer. I think it really floored the PMRC when he said that his music would be affected by this. He was like the country version of The Beatles or Elvis, in my opinion. Like them as in groundbreaking.
Dee Snyder is a hero for saying what he did. I love when he pulls his speech from his pocket, all crumpled into a ball. I also love how red Gore's face becomes!