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[From the Rolling Stones [sic], Sept. 12, 1985]
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| Artist and song | Rating |
| Judas Priest, "Eat Me Alive" | X |
| Motley Crue, "Bastard" | V |
| Prince, "Darling Nikki" | X |
| Sheena Easton, "Sugar Walls" | X |
| W.A.S.P., "(Animal) Fuck Like a Beast" | X |
| Mercyful Fate, "Into the Coven" | O |
| Vanity, "Strap On Robby Baby" | X |
| Def Leppard, "High 'n' Dry" | D/A |
| Twisted Sister, "We're Not Gonna Take It" | V |
| Madonna, "Dress You Up" | X |
| Cyndi Lauper, "She Bop" | X |
| AC/DC, "Let Me Put My Love Into You | X |
| Black Sabbath, "Trashed" | D/A |
| Mary Jane Girls, "My House" | X |
| Venom, "Possessed" | O |
A small group of well-connected Washington women is spearheading the most
serious protest against rock lyrics since Spiro Agnew's 1971 crusade to rid popular
music of drug references. This time the primary targets are the heavy-breathing
hits of Prince and Madonna and the "sadomasochistic" messages of heavy-metal
groups like Mötley Crüe and Judas Priest. The Parents Music Resource Center
(PMRC), which includes the wives of Treasury Secretary James Baker and Democratic
Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee, wields sufficient political clout to have
already persuaded the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee to tentatively schedule
hearings on the subject for September 19th.
The PMRC wants the music industry to voluntarily institute standardized ratings,
similar to movie ratings, for records, tapes and videos. Songs with sexually explicit
or profane lyrics would receive an X; those that advocate the use of drugs or alcohol
would receive a D/A; those that refer to the occult would receive an O; and those
that glorify violence would receive a V. Also on the group's agenda is a demand that
printed lyrics be available so that parents can look at them prior to purchasing a
accord. In addition, record labels, distributors and broadcasters are being pressured
to "exhibit voluntary restraint" in promoting what the groups calls "pornographic"
and violent material.
"We're not censors," says Tipper Gore, 37, a cofounder of the five-member PMRC
and the mother of four young children. "We want a tool from the industry that is
peddling this stuff to children, a consumer tool with which parents can make an
informed decision on what to buy. What we're talking about is a sick new strain of
rock music glorifying everything from forced sex to bondage to rape." Cited as
particularly offensive examples are Prince's "Darling Nikki" ("I met her in a hotel
lobby/Masturbating with a magazine") and Judas Priest's "Eat Me Alive," a song
Gore says is about "oral sex at gunpoint."
In an attempt to forestall legislative action, recording industry has been meeting
privately to discuss preventive strategies. When contacted, chief executives at the
major labels have refused to comment. But Stanley Gortikov, president of the
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), has met with executives of nineteen
labels, and in an August 5th letter to PMRC president Pam Howar, he presented
the record industry's position. The PMRC's requests, Gortikov wrote, "involve
complications that would make compliance impossible." Publishers, he explained,
not record companies, own the rights to print lyrics. In addition, a label never has
full control over the packaging or display of recordings or over the way its artists
present themselves in performance or on video. A rating system that requires four
or five categories, Gortikov wrote, would be "totally impractical."
Instead, the RIAA members would agree to "individually apply a printed inscription
on packaging of future recording releases to identify blatant, explicit lyric
content in order to inform those concerned parents and children. An industry-wide text
will be developed and used." The labels, through the RIAA will work with the
PMRC to finalize the sticker's language, but Gortikov's letter offers one suggestion:
"Parental guidance: Explicit lyrics." Use of the sticker would be detrimented [sic] on a
company-by-company basis.
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