Frank Zappa Vs. Tipper Gore

In 1985, Tipper Gore, wife of the then Vice President, co-founded the Parents Music Resource Center as an organized reaction to "suggestive" and "offensive" lyrics in pop music. These so-called "Washington political wives" compiled a list of what they determined to be the worst offenders, dubbing them the "Filthy Fifteen." This list included Sheena Easton's "Sugar Walls", Judas Priest's "Dress You Up", Twisted Sister's "Under the Blade", Cyndi Lauper's "She Bop", and Prince's "Darling Nikki."

"Darling Nikki"

It was "Darling Nikki" that set Tipper off on her crusade. When she bought the "Purple Rain" album for her 11-year-old daughter, she discovered to her horror that "Darling Nikki's" lyrics were about a teenaged girl masturbating. When she went back to the music store to return the album, the store wouldn't take it back because the album had been opened.

PMRC

She helped organize the PRMC with Susan Baker, the wife of former Treasury Secretary James Baker III, along with other wives of powerful politicians like Mrs. Strom Thurmond. Due to the clout of their husbands, Senate hearings were called.

Note that, although these hearings were called, the PMRC were asking for music industry self-censorship not government censorship.

Senate hearings

Senator Al Gore gave the opening statement at the Senate hearings.

Musicians Frank Zappa, John Denver, and Twisted Sister's Dee Snider represented the other side of the argument as defenders of the First Amendment. When Tipper and the others testified, they pointed their fingers at rock lyrics as being partially responsible for rape, teenage pregnancy, teen suicide, and the decay of the nuclear American family. The PMRC asked for all explicit song lyrics to be printed on album covers, and they asked for specific ratings including "D/A" for drugs and alcohol, "V" for violence, "O" for occult, and "X" for explicit lyrics. They also wanted all "hidden" lyrics and "backwards masking" to be removed from songs.

Frank Zappa became Tipper's most outspoken opponent, calling her a "cultural terrorist." At the hearing, he said, "the PMRC proposal is an ill-conceived piece of nonsense which fails to deliver any real benefits to children, infringes on the civil liberties of people who are not children, and promises to keep the courts busy for years."

Twisted Sister's Dee Snider testified that his group's song "Under the Blade" was actually about the fear of surgery not "sado-masochism" as PMRC alleged.

Aftermath

After the Senate hearings, nineteen record companies agreed to put "Parental Guidance: Explicit Lyrics" labels on albums. Frank Zappa released an album called "Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention", which included audio excerpts from the Senate hearing. And Tipper Gore wrote a bestselling book called "Raising PG Kids in an X-rated Society."

In the early nineties, after Frank Zappa announced that he had prostrate cancer, Tipper sent him a letter. Zappa died in 1993.

In 1993, Tipper left the PMRC.

It's ironic that, in 2007, Al and Tipper Gore shared the stage with former PMRC target Madonna as hosts of Live Earth, a massive worldwide rock concert.

SOURCES:

"Tipper Gore and family values", Robert Siegel, NPR, URL: (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4279560)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Zappa_Meets_the_Mothers_of_Prevention

"Warm and Personable", Chi Chi Sileo, Insight on the News, URL: (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n5_v12/ai_17951473)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center

"Remembering the Gores and PMRC", Nick Gillespie, Reason, URL: (http://www.reason.com/blog/show/121340.html)

"Deja Viewing", Steve Kurtz, Reason, URL: (http://www.reason.com/news/show/29422.html)

"Rock is a Four-Letter Word", Jay Cocks, Time, URL: (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,959999,00.html?iid=chix-sphere)