DEE SNIDER VS. BAT SHIT CRAZY LADIES, PMRC AND CENORSHIP OF MUSIC

Forty years ago bat shit crazy morons Tipper Gore and Susan Baker were on a crusade against Alice Cooper, Judas Priest, Mercyful Fate, Twisted Sister, W.A.S.P. and other musicians dubbed the ‘Filthy Fifteen’ in a high-profile parents’ campaign against ‘objectionable’ music. Some of those artists recall a major moral panic spreading across USA. 

In 1985, a Senate hearing was instigated by the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), who wanted to introduce a parental warning system that would label all albums containing offensive material. The system was to include letters identifying the type of objectionable content to be found in each album (e.g. O for occult themes, S for sex, D for drugs, V for violence, etc.). Dee Snider, John Denver, and Frank Zappa all testified against censorship and the proposed warning system. Such a system was never implemented, but the result of the hearing brought about what is now the generic "Parental Advisory: Explicit Content" label. Something that backfired tremendously, because that only pointed out to the youth what to buy first.

DEE SNIDERS LEGENDARY SENATE HEARING

Dee Snider, frontman and lead singer of Twisted Sister, testified that he "did not support ... [RIAA president] Gortikov's unnecessary and unfortunate decision to agree to a so-called generic label on some selected records”. Snider felt that his music had been misinterpreted. He defended the Twisted Sister songs "Under the Blade", which had been interpreted by the PMRC as referring to sadomasochism, bondage, and rape, and "We're Not Gonna Take It", which the PMRC accused of promoting violence. Snider told the panel that "Under the Blade" was inspired by a band member's surgery and was about the fear he imagined one would experience undergoing surgery, announcing that "the only sadomasochism, bondage, and rape in this song is in the mind of Ms. Gore." He further stated "Ms. Gore was looking for sadomasochism and bondage, and she found it. Someone looking for surgical references would have found it as well." Snider concluded that "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.

Paula Hawkins presented three record covers (Pyromania by Def Leppard, W.O.W. by Wendy O. Williams, and W.A.S.P. by W.A.S.P.) and the music videos for "Hot for Teacher" by Van Halen, and "We're Not Gonna Take It" by Twisted Sister, commenting: "Much has changed since Elvis' seemingly innocent times. Subtleties, suggestions, and innuendo have given way to overt expressions and descriptions of often violent sexual acts, drug taking, and flirtations with the occult. The record album covers to me are self-explanatory.”

One of the actions taken by the PMRC was compiling a list of fifteen songs in popular music, at the time, that they found the most objectionable. This list is known as the "Filthy Fifteen" and consists of the following songs along with the lyrical content category for which each song was considered objectionable:

Artist - Song title - Lyrical content
1 Prince "Darling Nikki" Sex/masturbation
2 Sheena Easton "Sugar Walls" Sex
3 Judas Priest "Eat Me Alive" Sex/violence
4 Vanity "Strap On 'Robbie Baby'" Sex
5 Mötley Crüe "Bastard" Violence/language
6 AC/DC "Let Me Put My Love into You" Sex
7 Twisted Sister "We're Not Gonna Take It" Violence
8 Madonna "Dress You Up" Sex
9 W.A.S.P. "Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)" Sex/language/violence
10 Def Leppard "High 'n' Dry (Saturday Night)" Drug and alcohol use
1 Mercyful Fate "Into the Coven" Occult
12 Black Sabbath "Trashed" Drug and alcohol use
13 Mary Jane Girls "In My House" Sex
14 Venom "Possessed" Occult
15 Cyndi Lauper "She Bop" Sex/masturbation