We were talking about this on the show this morning…
It was this day, 1985, and the Tipper Gore led PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) was well on its way to embodying every letter of the ol’ “road to Hell” proverb. You know the one: The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
The PMRC’s intent was to empower the parent, help mom and dad to better understand what was contained beneath the shrink-wrapped plastic of every album cover. Parents loved it – I hated it, as it made it virtually impossible to secure any NWA offering. And forget Eazy E’s “Eazy-Duz-It” or 2 Live Crew’s “As Nasty as They Wanna Be” – not gettin’ out of Sam Goody with either of those unless I exercised the five-finger discount, and I wasn’t about to go that far. Grr.
Anyway, the Parental Advisory sticker was definitely a positive outcome, but in their quest to preserve the delicate eardrums of youth, the PMRC sent to the gallows countless innocent songs and artists in their musical witch hunt. Snider and Twisted Sister, particularly one of his songs (“Under the Blade”), was one specifically targeted entity, and in 1985 he brought his defense to the floor of the Senate and DOMINATED.
It’s a long clip, but if you watch nothing else, make sure to check it out around the 2:00 mark until about 4:00 – a brilliant zinger from Snider lobbed Tipper Gore’s way.
[YouTube: Douglas Stewart]
