Anarcheology and the PMRC

and the PMRC

  I was a teenager in the 80’s and a music lover. I had the privilege of living through the great PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) incident. I listened to Heavy Metal and Punk Rock music. I remember the music that they considered inappropriate at the time and wanted to place ratings on. Artist like Prince for sexual innuendos, Motley Crue for violence and Def Leppard for drugs and alcohol. This decision was seen as a slap at artists and music companies that up until then monitored themselves and it was thought by artists that it would stifle creativity. Eventually this effort toward censorship lead to testimonies before the United States Senate by artists like Dee Snyder from Twisted Sister, Frank Zappa and John Denver.

  This is one of those instances, however, where the actions of politicians produced the exact opposite effect of what they were intending. For all their banter and the artist fighting against it in congress, in the end the suits got their wish to put labels on records. However this gave record labels and artist more freedom, not less, as the labels began to release music knowing that kids would be searching for the warning label.    

After the PMRC this label actually became a sales gimmick. It made CDs more desirable. 

  Once these labels were applied to music, out came rap artists like Two Live Crew with Nasty as we wanna be and later on, Too Short with some of the most blatant sexual references I had ever heard on a mainstream artists CD. Stuff that is now the norm in hard core rap was never allowed in the early 80’s. Before the PMRC put their labels on music, violent and sexual music was forced into the metaphoric realm of lyric writing that was kept open to interpretation. Afterwards it was the verbal equivalent of hard core porn and snuff films. It was suddenly OK for these artists to be on the shelves because everyone was now warned of the content. As we know, though there is no such thing as bad publicity and music just got meaner and nastier over time. Now there are labels on the records and I won't touch some of my favorite artist if that label is not on the front of their CD.  

     

  Today the label seems like a formality for companies like Wal-Fart that censor the music they sell but with the new world of music down loads and the fact that stores are selling less and less CD's  the label  has become a bit obsolete. 

  My favorite bands tend to fluctuate as I discover artists both, that are new as well as old music I have never heard before. I have never been that guy who’s stuck in my youth when it comes to music. The short list of artists I listen to regularly would be Slipknot, Mudvayne, Static X, Volbeat and Ozzy Osbourne. I do have a broad range that I listen to though like Pink Floyd, Journey, The Sex Pistols and The Clash, and of course, no collection would be complete without the Eagles Greatest Hits. 

I love this song by the Ink Spots.