Professor of Rock

Coming up, we haven't done one of these in a long time, but it's a special edition of our popular show Taboo Songs. But this time we're gonna give you the 15 songs from the 80s that shook the world with their sheer explicitness. In 1985, Tipper Gore, wife of Al Gore, and several other politicians' wives had a little too much time not here hands and decided to create a committee to save us from offensive and disgusting music that would certainly warp the minds of all the children. More than 40 years later, all of us, Gen Xers that they were trying to protect, have mostly turned into law-abiding citizens, and we now laugh at the shock and the horror that these songs caused. There's a reason why they were called the filthy 15 and today we're gonna count them all down and tell you why they were banned down to the specific nasty lyric and where the artists are now including Prince who had three entries in this countdown, that includes the song Darling Nikki that actually corrupted Al and Tipper Gore’s own child plus what the lead singer of AC/DC said to these elites when he found out one of his songs made the list… I’ll give you a hint it has to do with the middle finger, but far worse let's count down the filthy 15. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Executive Producer Brandon Fugal Honorary Producers 22Unchained, Thomas Halterman, Keith Novak, Yvonne Fus, Jeffrey Thorn ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe to the Professor of Rock Podcast Apple: https://apple.co/445fVov Spotify: https://spoti.fi/42JpfvU Amazon: https://amzn.to/44b5D6m iHeartRadio: https://bit.ly/444h8MO ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Patreon: http://bit.ly/ProfessorofRockVIPFan Merch Store: https://professor-of-rock-lsn-shop.fourthwall.com/ Instagram: https://bit.ly/Instagram_Professor_of_Rock #classicrock #80smusic #vinylstory #80srock Hey Music Junkies. On this episode of Taboo Songs, we address the horrible, dangerous songs that corrupted us as children and teens, and now that we’re all adults, we have to ask the question… Did these songs ruin our lives? Is that why we’ve had to have so much therapy Let’s go back to the mid 80s and re-examine the days of the PMRC… Since the beginning of recorded music, there are segments of society that have tried to control the artistic expression of music, and impose their personal beliefs on what they felt was appropriate, or acceptable, for the public to hear. One of the first recorded pieces of music to get banned because it was deemed too controversial was Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” in 39, a bold, disturbing exposé about the horrors of racism adapted from a poem written by Lewis Allan. Another that received widespread banning was “Rumble” by Link Wray & His Ray Men in 58. That song was blackballed as “inappropriate” for listeners because the word “rumble” was slang for gang street fighting, and the guitar riff sounded too dangerous for the public to hear. But the most infamous organization that fought for music censorship was the PMRC. The PMRC was a U.S. organization founded in 1985 in Washington, D.C., by prominent figures including Tipper Gore, Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore’s wife, Susan Baker, Pam Howar, and Sally Nevius, often dubbed the “Washington Wives.” Its stated mission was to limit children’s exposure to music they viewed as inappropriate, campaigning for warning labels on albums featuring themes of sex, violence, drugs, and even content they believed promoted the occult. The PMRC published the “Filthy Fifteen,” a list of songs it considered especially objectionable. Its efforts helped spark major U.S. Senate hearings in September 1985 and contributed to the widespread use of the “Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics” sticker on physical music releases. We’re gonna go back to that list of songs called “the Filthy Fifteen” and see where they are more than 40 years after the controversy. Coming in at #15 on the Filthy Fifteen countdown is a song about self-love by the biggest artist of 1984 to the chagrin of these politicians’ wives. The record it came from spent an amazing 24 weeks at #1. It’s “Darling Nikki” by Prince: “Darling Nikki” by Prince is notable in music history as the song that directly inspired the formation of the PMRC and the later “Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics” warning label. On the “Filthy Fifteen” list, it received an “X” rating for explicit sexual content. Prince’s lyric about Nikki being a “sex fiend” and “self love” really disturbed the Moms in the PMRC. Tipper Gore was stunned when she overheard the provocative lyrics coming out of her 11-year-old daughter’s record player after she bought the Purple Rain album as a birthday present for her daughter.