Twisted Sister’s Stay Hungry is being reissued, the latest example of getting every piece of pop music ever made back out there before the recorded-music industry goes tits-up, and the press release about the new version touts the fact that “We’re Not Gonna Take It” was a member of the Filthy Fifteen. That was a list of songs put together in 1985 by the Parents’ Music Resource Council, the group of moms who were pretty much the driving force behind the now-ubiquitous “Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics” stickers on albums deemed too hot for young ears; they put together a playlist of songs that in their mind glorified sex, drugs, and violence in such a way that one had to conclude that The Pop Music Was Killing Our Kids. Given that “We’re Not Gonna Take It” seems positively benign right now, I decided to remind myself of the list’s other contents. The artists whose songs were cited fall into two categories for the most part: Heavy metal bands and people who worked with Prince, including the man himself. All 15–complete with some filthy-in-85, safe-for-work now clips–after the jump!

1. Prince, “Darling Nikki”

2. Sheena Easton, “Sugar Walls”
3. Judas Priest, “Eat Me Alive”
4. Vanity, “Strap On Robbie Baby”
5. Motley Crue, “Bastard”
6. AC/DC, “Let Me Put My Love Into You”
7. Twisted Sister, “We’re Not Gonna Take It”
8. Madonna, “Dress You Up”
9. W.A.S.P., “Animal (Fuck Like A Beast)”



10. Def Leppard, “High N’ Dry”
11. Mercyful Fate, “Into The Coven”
12. Black Sabbath, “Trashed”
13. The Mary Jane Girls, “In My House”



14. Venom, “Possessed”
15. Cyndi Lauper, “She-Bop”

Obviously, the rationales for including different songs on the list were different: “Possessed” got heat for having references to the occult; “High N’ Dry” for being an ode to drinking all day; “Bastard” for employing rape analogies in the context of bad business deals. (Although I still don’t understand why “Dress You Up” was the Madonna song singled out. Was the prospect of including the word “virgin” in a song title on the list just too much for the fan-waving mothers?) I guess it isn’t really “funny” how now, so many of these songs are in the pop-culture firmament; after all, people thought “My Ding-A-Ling” was once offensive on levels beyond its aesthetic inferiority to most other songs out there, too. But looking at this list provides a neat snapshot of just what worried parents the most 24 years ago; the list is pretty much devoid of New Wave, hip-hop, and punk, and focuses on metal a lot. I guess it was because out of all the popular genres at the time, they looked the most threatening to parents?

The Coolest PMRC Links On The Net [Freewebs]
Twisted Sister releases one of the PMRC’s Filthy 15: Stay Hungry [Sleaze Roxx]