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From: hofmann@AMSAA.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Coming soon:  Adult Record Stores??
Message-ID: <5121@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Aug-85 11:03:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.5121
Posted: Tue Aug 27 11:03:27 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Aug-85 10:33:11 EDT
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From: Jim Hofmann <hofmann@AMSAA.ARPA>
Looks like our wonderful nuright-heirarchy is at it again.  This time the
object of their fear is music, that's right, the sounds of the universe
must now come under Evangalical auspices for ratings.  Alexander Cockburn
writes in the AUG 22 issue of the WALL STREET JOURNAL:

******************************************************************************
THE Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) ... is the latest group to muster
to the ancient and doomed cause of cleaning up the minds of our youth.  What
apparently bothered Mrs Gore [organizer and wife a senator] was coming upon
one of her young children listening to Prince's "Darling Nikki," which
deals with masturbation and Playboy magazine in a nammer far from coy. 
Instead of shutting off the sound and telling the wee mite to go and read
Longfellow, Mrs Gore decided she had a cause and went into the crusading
business with Mrs Baker[wife of Sec of Treasury, or is it the other way around?]
and other people of high purpose(?):  all descendants of those fine people
who thought the nation's morals would be best preserved if Elvis Presley
were shown only from the waist up when he appeared on "The Ed Sullivan
Show."
    THE PMRC pressure has already had considerable effect.  In June, 45
record labels got a letter from Edward O. Fritts, president of
the National Association of Broadcasters, asking that lyric sheets be included
with all new releases [Imagine the quandary this puts REM into] sent
to NAB stations.  A similar sort of letter went to 806 radio- and TV-stations
owners asking them to screen rock songs.
...
The original demands of PMRC included a rating system for records, with
offending material being admitted into the stores only in plain brown
wrappers; a rating system for live concerts (presumably Mrs. Baker,
Mrs. Gore and the others have prepared a manual on the proper way for
a young woman to hold a microphone), and a penalty system for offending
artists whereby their contracts might not be renewed (!!!).  Instead
of organizing resistance to these foolish demands the Recording Industry
Association of America (RIAA), ... has rushed to meet them halfway with a
voluntary system whereby albums deemed offensive will be stickered ...
One can easily imagine how energetic picketing by right-wing, "family
value" groups outside record stores could swiftly reduce the musical diet ...
of the rest of us to the MONKEE'S Greatest Hits, and place most of AMerica's
20th century musical heritage under plain wrapper.

    It's not hard to see why the RIAA has been so spineless.  The PMRC
looks cloutfull and besides, there is the possibility that the industry
sees a voluntary sticker system as a trade-off for its long-sought royalty
tax on blank tapes, which the RIAA has been trying to get through Congress
for years.  It's harder to see why the recording stars have not risen
against the danger.  So far, only Frank Zappa has spoken out.  As Rock &
Roll Confidential pointed out, if a few major artists as Bruce Springsteen
or Stevie Wonder insisted on contractual guarantees against rating of
the records, the present mood of surrender could change ... Write to
your Congressman, or ,better still their wives [or in my case my
congresswoman's husband :-]
*****************************************************************************

Anybody care to defend the PMRC???? (Mr. Black???)

							Jim