[Note: The original version of this essay first appeared in Eastern Connecticut State University's Campus Lantern student newspaper in the early '90s and in my unpublished manuscript "In Mediocrity We Trust... In Debt We Die" And Other Essays before record labelling went into effect.]
Until the last decade or so, no one even thought of labelling records, that is until some busy-body senator's wives started squawking about so-called "morally offensive music videos and lyrics." About the time that Ronald Reagan came into power, Tipper Gore, wife of former Tennessee senator and later veep Albert Gore, formed the Parents Music Resource Center (the PMRC). The PMRC is mostly made up of the wives of Congressmen and other politically connected individuals; apparently with nothing better to do than to try to use their husbands' collective political influence to do their part in chipping away at our First Amendment rights by trying to impose the labelling of controversial or allegedly 'offensive' music. By the way, Tipper Gore's involvement with the PMRC may have cost her husband, Al, the Democratic nomination for President in the 1988 election. (to be cont'd)
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