Pub Quiz Time! What infamous list contained the artists Mercyful Fate, Madonna, Prince, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath and Cyndi Lauper? If you guessed “The Filthy Fifteen,” the Quizmaster salutes you! As the US renews its enduring fascination with censorship, one can’t help but look back to the mid-80s, when a moralising pack of Washington wives — led by Tipper Gore, wife of then-Senator Al Gore — formed the Parents Music Resource Center (“the PMRC”), in order to attack and censor music that they deemed as obscene. In an Orwellian attempt to galvanise support among parents, the PMRC hand-selected a genre-spanning, fifteen-track list of songs that they felt were endemic of the pearl-clutching levels of obscenity infesting modern music — the “Filthy Fifteen.” Here’s what was on the list, and how it was rated (X = Profane or sexually explicit, O = Occult, D/A = Drugs or alcohol, V = violent):
Judas Priest – Eat Me Alive - X
Motley Crue – Bastard - V
Prince – Darling Nikki – X
Sheena Easton – Sugar Walls – X
W.A.S.P. – (Animal) Fuck Like A Beast - X
Mercyful Fate – Into The Coven – O
Vanity – Strap On Robby Baby – X
Def Leppard – High ‘n’ Dry – D/A
Twisted Sister – We’re Not Gonna Take It - V
Madonna – Dress You Up – X
Cyndi Lauper – She Bop – X
AC/DC – Let Me Put My Love In You – X
Black Sabbath – Trashed – D/A
Mary Jane Girls – My House – X
Venom – Possessed - O
