Record Labeling

A Study in Ethics as Applied to the First Amendment Rights of Artists

Freedom of speech became a part of the Constitution of the United States on December 15, 1791, when the First Amendment was ratified. This amendment, one of ten included in the Bill of Rights, states in part, that…”Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.” Experience has taught us the importance of freedom of speech. Without it many new ideas would not be heard. If speech were not free we could have no democracy. Men could not criticize unjust laws and work to get them changed. There would be no use in holding elections if we could not hear the beliefs of all candidates. Freedom of Speech is a right which protects all other rights (Gelfand, 9).
Furthermore, the First Amendment exists to protect speech and activities that are unpopular. If it only served to protect that which everybody (or “the majority”) agreed with, it wouldn’t need to be there at all. Limiting free speech is unAmerican; without it all of our rights and liberties quickly disintegrate. That’s why it’s the First Amendment (Marsh, 2).

Religious authorities and other conservative elements, however, often seek to silence those who disagree with them, through various forms of censorship, thereby abridging the First Amendment. Ad hoc censorship of records is a violation of the First Amendment as well as an infringement on the rights of the artist, and should not be allowed. In this paper I will discuss the ethics and value systems of the parties involved.
From its inception, right wing fundamentalists have fought to censor Rock & Roll, which they associate with sex and antisocial behavior. For example, on September 9, 1956, The Ed Sullivan Show televised a performance of Elvis Presley from the waist up in an attempt to mollify any fears of impropriety. Despite such measures, Jack Gould, the television critic for the New York Times, still took offense. In his review of the program’s main attraction, Gould recounted Presley’s burlesque-like behavior in previous television appearances and declared that the wordless singing and tongue movements, which Elvis engaged in during the Sullivan show, were disgusting and especially distasteful, at least, according to his ethical beliefs (Hibbard & Kaleialoha, 8).
Other musicians were also censored on the Sullivan show, among them The Rolling Stones (forced to change “Let’s Spend the Night Together” to “Let’s Spend Some Time Together”) and The Doors (whose lyric “Girl we couldn’t get much higher” from the song “Light My Fire” was objected to as being a reference to drug abuse). However, the Doors lead singer, Jim Morrison, sang the words as written, and the band was never invited back to the Sullivan show.

In the early 1970s, President Richard Nixon, Senator Strom Thurmond, the F.B.I., and the Immigration and Naturalization Service conspired to deport John Lennon because of the revolutionary politics espoused in his songs. Lennon believed in the sanctity of life, and wrote songs in an attempt to end the war in Vietnam. Nixon and the others found his lyrics to be “dangerous.” They did not want the war to end – war is good for the economy, that is, a drafted soldier is no longer unemployed, thus lowering unemployment rates, and many jobs are created, especially in the defense industry. It can be said then, that the Nixon administration believed that the economic benefits of the war were more valuable then the sanctity of human life. Christian groups also tried to censor Lennon in 1966, after he was misquoted as saying that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. What he had actually said was that “the world today is in such a state that more people would come to see the Beatles than an appearance of Jesus Christ.” Others were enraged by the cover of his 1968 album, Two Virgins, which showed him and Yoko Ono in the nude (Marsh, 45). Though nudity, long considered an art form, did not offend Lennon and Ono, it obviously offended the ethical code of the fundamentalists who sought successfully to have the cover banned in the United States.

An even more frightening censorship crusade appeared in 1985 when Tipper Gore, wife of then Democratic senator and current Vice President Albert Gore, launched an attack on rock music. Expressing outrage at the explicit sex, violence, and satanic cultism portrayed in some popular music, she organized the Parents’ Music Resource Center (PMRC) and campaigned for the labeling of rock music albums (Walker, 353). The frightening aspect of the PMRC was its proximity to the seat of power – it was comprised of the wives of 15 Senators, Congressmen and Cabinet officials and enjoyed tax-exempt status. Though the PMRC was not in itself a governmental body, these ladies certainly had influence on many top-level politicians. So much so, that their agenda eventually lead to Senate hearings – a blatant attempt to censor the artists’ First Amendment rights. Allegedly attacking only “irresponsible” rock music and lobbying only for “consumer information,” the PMRC, in fact, displayed a consistent Christian evangelical bias. For instance, they originally wanted record warning labels to bear and “O” for those with “Occult” material (an infringement of religious freedom). They virtually never spoke of the positive side of the music they attacked. Notoriously deceitful with the press, the PMRC frequently claimed allies it did not have (Bruce Springsteen, the American Pediatric Association), and continually denied ties with censors further right, such as the Reverend Donald Wildmon, and many other televangelists (Marsh, 67). The PMRC tried to impose their value system on musical artists, and by doing so, the rest of the country, who are the consumers of these recordings.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), along with record industry executive Danny Goldberg, responded by organizing the Musical Majority, enlisting the support of top recording stars such as Tina Turner, John Cougar Mellencamp, Prince (whose Purple Rain album had set Gore into action in the first place), and the Pointer Sisters. Ira Glasser, Director of the ACLU, denounced scheduled Senate hearings on the grounds that “the government has absolutely no business conducting an inquiry into the content of published materials.” A statement that obviously refers to the protections afforded artists under the First Amendment. Musician Frank Zappa emerged as Gore’s leading opponent in the media battle that ensued, testifying at the Senate hearings and making it his personal crusade over the next few years, eventually releasing an album chronicling the Senate hearings. Entitled Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention (Zappa started his career with a group called the Mothers of Invention), the cover of the album carried the following self-imposed warning label:

WARNING/GUARANTEE This album contains material which a truly free society would neither fear nor suppress. In some socially retarded areas, religious fanatics and Ultraconservative political organizations violate your First Amendment Rights by attempting to censor rock & roll albums. We feel that this is un-Constitutional and un-American.

As an alternative to these government-supported programs (designed to keep you docile and ignorant), Barking Pumpkin is pleased to provide stimulating digital audio entertainment for those of you who have outgrown the ordinary.

The language and concepts contained herein are GUARANTEED NOT TO CAUSE ETERNAL TORMENT IN THE PLACE WHERE THE GUY WITH THE HORNS AND THE POINTED STICK CONDUCTS HIS BUSINESS.

This guarantee is as real as the threats of the video fundamentalists who use attacks on rock music in their attempt to transform America into a nation of check-mailing nincompoops (in the name of Jesus Christ). If there is a hell, its fires wait for them, not us
(Zappa & Occhiogrosso, 279).