Forty years ago Prince, Madonna and Judas Priest were among stars dubbed the ‘Filthy Fifteen’ in a high-profile parents’ campaign against ‘objectionable’ music. Some of those artists, and supporters like Alice Cooper, recall a major moral panic
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rince’s Purple Rain album had been bought by 11 million Americans by May 1985. One of them was 11-year-old Karenna Gore. Back home, Karenna’s mother was shocked to hear Prince sing, on the album’s fifth track Darling Nikki: “I knew a girl named Nikki / I guess you could say she was a sex fiend / I met her in a hotel lobby/ masturbating with a magazine.”
“I couldn’t believe my ears,” said Karenna’s mother, Tipper Gore. “The vulgar lyrics embarrassed both of us. At first, I was stunned – then I got mad!”
Parents getting upset by their offspring’s musical enthusiasms is nothing new, but Tipper was no ordinary Tennessee mum– she was married to rising Democrat politician Senator Al Gore. Determined to do something, Tipper reached across the Democrat-Republican divide to Susan Baker, wife of James Baker, the treasury secretary under Ronald Reagan. They brought in two more women and co-founded the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC). As all four women had husbands with strong connections to government, the US media dubbed the committee “the Washington wives”.
