Night Beat (45 page)

SKIRMISH FOUR: OF RAP, PORN, WITCHES, TRIALS, AND REFUSED FLAGS

Nineteen-ninety was another year when pop fans were forcibly reminded that rock & roll is, after all,
still
rock & roll: a disruptive art form, viewed with scorn by numerous cultural guardians and with outright animosity by many conservative moralists. Rock, of course, wasn’t alone in this regard. A coalition of fundamentalists and lawmakers assailed a wide range of American artists and charged them with disseminating obscenity, subversion, and blasphemy. But no other art form was threatened as frequently and as rigorously as pop music—and in the end, this atmosphere of peril may have done more to renew rock’s sense of purpose and courage than any event in years.

The first indication that 1990 was to be a contentious year came in March, when
Newsweek
ran a cover story entitled “The Rap Attitude.” Though the main article was ostensibly a report on the rise of bigotry and sexism in popular music in the late 1980s—and though the story made brief mention of the disturbing racial attitudes of white rock & rollers like Guns n’ Roses’ Axl Rose
—Newsweek
saved its greatest disdain for rap: a music that, in the magazine’s estimation, amounts to little more than a “streetwise music,” rife with “ugly macho boasting about anyone who hangs out on a different block—cops, other races, women, and homosexuals.” The article proved a remarkably misrepresentative view of a complex subject. While it is true that there are rap performers who deserve to be criticized for their misogyny and homophobia, it is also true that, by and large, rap addresses questions about race, community, self-determination, drug abuse, and the tragedy of violence in intelligent and probing ways, and that it does so with a degree of musical invention that no other popular form can match.
Newsweek,
though, ignored this larger picture, and settled for a surprisingly alarmist view of rap and its practitioners that dismissed both as a “repulsive” culture.

The
Newsweek
article was perhaps the most scathing indictment of rock-related culture by major media in over a generation, but it was only the opening salvo of a difficult season. That same month, one of America’s most powerful religious patriarchs, Roman Catholic Archbishop John O’Connor, told a congregation at New York’s Saint Patrick’s Cathedral that he believed that rock music was “a help to the devil.” O’Connor seemed to have heavy metal in mind when he claimed that certain kinds of rock could induce demonic possession and drive some listeners to suicide. It wasn’t the first time such a charge had been leveled. Three times parents have attempted to sue singer Ozzy Osbourne for the purported influence of his song “Suicide Solution” on the deaths of their sons, and at the time that O’Connor made his remarks, a similar suit—charging the lethal use of subliminal messages—was being prepared in Reno, Nevada, against Judas Priest. These were grim charges—that rock & roll could enter the souls of the young; that it could deliver them to dark forces and darker ends—and suddenly they seemed to be granted both religious and legal plausibility.

The most dauntless of rock’s foes was the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC)—the powerful watchdog organization founded in 1985 by Tipper Gore. Though the group claims that its primary aim is simply to make parents aware of the provocative themes and raw language that characterize much of today’s rock, the PMRC has in fact courted both the media and lawmakers as it has relentlessly pressured record labels to impose rating systems on their artists. Indeed, the PMRC had been rumored to have privately aligned itself with ultraconservative outfits like the Eagle Forum and Missouri Project Rock, and together, these factions have been decisive in bringing about the rising view that rock has become a force for moral and social disorder, and that the music’s themes and effects should be more closely monitored. As a result, the PMRC would become the most effective adversary that rock & roll has ever faced.

By early 1990, anti-rock sentiment had grown enough to fuel a full-fledged national movement calling for the labeling of controversial pop recordings. Under the aggressive crusading of such state representatives as Missouri’s Jean Dixon and Pennsylvania’s Ron Gamble, nearly twenty states were considering legislation that would require that any pop releases containing explicit language or describing or “advocating” certain sexual or violent behavior to be emblazoned with a bright warning sticker. The states differed a bit over which offensive subjects merited stickering (though Pennsylvania seemed to have the most representative list, running the gamut from “suicide,” “incest,” “murder,” and “bestiality” to “sexual activity in a violent context” and “illegal use of drugs or alcohol,” among other affronts). But nearly all the proposed bills agreed on one matter: If a record that featured any of the cited disturbing themes, or that featured explicit language, was sold
without
a warning sticker—or, in some cases, if a stickered recording was sold to a minor—the seller ran the risk of a fine or even of jail.

It was a mind-stopping development: Nearly half of the United States were considering measures that, if enacted, would subject one of the most popular (and one of the worthiest) art and entertainment forms of our time to state regulation. In addition, the proposed legislation would have the effect of stigmatizing some of the art form’s most important works, simply because of the music’s willingness to trade in the sort of language and themes that are commonplace in not only much of today’s more relevant film and literature, but also in the course of modern everyday life. But then, for a zealot like Representative Jean Dixon—who admits she gained her perspective on modern rock from the PMRC, the Eagle Forum, and other similar partisan groups—stigmatizing rock-related music was perhaps precisely the point. “Rebellion is like witchcraft,” said Dixon early in 1990, explaining her reprehension for the spirit of cultural and social insurrection that rock embodies for many of its fans. “That’s what it is, it’s like witchcraft.”

And if history is any indicator, where one finds witchcraft and witches, then witch hunts and witch trials are likely not far behind.

IT IS UNLIKELY, of course, that any of the proposed legislation would have withstood ultimate constitutional scrutiny. Even so, the mainstream recording industry—which has a history of conciliatory stands when it comes to dealing with prolabeling forces—elected not to stand up for principle. In March, eager to ward off any further legislative action and anxious not to stir up public reaction, the Recording Industry Association of America (the RIAA, the alliance of major record companies, which had capitulated to the PMRC’s pressures for “voluntary labeling” in 1986) announced that it was creating a uniform sticker for use by all record companies. The bold black-and-white label would carry the warning: PARENTAL ADVISORY: EXPLICIT LYRICS. What’s more, the organization pledged to watch new pop releases more attentively, and to make certain that any recording which might merit such a label would not end up in record stores without one. A few weeks later the PMRC—joined by several state senators, representatives of the PTA, and the National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM, whose members include record retailers)—held a press conference in Washington, D.C., and announced that, in light of the RIAA’s action, pending labeling legislation would now be dropped in thirteen states, with more likely to follow. Though both sides hoped to give the impression that a compromise had been struck, the conservative coalition had, in effect, won: The prolabeling forces had induced the recording industry to impose a stickering system, without having to resort to the legal process, and without having to face a constitutional test. And, according to Jean Dixon’s spokesman, if the industry failed to live up to its promise to police new releases, “I guarantee you there will be legislation in fifty states next year.” (Later, Dixon was to lose her bid for reelection in a Missouri primary.)

As it turns out, the threat was hardly necessary. Stickering followed with a vengeance, cropping up on numerous rap and heavy metal releases—sometimes without apparent reason and sometimes over the stated protests of the recording artists. In addition, some artists were apparently pressured to change explicit or potentially controversial words or phrases, or to drop entire songs. (In the case of the pointedly violent-minded debut album by the rap group the Geto Boys, Geffen Records chose to drop the entire work.) In the end, only one major label—Virgin Records—refused to sticker its artists, instead adorning its releases with the First Amendment. By contrast, only a few of the independent labels—where some of the most aggressive and explicit rap, metal, and punk music has been cultivated—chose to abide by the RIAA agreement.

But for one conservative moralist, a Coral Gables, Florida, lawyer named Jack Thompson, stickering was beside the point. Thompson—who, like Tipper Gore, describes himself as a long-standing rock fan—is a Christian Evangelical who fancies himself a Batman-style crusader against pornography and child abuse. At the beginning of 1990, Thompson received a transcript of the lyrics to
As Nasty as They Wanna Be,
by the 2 Live Crew, a black Miami group whose specialty is X-rated raps about male sexual prowess. Inflamed by the 2 Live Crew’s graphic language and by what he regarded as the band’s rapacious attitude toward women, Thompson launched a letter-faxing campaign to law-enforcement officials throughout Florida, urging them to take action against
As Nasty as They Wanna Be
as an “obscene” work. Thompson’s arguments caught the attention of Florida governor Bob Martinez, who set into motion a series of actions that resulted in a federal judge officially declaring the album “obscene” in June—the first such ruling for a recorded work in American history. Two days later, record store owner Charles Freeman was arrested in Fort Lauderdale after he sold a copy of the album to an undercover police officer. Within the week, three members of the 2 Live Crew—including leader Luther “Luke” Campbell—were arrested for performing material from the album at an adults only concert at a Broward County club. Meantime, Jack Thompson vowed to keep up his campaign against
Nasty,
citing his skirmish with the 2 Live Crew as merely “an opening shot in a cultural civil war.”

Thompson couldn’t have been more correct. In what was undoubtedly rock & roll’s most embattled year since the rise of Elvis Presley, nothing shocked the music community more than the Broward County arrests. It wasn’t that music professionals particularly revered or respected the 2 Live Crew; indeed, the band had been publicly and forcefully criticized for its puerile sexist humor by numerous critics and fellow rappers. But Florida’s heavyhanded response to the 2 Live Crew’s relentless sex raps (which, though coarse, were also a good deal funnier and less mean-spirited than is generally admitted) amounted to a clear effort to abrogate an artist’s rights to free speech—an action that, if successful, could endanger the rights of numerous other Americans in the oncoming censorship wars. Plus, there was another concern: Why had a black rap group been singled out for an obscenity prosecution—particularly in a county in which strip shows, adult reading material, and pornographic videos were readily accessible to consenting adults? “The subtext of this event,” said Jon Landau, manager and producer of Bruce Springsteen, “invites the suspicion that there is a substantial racist component. This is selective prosecution at its most extreme. Therefore, until Luke’s rights have been secured, discussion of the merits of his music is not really the point. The point is to make sure that we’re all free to express ourselves whatever the point of view, however extreme.”

As it turned out, much of the pop world shared Landau’s view. By making the 2 Live Crew a central target in a potentially far-reaching cultural and political battle, Jack Thompson forced many in the music industry to recognize how much ground had been conceded to the anti-rock forces. In addition, Thompson also helped transform Luther Campbell into something of an unlikely
cause célèbre.
In late June, when Campbell sought permission from Bruce Springsteen to use the backing track of “Born in the U.S.A.” for the 2 Live Crew’s account of their troubles in Florida, Springsteen granted the use free of charge. The result, called “Banned in the U.S.A.,” was the 2 Live Crew’s most laudable moment—or at least the one instance in which the group aspired to something other than puerile scatology. In response, Thompson fired off a fax to Springsteen: “Dear Mr. Springsteen,” he wrote, “I would suggest ’Raped in the U.S.A.’ as your next album. . . . You’re now harmful to the women and children who have bought your albums.” Later, in a
Los Angeles Times
interview, Thompson added: “Bruce and Luther can go to hell together.”

But the biggest drama was that of the trials. In October, a jury composed of five white women and one Hispanic man convicted store owner Charles Freeman of peddling obscenity; later that month, a different jury in the same Florida county acquitted Campbell and the other 2 Live Crew members of the obscenity charges. In essence, it was a split verdict—and nobody quite knew how to read its meaning. Meantime, in the year’s other big rock trial, Judas Priest was acquitted in Reno on charges that subliminal messages in the band’s music had led to the suicide of one youth and the attempted suicide of another—but the judge’s ruling left many legal questions unresolved and made it plain to the music industry that heavy metal recordings would likely remain subject to legal actions in the future. In response to all this activity, MTV—once a cautiously apolitical entertainment forum, and now probably rock’s most powerful media force—turned its annual awards show into an anti-censorship rally. In addition, with the help of artists like Madonna, the network launched a voter-registration drive, designed to mobilize the vote against pro-censorship crusader-politicians in upcoming elections.