The Band Was Banned Trivia Quiz

Answer: Vice President

The four ladies who founded the committee known as Parents' Music Resource Center were Mary Elizabeth "Tipper" Gore, wife of Senator Al Gore (who became Bill Clinton's Vice President after the 1992 election); Susan Baker, wife of James Baker (Treasury Secretary in the Reagan administration); Pam Howar, wife of Raymond Howar, a Washington realtor; and Sally Nevius, wife of John Nevious, former Chairman of Washington City Council. The group was helped financially by Joseph Coors (owner of the Coors Beer Company) and Mike Love, co-founder of The Beach Boys - both of them supporters of President Ronald Reagan.

The group's main intent was to denounce what they perceived to be the growing obscenity and violence in rock music, and its contribution to a spate of societal ills. As their name implies, they also aimed to provide guidance to parents who wanted to prevent their children's exposure to such objectionable content. Though the group's activity fizzled out in the mid-1990s, and their agenda - which aimed at setting up a ratings system for album and concerts, and eventually denying recording contracts to offending bands - was never implemented, the infamous "Parental Advisory" label (PAL) survives to this day.

Answer: Darling Nikki

As the story goes, in December 1984 Tipper Gore and her 11-year-old daughter Karenna bought Prince's recently released album "Purple Rain" (the soundtrack to the movie of the same title), and came across the song "Darling Nikki", with its explicit references to female self-pleasuring. Gore's shock at a song that, over 35 years later, sounds almost tame, prompted more investigation, and led her to the discovery of a treasure trove (so to speak) of violent or sexually suggestive videos.

Two of Prince's protegées, Sheena Easton and Vanity, performed the sexually suggestive songs listed as numbers two and four of the Filthy Fifteen - "Sugar Walls" and "Strap On 'Robbie Baby'". "Sugar Walls" was actually written by Prince under the pseudonym of Alexander Nevermind. The song occupying number 15 on the list, "She Bop" by Cyndi Lauper, also deals with the topic of self-pleasuring.

Answer: Van Halen

The fourth and final single from Van Halen's very successful "1984" album, "Hot for Teacher" (whose title is quite self-explanatory) was accompanied by a very funny video featuring a nerdy-looking boy named Waldo on his first day of school, the younger versions of the four band members, and a couple of sexy teachers. Though Tipper Gore claimed to have been "frightened" by the video, the song - rather surprisingly - was not included in the "Filthy Fifteen" list. "Hot for Teacher" was also the last single released by Van Halen before the departure of their larger-than-life lead singer, David Lee Roth - who co-produced the video, in which he stars as the school bus driver.

Guitarist Edward van Halen, who co-founded the band bearing his family name in 1972, succumbed to cancer on 6 October, 2020. At the time of writing, the guitarists of the three remaining bands are still very much alive.

Answer: Judas Priest

According to Tipper Gore, "Eat Me Alive" was about sex at gunpoint - which explains the song's high placement on the Filthy Fifteen list. However, the band - especially their lead singer and main lyricist, Rob Halford - have always stated that the song was tongue-in-cheek, though they did not deny that it was also meant to get media attention. Little did the band know that this bit of controversy would pale before the events of 1990 - when Judas Priest were sued for allegedly causing two young men to shoot themselves in the head through a subliminal message embedded in one of their songs. The suit was dismissed by the judge, though it obviously caused the band considerable distress. As to the PMRC, Judas Priest criticized them in the song "Parental Guidance", featured on their 1986 album, "Turbo".

AC/DC's "Put My Love Into You" (number six) and W.A.S.P.'s notorious "Animal" (number nine) also ended up on the Filthy Fifteen due to their sexual content.

Answer: Dee Snider

The first single from their multi-platinum album "Stay Hungry", "We're Not Gonna Take It" was released in April 1984, together with a very comical video featuring a domineering father and his guitar-playing teenage son. A rousing anthem of rebellion against stifling authority rather than any actual incitement to violence, the song (which in recent years has been used in various political situations) was Twisted Sister's only Top 40 single, reaching number 21 on Billboard's Hot 100. In spite of his over-the-top image and somewhat foul mouth, Dee Snider is a practicing Christian, a committed family man, and avoids drugs and alcohol.

"Bastard" by Mötley Crüe was also included in the list at number five because it was believed to be a call for violence.

Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley are members of KISS; Steven Tyler is the lead singer of Aerosmith.

Answer: Like a Virgin

In a career spanning almost 40 years, Madonna has courted controversy more than once. However, "Dress You Up", the song that landed her on the Filthy Fifteen list, is nowhere as "scandalous" as many of her later offerings: though its lyrics are a metaphor for fashion and sex, the meaning is conveyed in terms that are anything but graphic. The song came to the PMRC's attention when Susan Baker's 7-year-old daughter asked her mother what a virgin was after listening to Madonna's song "Like a Virgin" (which is also quite harmless in terms of lyrics). "Dress You Up" was the fourth and final single from the "Like a Virgin" album, which sold over 12 million copies worldwide at the time of release; the song itself reached number five of the Billboard Top 100 chart.

The albums listed as wrong answers were released much later: "Ray of Light" in 1998, "American Life" in 2003, and "Hard Candy" in 2008.

Answer: drunk driving

"Trashed" is the opening song on Black Sabbath's 1983 album "Born Again" - their only album recorded with Ian Gillan (of Deep Purple fame) as a vocalist. The song, which ranks among Gillan's finest vocal performances, describes a misadventure that happened to the singer during the album's recording sessions: after a drinking binge, he went for a ride on a nearby racetrack in a car belonging to drummer Bill Ward, coming very close to killing himself. Though, according to the PMRC, the song glorified alcohol abuse, a case can be made for it being actually against it. Similarly, the song "Black Sabbath" (from the band's eponymous debut album, released in 1970) is often cited as dealing with devil worship - when in fact it is about fear of the devil.

At number ten of the list, Def Leppard's "High 'n' Dry (Saturday Night)" also deals with the topic of alcohol abuse.

Answer: Rick James

The Mary Jane Girls were a R&B group led by Joanne "JoJo" Duffie, a backing vocalist for Rick James. Formed in 1979, the group was named after James' hit single "Mary Jane", written about his favourite recreational drug. James wrote and produced all of the group's songs, including "In My House", the lead single from their second album, "Only Four You" (1984). Duffie claimed that the openly suggestive song had been written as an answer to all those songs in which a man lures a woman to his house with lewd intentions. The song charted at number seven of the Billboard Hot 100, and made it to number one of Billboard's Dance Club Songs.

Sadly, Rick James passed away in 2004, after a career plagued by drug abuse and legal issues. His hit single "Super Freak" was released in 1981.

Answer: Venom

Formed in 1978, Venom were hard to take seriously, so over-the-top was their "Satanic" stance. Indeed, in many an interview the band members stressed that what they did was entertainment, in true rock 'n' roll style, and that they had no interest whatsoever in preaching Satanism. "Possessed", written by bassist Cronos (Conrad Lant) and guitarist Mantas (Jeffrey Dunn), was the title-track of their fourth album, released in 1985; as its title implies, it is about a man possessed by the devil. Rather than hurting the band, being included in the notorious Filthy Fifteen list provided them with a lot of free publicity, also boosting their sales.

The name "black metal" given to an extreme metal subgenre characterized by an interest in the occult comes from the title of Venom's second album (released in 1982). The other song included in the Filthy Fifteen (at number 11) because of occult content is "Into the Coven" by Danish band Mercyful Fate (whose lead vocalist, King Diamond, is a member of the Church of Satan).

All the bands listed as incorrect answers are from the US, and none of them is a trio. However, the notorious PAL label can be found on many of their albums.

Answer: Frank Zappa

The high point of the PMRC's activity came on 19 September 1985, when PMRC representatives, a number of senators (including Al Gore), and three musicians (Frank Zappa, Dee Snider and John Denver) testified before the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee of the US Senate on the subject of labeling music recordings to warn listeners against potentially offensive content. In his statement, Zappa - a well-known advocate of freedom of expression - bluntly called the PMRC's proposal "an ill-conceived piece of nonsense", while John Denver called the labels censorship, and Dee Snider maintained that only parents were capable of making judgments about the suitability of musical content. A couple of months after the hearing, Zappa released an album titled "Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention", whose track "Porn Wars" is a collage of audio snippets from the hearing.

The definitive version of the "Parental Advisory - Explicit Lyrics" label was introduced in 1990. As often happens, the label has made albums more appealing to their target audience, without discouraging any artists from dealing with taboo subjects in their lyrics.

Of the musicians listed as wrong answers, Johnny Cash passed away in 2003, Lou Reed in 2013, and David Bowie in 2016.