13 'Pushin' Too Hard'
Moral panics
I'm titular genres of popular music have sparked controversy and opposition, both on iheir emergence and sporadically since: rock 'n1 roll in the mid-1950s, psy-rhedelic rock in the late 1960s, disco and punk in the 1970s, heavy metal and mgsta rap in the 19130s and rave culture in the 1990s, to name only the belter known examples (see Martin and Seagrave, 1988; Winfield and Davidson, 1999). < uiit ism has been variously on the influence of such genres on youthful values, ,ihnudes and behaviour through the music's (perceived) sexuality and sexism, nihilism and violence, obscenity, black magic and anti-Christian nature. The political edge of popular music has been partly the result ot this hostile reaction nlien accorded to the music and its associated causes and followers, helping to |m >lni( i/r the musicians and their tans.
While such episodes are a standard part of the history of popular music music hall, jazz and other new forms of popular music were also all stigmatized in 111*-ii day - rarely are their nature and cultural significance more fully teased out. I Hfgue here that they have constituted a form of moral panic - the social concern
Iterated by them was greatly exaggerated and the perceived threat to social harmony was by no means as ominous as many regarded it. Attempts to control ,md regulate popular music genres such as rock and rap are significant as part of the ongoing contestation of cultural hegemony, particularly with the emergence of the New Right.
Moral panic and regulation
I In episodes dealt with here have been chosen for their value in illuminating • hlleient fat els of the reaction to popular music, at particular historical moments, lust, the New Zealand reaction to rock 'n1 roll in the 1950s exemplifies the « haractei istic concerns displayed internationally towards the new form of popular music: antipathy towards il as music, Hie antisocial behaviour linked to concerts .mil rock movies and, moil impm lanlly, die associations with juvenile dclin-■ 11ii in y. Set ond, the issu< 1)1 uImm « nil) and free speech ait examined in the light ill die establishment ol die l#MU(! mid die celebrated tour! action against Amciican hand the Dead Kennedy* In TUId I'Ul/ and controversies suitohih liii* die lyric* of son^s by U Llvr (aitW (Ml'MI) and lee I Third, attempts to
204   Understanding popular music culture
link the Columbine massacre of 1999 to the influence of Marilyn Manson illustrate the ongoing tendency to blame 'rock5 for deeper social problems. These case studies illustrate the utility of the concept of moral panic to examine how music, as a central form of popular culture, becomes invested with ideological significance.
To place such opposition to popular music in context, it is important to acknowledge that popular culture in general has historically been the target of censure, condemnation and regulation. In the 1950s, for example, psychologist Frederic Wertham's inllucntial bestseller, Seduction of the Innocent^ argued for a direct causal connection between comic books and juvenile delinquency. Concern over new media and the activities of their youthful consumers seems to periodically reach a peak, frequently associated with 'boundary crises', periods of ambiguity and strain in society, which lead to attempts to more clearly establish moral boundaries. In many instances, such boundary crises are forms of 'moral panic', a concept that was widely utilized in British sociology of deviance and new criminology studies of the 1970s. This writing drew on labelling theory, associated with the American sociologist Howard Becker, who argued that societies and social groups 'create deviance by making those rules whose infraction comprises deviance and by applying them to particular people, and labeling them as outsiders' (Becker, 1997: 9); that is, deviance is considered to be a social construct. The mass media are the major source for the labelling process, as they transmit and legitimate such labels, for example Cohen's Tolk devils', and contribute to the legitimation of social control. labelling theory is evident in popular music studies of various subcultures and their perceived 'antisocial' behaviours.
The concept of moral punk was popularized by sociologist Stanley Cohen's now classic study of mods and rockers in the UK, Folk Dezils and Moral Panics. Cohen states that a period of moral panic occurs when:
A condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylised and stereotypical fashion by the mass media; the moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right-thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and solutions; ways of coping are evolved or {more often) resorted to; the condition then disappears, submerges or deteriorates and becomes more visible,
(Cohen, 1980: 9)
The second stage of Cohen's view of moral panic is particularly significant, involving as it does the repudiation of the 'common-sense' view thai the media simply report what happens. Cohen's own case study of the I9(i()s' dashes between mods and rockers in the UK (the iolk devils' of his title) showed up just such a process of the selection and presentation of news. The media coverage of the clashes simplified their causes, labelled and stigmatized the youth involved, whipped up public feeling and encouraged a leiuhutive, deterrent approach by
Moral panics 205
those in authority. (For a helpful discussion of the subsequent application of the concept of moral panic, see ditcher, 20011)
Examining the historical relationship between youth, 'antisocial* attitudes and behaviours and popular music means considering culture as a political issue. Ai a deeper level, moral panics around new media are episodes in cultural polities and the continual reconstitution and contestation of cultural hegemony. Underpinning debates over popular fiction, comics, film, television, video and popular music genres and performers are a series of assumptions about popular or 'mass1 ml lure, which is frequently seen as diametrically opposed to a 'high' culture tradition. This dichotomy is a doubtful basis for evaluating particular lornft of culture. The whole notion of a 'high-low' culture distinction must be regarded as a social construct, resting on class-based value judgements. It is more appropriate to view particular cultural (onus in terms of both their formal qualities and their social function for consumers, while keeping in mind the salient point that any evaluation must be in terms relevant to the group that produces and appreciates it. This is particularly the case with popular music. With these general points in mind, I now turn to examples of music and moral panics.
Rock (n* roll: the devil's music
The music industry and the social context of the early 1950s were ready for oh k V roll. With fuller employment, general economic prosperity and their emergence as an important consumer group, teenagers began to demand their DWfl music and clothes and to develop a generation-based identity, Belbre I !>.'>(» pop iihii music was dominated by American sounds, epiloinized h\ die leemieni image of the "crooner1. The music was largely safe, solid stuff, what Nie ( lohn lerius the palais age    the golden era of the big bands, when everything was loft, warm, sentimental, when everything was make believe* (Colin, 1970; 11), Then was little here for young people to identify with, although riot-provoking peilonnn like Johnny Ray represented prototyj^es for rock.
Although rock music began with rock kn5 mil in the mid* 1950s, as Tom Ik (l!H14) documents, it had been evolving well prior to this and was hardly the sole citation of Elvis Presley and Alan Freed. The phrase 'rock 'n* roll* itself was popularized with its sexual connotations in the music of the: 1920s and was Imm tally ba mixture of two traditions: Negro rhythm and blues and white tom.min crooning, coloured beat and white sentiment1 (Colin 1970: II)* Negro rhythm and blues was good-time music, daiu cable and unpretentious. While higlib pup nl.ii mi rhythm and blues charts and radio nations, it received little airplay Oil white radio .stations and was frequently banned bee a use of the sexual innuendo o| I9.W R&B songs such as Hank fr.II..id    \\..ik Willi Mr \nnic\ Hilly W.ud's Sixty Minute Man1 and the I'm^un*' 'baby hi Me Hann Vom Box1. It is tin* link between sex and iu<k 'n' toll     tin  drvll1! I milk    (hat uiitlei pinned the moral rtMiinni t*» a. populati/tHlnn in tin I Till*,
In Apul I'll I Ibll I I ih n imultf 'Hin k A........I iIh ( »|ih k'  The i er old was ,i Im
iii Alliei ii a, iIh ii win I.Ivm.I.........lb « Minn I .....limit < npii n While it did no!
206   Understanding popular music culture
start rock V roll, it did represent a critical symbol in the popularization of the new musical form. 'Rock Around the Clock' was featured in the MGM movie Blackboard Jungle} the story of a young teacher at a tough New York school. The success of the film with teenage audiences, and the popularity of Haley*s song (Miller, 1999: 87-94), led to Haley's being signed to make a film of his own. Rock Around ttte Clock (1956) told how Bill Haley and his band popularized rock *n' roll, but the thin story was really a showcase for the rock acts on the soundtrack. The film proved enormously popular internationally, but attracted controversy over its effect on audiences. In Britain, for example, local councils banned showings of the film following riots in some cinemas. According to con tempo rary press reportsj in the Gaiety Cinema, Manchester:
gangs of teenage youths and their girlfriends danced in the aisles, vaulted up on to the stage, and turned fire hoses on the manager when he tried to restore order. Alter the programme, they surged into city streets in a wild stampede, bringing traffic1 to a standstill in the centre of town and pounding a rock 'n1 roll rhythm on buses and cars with their fists.
Haley was an unlikely hero for youth to emulate, since his image (old, balding, chubby) hardly matched the music, but others were waiting in the wings. In this brief overview, complex developments must be reduced to their key moments. The success of Haley was one, the emergence of Chuck Berry and Little Richard another. Ivlvis Presley's was the biggest yet:
His big contribution was that he brought it home just how economically powerful teenagers could really be. Before Elvis, rock had been a feature of vague rebellion. Once he*d happened, it immediately became solid, self-contained, and then it spawned its own style in clothes and language and sex, a total independence in almost everything - all the things that are now taken for granted.
(Cohn, 1970: 23)
Cohn is overly enthusiastic about teenagers' independence, but by the end of 1957 Elvis had grown into an annual US$20 million industry and the process of homogenization of both *the King' and the music had begun.
The new music provoked considerable criticism, with many older musicians contemptuous of rock 'n' roll^ and conservative commentators regarding it as a moral threat:
Viewed as a social phenomenon, the current (raze for rock &n' roll material is one of the most terrifying things ever to have happened to popular music. Musically speaking, of course, the whole thing is laughable. It is a monstrous threat, both to the moral acceptance and die artistic emancipation of jazz.
1 xi us oppose it to the end*
(British jazzman, Sieve Kaccl in Rogers, 19H2: Itl)
Moral panics 207
Rock €n* roll 'down under*
Although necessarily brief, this capsule view of the early history of rock V roll is apposite, since the New Zealand experience 1 now turn to followed developments overseas, illustrating the rapid establishment of rock as an international phenomenon. This can be seen through New Zealand's response to the film Rock Around the Clock and the emergence of the antipodean folk devil, the 'bodgie' (the quotes here are from contemporary press reports). The local reaction in each case contained elements of a moral panic, with youth once again being constructed as posing a social problem, m
As with their overseas counterparts, by the mid-1950s New Zealand youth were more visible and more affluent. Contemporary press advertising reflected increased awareness of youth as a distinctive market, particular!)' for clothes and records. Dances and concerts catering for youth increased and the nationally broadcast Lever Hit Parade began in November 1955.
In late 1956 Rod Around the Clod arrived in \n\ Zealand and was approved loi general exhibition by the film censor, who noted that *a somewhat compulsive rhythm pervaded the film but otherwise there was nothing unusual about if. Anticipation of similar scenes in New Zealand to the riots accompanying screenings of the film overseas were rarely met. Despite press headlines such as 'Larrikins Take Over After Film' and 'Rock (n* Roll Addicts in Minor Disturbance*, the crowds attending screenings were, in fact, generally restrained. Indeed, there was almost an air of disappointment. The police, prepared for trouble, were present at and following some screenings, but were rarely needed. In Auckland, the country's main centre:
in spile of a few policemen standing by, and the expectancy that had booked the cinema out, the first night's showing passed ofl with nothing more rowdy than some adolescent hand-dapping, some whistling and stamping, a liltle squealing in the rain after the show, and one charge of obstruction.
This was in spite of the cinema's provocative publicity for the film, which included a foyer display of press cuttings of the riots produced by the film overseas!
lor most observers, rock cri1 roll was at worst a safety valve and a passing craze: 4It does invite one to dance with hypnotic abandon and self-display, hut to lisien to it is more monotonous than boogie-woogie5! As occurred overseas, there was a tendency to see rock 'n1 roll as:
not a very attractive art form for those whose tastes have made any progress towards maturity. Prime requisites appear lo be that the words - or sounds -should be meaningless and repetiuve, while any semblance of melody is hastih and noisily mmdeied
(Jeiieially, howrvei, the pie** tguun d Mm pin nnmeinm, while popular
music on ihe iadio letnaim d \m\{\ \\ < »<i»l.....I hi die hiiuii ions Maori show bauds
ol die day. supplemented I■% a hit o| )iw
208   Understanding popular music culture
New Zealand's first real rock *n5 roll hero emerged in 1957: Johnny Devlin, an 18-year-old bank clerk. Devlin was a self-conscious Presley imitator, a natural singer and showman. His first record, 'Lawdy Miss Clawdy', became the most successful local single of the 1950s. Successful tours, including a hugely successful five-month national tour during 1958, saw sell-out houses, Devlin mobbed by screaming girls and several incidents of damage to theatres and injuries to the police protecting the singer. While the tour subsequently assumed almost mythic proportions in the history of rock W roll in New Zealand, there was clearly an element of media promotional hype present. Devlin, for example, wore lightly stitched clothing to facilitate the incidents where the fans 'ripped the clothes from his back*.
If both Rock Around the Clock and Johnny Devlin's concerts failed to measure up as local moral panics, the bodgies represented New Zealand's very own folk devils of the 1950s. Bodgies and 'widgies', their female companions, were the local equivalent of the English teddy boys, adopting similar styles:
The males wore unusual and exaggerated haircuts. All went to extremes in the style of suits worn. The trousers were all much tighter in the legs than usual Some favoured extreme shortness of leg exposing garishly coloured socks. Coats, when worn, were fuller in cut and much longer than is normal by conservative standards, while all favoured brightly coloured shirts, pullovers or wind-breakers, and neckerchiefs.
(Manning, 1958: 9)
Although Manning makes little reference to the leisure pursuits of the group, other sources indicate that as in Britain rock 'n* roll was the musical style the bodgies most strongly identified with: Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent and Eddi< Cochrane joining earlier heroes like Haley.
Manning's was an openly hostile study; it is subtitled 'A Study in Psychological Abnormality'. The New Zealand public and press largely shared his view of bodgies as juvenile delinquents who posed a social threat. The bodgie soon became a national bogey man, with alarmist newspaper reports about bodgie behaviour. During 1958 one Wellington paper reported that 'the parade of brutality' by bodgies and widgies had reached such a peak that many parents weft 'fearful of allowing their children out at night'. Gender inscribed these discoim the hysteria provoked by Devlin was a predominantly female phenomenon, which received little serious criticism; the male bodgie was a different matter: 'When they are not feeling in too violent a mood they confine their activities to pushing people off footpaths. When looking for thrills, they fight among themselves, often with knives and bicycle chains' (press reports). Bodgies became identified with hooliganism or vandalism and parliament debated the problem. Young compulsory military trainees on leave harassed and beat up bodgies, forcibly taking ovei bodgie milk bars in central Auckland, while incoming trainees with bodgie li.un m were initially left unshorn, resulting in harassment.
The bodgie threat was clearly an exaggerated one, In conformist New Zealand of the late 1950s, buddies and widi"     iimm! <hi(   The surprising fuel wiih iml thai
A ioral panics 209
New Zealand had young delinquents, 1ml that they are relatively such a small group' (NZ Listener, editorial, 18 April 195H).
Hock, free speech and the New Right
During the mid-1980a a general trend towards censorship emerged in the US, headed by well-organized and well-financed pressure groups from the 'New Right', seeking to impose censorship on musicians, filmmakers and writers whose points of view they neither agreed with nor approved of. While the 'New Right' is .1 complex network of political, secular ami religions organizations ratner than a unified grouping, it exerted considerable influence through its letter writing and petition campaigns, its television and radio programmes and the publications of n . ideological think-tanks. The various New Right groups recognized that shared public concerns with social issues can be successfully mobilized to achieve and m.iiiitain political support and solidarity.
Such conservative groups have historically targeted youth subcultures, most notably punk and rock music as a threat to traditional 'family' values (Martin and Seagrave, 1988: Chapter 21). The music is perceived as embodying a range of negative influences, which need to be regulated and controlled. It is claimed that toek is:
the single most powerful tool with which Satan communicates his evil message. MURDER MUSIC has led millions of young people into alcoholism, abortion, crime, drug addiction, incest, prostitution, sadomasochism, Satanic worshipping, sexual promiscuity, suicide and much more. MURDER MUSIC has to be STOPPED NOW! The moral liber of our country and young lives are at stake!
('Rock deprogrammed, Pastor Fletcher brothers,
abridged from Denselow 1990: 264)
Initially the anti-rock campaign was spearheaded by fundamentalist Christian ((loops, aligned with powerful right-wing pressure groups sponsored by television evangelists, such as the Reverend Jerry Falwell. While pushing for stricter cen-
i .hip legislation, such groups enjoyed more success through pressure on the music producers and distributors. Tele-evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, after equaling um k wiih pornography and degenerative filth which denigrates all the values we hold sacred and is destructive to youth', met with company representatives of the Wal-Mart discount chain, whose 800 outlets subsequently stopped stocking rock and let ii magazines and albums by a number of bands, including Ozzy Osbourne imtl Motley Crtle, because of their alleged \alanic' and pornographic' content (Kennedy, 1990; 135).
Thě PMRC
I he New Kighl attack on io<k and lne upéci h WMlioowlrd by ihe formation, in I'M!), ol the Parent*' Mna, Rímmihi « ...... (I'MUC) 11. ...lul U ,, ,•>...• |> ,,|
210   I hiderstanding popular music culture
'Washington wives* - most were married to Senators or Congressmen - who were also 'born-aguin' Christians, the PMRC dedicated itself to 'cleaning up* rock musk, which it saw as potentially harmful to young people, terming it 'secondary child abuse9. One of the founding members, Tipper Gore, became involved because she had bought her eight-year-old daughter a copy of Prince's album Purple Rain and found that one of its songs, "Darling NickT, referred to masturbation ('I met her in a hotel lobby, masturbating with a magazine'). j
The PMRC published a Rock Music Report, condemning what it claimed to be the live major themes in the music: rebellion, substance abuse, sexual promiscuity and perversion, violence-nihilism and the occult. It started a highly organized letter-writing campaign and began arguing (or the implementation of a ratings system for records, similar to that used in the cinema. The PMRC also sent copies of lyrics of songs it saw as objectionable to programme directors at radio and television stations, to be screened for 'offensive material' and pressed record companies to reassess the contracts of artists who leal tired violence, substance abuse or explicit sexuality in their recorded work or concerts.
All these measures were aimed at encouraging self-censorship in the music industry and the group's tactics met with considerable success. The high point of its efforts was the 1985 US Senate Commerce Committee hearings on the influence of music (see Denselow, 1990: Chapter 10). No legislation came out of the hearings, but the Record industry Association of America voluntarily responded by introducing a generic 'Parents' Advisory Explicit Lyrics1 label to appear on albums deemed to warrant it, a practice that became widespread during the 1990s. The next major focus for the PMRC was the Dead Kennedys' obscenity trial during 1986-1987.
is Landscape
in December 1985 a 13-year-old girl bought a copy of the Dead Kennedys' album Frankenchrist (Alternative Tentacles, 1985) from a record shop in the San Fernando Valley in California. The record contained a poster entitled 'Penis Landscape' by Swiss surrealist artist II.R, Ciger, best known for his Oscar-winning work on the sets of the film Alien. The work was a detail from a larger painting, Landscape #20, Wliere Are We Coming From? and depicted male appendages arranged in neat rows. Jcllo Biafra, the Dead Kennedys3 lead singer, explained that he had included the print because: 'The painting portrayed to me a vortex of exploitation and 1 realized that the same theme ran through the album/ The band put an 'alternative1 warning sticker on the album: 'WARNING: the fold-out to this album contains a work of art by ILR. Ciger that some people may find shocking, repulsive oi offensive. Life can sometimes be that way/ The girl's parents saw it dillrrrntly and complained to the State Attorney General's Office that ii was 'pornographic', In April 1986 polite raided Jcllo Hiafra's home and the ollicc ol Alternative Tentacles Records, the label founded by the Dead Kennedys, looking for obscene material. None was found, but  iii June  Hialia was eventually charged with
Moral panics   211
distributing harmful material to minors and the case finally went to trial in August 1987.
The Dead Kennedys had been the subject of controversy and I lie target of New Right censorship before. Formed in San Francisco in 1978, the baud played a form of punk thrash music with politically hard-edged lyrics. Their first single 'California Uber Alles' was a satirical attack on State Governor Jerry Brown, and included lines like 'Your kids will meditate in school' and 'You will jog for the master race'. Later work included 'Holiday in Cambodia' about the horrors of the Pol Pot regime and the anti-alcohol warning 'Too Drunk To Fuck5, which gained chart success despite its title and the subsequent lack of radio airplay. Shunned by the mainstream record companies, while their name alone practically ensured commercial failure in the US, the Dead Kennedys' records enjoyed considerable success in the European 'indie* charts. Albums including Bedtime for Ikvtocraiy tackled political subjects such as Reagan's foreign policy and the LIS censors!tip lobby, satirized MTV and attacked American business involvement in South Africa. While the groups punk thrash backing and iliafra's breakneck lyrics often made the lyrics almost unintelligible, this was hardly work to endear the band to the establishment.
Jello's trial in Los Angeles in 1987 was seen as a major test case for the censorship of popular music. Support from Frank Zappa and Little Steven and a series of benefit shows from European punk bands helped raise the $70,000 needed for defence costs. Biafra defended himself and was articulate in his opposition to censorship and his support lor free speech. He argued that there was a danger that the US was returning to the climate of the 1950s, when anti-communist witch hunts led to the banning of an earlier political songwriter, Pete Sceger. The case ran for two weeks. The jury deadlocked (seven to five) in Jello's lavour, but could make no further progress and the judge finally declared a mistrial [Kennedy, 1990: 144),
Even if it were a victory for free speech, the case had finished the Dead Kennedys. Already having internal problems, with Biafra tied up in the litigation process and prevented from performing, the group broke up in December 1986, Hiafra went on to a career as a 'political performance artist', doing monologue ■.ivlc presentations such as 'Ollie North for President5 - the PMRC remained active and moved on to new targets.
Rap
In Nie eariy 1990s rap music beeame the main target of the 'anti-roik, pro-Ctusorship' lobby* The new genie had already bcen altacked froui the left for its ■i \ i s j 11 and liomophobia and will now eritit ized Im ns profanity and obscenity. \ (udge in Florida ilcclaicd the rap gmup 2 üvr ( Irrw's album As Mistr a.\ they \\\mt to Bt to be obsecne, ihr In i m\\ mhuř loi a irtuidrd woik in l [S hislory. Kollow mg ll lis, a rrroid slon DWtMH wu* am -.ird uhru lir sold ihr albínu lo au mu Irl rovci polire olliiri and ihm mrmltrtu ol ihr band wnr aiirslrd loi prr-loiumig malriial lioni ihr albínu al a mmimii will» au adullji1 míly' laling. Tin
212   Understanding popular music culture
band members were eventually acquitted of the obscenity charge but tin conviction of the store owner was upheld.
The anti-authority political attitudes and values in some rap music aim attracted the attention of the New Right. The Los Angeles rap group Niggai Wit Attitudes (NWA) song Tuck tha Police1 and Ice-Ts song fcGop Killer' boili caused considerable controversy and calls to ban their performers' concerts and records. In the UK, in October 1990, gangsta rappers NWA released a sin^lr with a B-side 'She Swallowed It*, dealing with oral sex. Many of the inajiu department store chains and some music retailers refused to stock the record conscious of the lack of clarity surrounding the 1959 Obscene Publication Act and fearing prosecution. In June 1991 NWA released a second album EJil4*aggin (Niggaz 4 Life, backwards) in the UK, after it had already top|>nl the American Billboard chart and sold nearly one million copies in its first \\< rl of release. The alburn contained a number of tracks featuring sexual degradation and extreme  violence  toward  women,  along with considerable sweaiiiif The police raided the premises of Polygram, the record's UK distributor, am seized some 12,000 copies of the album and shops withdrew the album from A prosecution followed, using the Obscene Publications Act's definition of .hi 'obscene article' as one which 'tend(s) to deprave and corrupt'. The hi^li profile court case revolved around free speech arguments versus claims thai lln record was obscene, especially in its portrayal of women. The magish.iln who judged the case ruled that the album was not obscene under the terms ol the act; the seized stock was returned and the album went back on .»!• (see Cloonan, 1996, for a detailed treatment of this episode and the assoeuMnl issues).
I
Cop Killer I
Ice-T's 'Cop Killer' (WB, 1992) is a revenge fantasy of the disempoweredl III which the singer recounts getting ready to 'dust some cops oil'. The w,iiniii(| sticker on the tape cassette version of the album Body Count, which includes '< i Killer', hardly appeased critics of the record: 'Warning: This tape nniiain material that may be offensive to someone out there!' It was claimed thai il song glorified the murder of police and both President Bush and Vice-PresidriH Dan Quayle sided with law-enforcement groups in protesting Time-Warnn release of the record. Several US national record store chains stopped sc Ihm Count and in July 1992 Time-Warner pulled the song at Ice-T's recjuTsi .ill*» police groups picketed the media conglomerate's shareholders meeting III Beverley Hills. Anxious to avoid governmental regulation, in September, Wain Music Group executives met with several of the rappers on the label, im Indian Ice-T, and warned them to change their lyrics on some songs or I in* t amain i label for their work (Los Angeles Times, 10 December 1992). Time-Warmi Sire Records delayed the release of Ice-T's Home Invasion album; tin prilium eventually changed labels and the album was released on Rhyme S\uduah Virgin in 1993. • '
Moral panics   21 13
In New Zealand, in July 1992, the Police Commissioner unsuccessfully lllrmpled to prevent an Ice-T concert in Auckland, arguing that 'Anyone who n    to this country preaching in obscene terms die killing of police, should not
■ welcome here.' Several record shop owners refused to stock the album con-nning the song. The local music industry, student radio stations and several
ending music journalists responded by defending the song as a piece of 'role |.l.ty\ linking it with the singer's recent performance in the film ft'av Jack City and <>.. right to free speech. Undeterred, the police took Body Count and the song's publishers and distributors, Warners, to the Indecent Publications Tribunal, in an
".......get it banned under New Zealand's Indecent Publications Act. This wai
llti lirsl time in 20 years that a sound recording had come before this censorship «l\ .ind the first ever case involving popular music (previous sound recording
■ ■ I>< lore the tribunal were 'readings' from erotic novels or memoirs!). As such, 11iMird considerable interest, not least due to the appeal of rap among the ......v's Polynesian and Maori youth (see Chapter 11).
I Ik- ease rehearsed familiar arguments around the influence of song lyrics. The |mli< i contended that:
Riven the content of the songs, it is possible that people could be corrupted l.\ hearing the sound recording, and in the case of the song 'Cop Killer' ih.ii some individuals may be exhorted to act with violence towards (hi Police. The course of conduct advocated in the song 'Cop Killer' is a dim I lineal to law enforcement personnel generally and causes grave concern to lite police. ,
(Mr II. Woods, Senior Legal Ad\ iser for the New Zealand Police, cited in Indecent Publications Tribunal Decision No. 100/9'.'
I»« I. nre submissions argued that the album offered a powerful treatment of I la
wnsc of disenfi anchisement and hopelessness that a large segment of American youth are faced with, and the violence that is bred in such an environment. Il In it social commentary that we would like to believe is far removed from out »<..teiy here in New Zealand. But whether this is so or not, the album has a v.tlnlih and topicality as a reflection of the disenfranchised segment of om \      *oi iely.
(Ms Karen Soich, Warner Brothers counsel, ibid.)
Mi. i h viewing the various submissions, and listening carefully to the album, ii  I iibtinal concluded thai 'the dominant ellrei ol the album is complex'. While hue* air repugnant to most New Zcalanders, il is a much bigger step lo link
i lyrics to subse«|iieni anti-.sm ial behaviour' (ibid.), h I.....id 11m   >.<>iig 'Cop
K'H't  lo be noi e\lioitaiory\ saw the album an displasing 'ail honest purpose' I Ii mhkI I duly (twill mil indecent.
I her moral panics around pupulai imi.n . an Ih miualnl ..>>.,mml the global mi i • in e ill a New Kiglii. einbtai iug lice mat In i pol||j< - ami a no n .il • iillural
214   Understanding popular music culture
conservatism. Ijawrence Grossberg observes of this trend in the US: 'The new conservatism is, in a certain sense, a matter of public language, of what can be said, of the limits of the allowable. This has made culture into a crucial terrain on which struggles over power, and the politics of the nation, are waged1 (Grossberg, 1992: 162).
As he concludes, this struggle involves a new form of regulation: 'a variety of attacks become tokens of a broader attack, not so much on the freedom of expression as on the freedom of distribution and circulation' (ibid*: 163). The earlier debates were reprised through the 1990s, in the controversy surrounding the work of performers such as Eminem, Dr Die and Marilyn Manson.
In such a climate, the music industry moved further toward self-regulation. In 2000 white rapper Eminem's US chart-topping album, The Marshall Matliers LP, was heavily criticized for its homophobic and misogynist lyrics. In what has become routine industry practice, the record label (lnterscope/Universal) excised entire tracks to create an alternative album that parents can buy for their children, while extensively editing the lyrics in the remaining songs to eliminate references to drugs, violence, profanity and hate (Nav York Times on the Web, 1 August 2000).
Columbine and Marilyn Manson
The massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, on 29 April 1999, resulted in 15 deaths and 23 injuries, some severe. The two young men responsible were students at the school and killed themselves at the end of their bloody rampage. News coverage of the shootings was intense. Speculation about its causes referred to the negative influence of violent media on youth, especially video games, neo-Nazi ideology and rock music (see the special forum in Popular Musk and Society, 23, 3, Fall 1999). When it was revealed that the two boys who killed their classmates were Marilyn Manson fans, the band cancelled its American tour. (Ironically, at the same time, the National Rifle Association went ahead with its national meeting in Denver.) For some commentators, Marilyn Manson became the 'designated demon* for the Columbine massacre. Manson responded with an articulate statement in Rolling Stone ('Columbine: Whose Fault is It?*, 24 June 1999: 23-4), observing that such simplistic associations missed the deeper reasons for the tragedy, which lay in youth disenchantment and alienation.
The latest in a succession of entertainers whose career is based on confrontation and shock value, Marilyn Manson (formerly Brian Warner) was accustomed to controversy. He and his band members play under aliases combining a famous woman's name with the last name of a serial killer; in Warner's case the well-known star Marilyn Monroe and Sharon Tate's murderer Charles Manson. Tin self-appointed 'Antichrist Superstar* (the title of the band's second album), ha| been termed *one of rock's biggest personalities and smartest social commentators' (QJanuary 2000: 118). In songs such as 'The Dope* Show' and Hcanliliil People', he examined the underbelly of American life and popular culture, Theil
Moral panics   21
highly theatrical act, reminiscent of that of Alice Cooper, was designed to si n i« I audiences. Along with the songs, it gained the group a cult following in tlit- inn I 1990s, mainly among the guih subculture. During 1997-1998 Antichrist Sufm\tti\ pushed them into the commercial mainstream, while Manson hit the hc.ullm< with his proclamations against organized religion. Their third album, Mdumna Animals (1998), topped the charts in a number of countries, hut caused uhm.i^ when Manson appeared as a naked, sexless android on the cover and in the vhI< < Inr the single The Dope Show* (D. Dalton, "Pleased to Meet You', MOJO September 1999, provides an insightful analysis of Marilyn Manson's cm u iUhi persona up until that time). *
Controversy over particular musical styles, their performers and fans, con limn to surface sporadically, with extreme metal providing the most recent example (Kahn-1 larris, 2007: Chapter 2), The debates around their influence unci (Im associated calls for the censorship of popular music and its pcrlbrincrs ,ih reminder of the force of musk as symbolic politics, operating in the mlium! arena.
Further reading
Sine censorship of music, its performers and fans, is endemic in many noil*WCit< m countries, but I have not had space to include this here; see:
Freemuse documents international instances of, and campaigns agaiiut, inn .,
censorship: www.frceniusc.org ( iloonan, M, (1996) Banned! Censorship of Popular Music in Britain: 1967 *)L\ AMi islmi
Arena.
(lloonan, M and Garofab, R. (eds) (2003) Policing Pup, Philadelphia, PA I.,.,,.|, LI Diversity Press.
Denselow  R. (1990) What Ihe Music's Om: The Story &f Paliiiait fty, Linttal) label & Faber.
(iarofalo, R. (ed.) (1992) Rockin' the Boat: Mass Music and Maw \lomncnt\ Botfuil
MA: South End Press. Sheet, J, (201 I) Music and Politics, Cambridge; Maiden, MA: Polity Pn ||