Though my ideas are all over the place and I still have a lot of planning to do before I immense myself fully into my research, I have a set of ideas lined up that will eventually help settle the storm of turbulent thoughts in my head. These are preliminary ideas that will eventually help me consolidate a more focused topic.

I am studying:

Heavy Metal and US Legislation, mainly focusing on the Explicit Label Crusade Led by Tipper Gore and allies. Legislation that aimed at censoring Heavy Metal artists through these labels.

Because I am trying to find out: 

When did the United States start censoring recording artists as regulated through pieces of legislation, what prompted this movement, how were the religious groups of the Nation involved in this movement and why did they specifically target Heavy Metal artists? Is it because of their anti-religious imagery? Is it because of their sexually explicit comment? Or because it encouraged individualism, the need to question authority and government and embraced the outsiders?

In order to help my readers understand:

How the religious right, wives of politicians, the mainstream establishment has a long track record of censoring recording artists through targeting them, indictments, and proposals aimed at limiting their work.

My keyword cloud:

Heavy Metal, Black Metal, Thrash Metal, Subcultures, Underground Heavy Metal, Tipper Gore, Senate Hearings for Parents Music Resource Center, Al Gore, Parental Advisory Stickers, Lyrical Contents, The “Filthy Fifteen,” Judas Priest trials, The Subliminal Message Trials, Anton Levy’s Satanic Church, the Rise of “Occult” Metal in the 70’s (Coven), The American Response to the New Wave of British Heavy Metal

Resources:

I recently read a book titled the Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of Satanic Metal which will help me formulate a “religious response” to the set of events during the Parents Music Resource Center Senate Hearings. While this particular book does not focus on this episode of History, it does give a glimpse at the underlying religious century worldwide to the growing influence of Heavy Metal (in its most extreme evil form, notably Black Metal). Specifically, in relation to the United States there is a placed focus on the rise of the “Florida Death Metal” scene that could serve as a substantial source for elaborating on this idea about the “religious scare” of the US. In the Filthy Filthy, as drafted by the PMR, they specifically aimed at targeting and censoring albums with “Occult” lyrical content. Albums considered to fall under this “genre” of labels were also targeted and often blamed for teenage suicides (ex. Judas Priest trial).