1980s Metalhead Kids Are Alright: Scientific Study Shows That They Became Well-Adjusted Adults
In the 1980s, The Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), an organization co-founded by Tipper Gore and the wives of several other Washington power brokers, launched a political campaign against pop music, hoping to put warning labels on records that promoted Sex, Violence, Drug and Alcohol Use. Along the way, the PMRC issued “the Filthy Fifteen,” a list of […]
In the 1980s, The Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), an organization co-founded by Tipper Gore and the wives of several other Washington power brokers, launched a political campaign against pop music, hoping to put warning labels on records that promoted Sex, Violence, Drug and Alcohol Use. Along the way, the PMRC issued “the Filthy Fifteen,” a list of 15 particularly objectionable songs. Hits by Madonna, Prince and Cyndi Lauper made the list. But the list really took aim at heavy metal bands from the 80s — namely, Judas Priest, Mötley Crüe, Twisted Sister, W.A.S.P., Def Leppard, Black Sabbath, and Venom. (Interesting footnote: the Soviets separately created a list of blackballed rock bands, and it looked pretty much the same.)
Above, you can watch Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider appear before Congress in 1985 and accuse the PMRC of misinterpreting his band’s lyrics and waging a false war against metal music. The evidence 40 years later suggests that Snider perhaps had a point.
A study by psychology researchers at Humboldt State, Ohio State, UC Riverside and UT Austin “examined 1980s heavy metal groupies, musicians, and fans at middle age” — 377 participants in total — and found that, although metal enthusiasts certainly lived riskier lives as kids, they were nonetheless “significantly happier in their youth and better adjusted currently than either middle-aged or current college-age youth comparison groups.” This left the researchers to contemplate one possible conclusion: “participation in fringe style cultures may enhance identity development in troubled youth.” Not to mention that heavy metal lyrics don’t easily turn kids into damaged goods.
You can read the report, Three Decades Later: The Life Experiences and Mid-Life Functioning of 1980s Heavy Metal Groupies here. And, right above, listen to an interview with one of the researchers, Tasha Howe, a former headbanger herself, who spoke yesterday with Michael Krasny on KQED radio in San Francisco.
Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on our site in July 2015.
If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newsletter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bundled in one email, each day.
If you would like to support the mission of Open Culture, consider making a donation to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your contributions will help us continue providing the best free cultural and educational materials to learners everywhere. You can contribute through PayPal, Patreon, and Venmo (@openculture). Thanks!
Related Content:
A Bluegrass Version of Metallica’s Heavy Metal Hit, “Enter Sandman”
