Others have already referenced the British Mods-versus-Rockers behaviors of the 1960’s.
During the 1970’s, comics had gone mainstream while music went through psychedelia, folk & country, and disco. The big threat to good Christian values was the Dungeons and Dragons craze, with its roots in ancient mythologies, folklore, and fantasy literature and (as is proper with any epic tale) the bad guys often won, at least in the short-term. And, instead of denigrating it, Hollywood embraced it with TV shows and movies – Nigel Terry won an Oscar for his role as a pagan wizard in Excalibur, and the hottest flick to close the decade was a good old save-the-princess tale where the evil champion got away.
Enter the 1980’s and The Gipper who needed to make good on his Contract with America in which he had made a Faustian bargain to give the Moral Majority and other Fundamentalist Forces a stronger hand in society – provided they could get him a cameo appearance as a President. Two waves were heading toward each other at this time: 1) Rock musicians and bands who had dabbled in occult/medieval/fantasy themes were hitting their stride and (fortunately) eclipsing the Disco fad, and 2) Christian fundamentalism was a rising fad that was gaining its own voice in media and politics.
The rising Right couldn’t blame all of Hollywood for the Corruption of Today’s Youth because, after all, they had just handed the White House to a former actor. Besides, the movie industry was profiting from its adoption of the fantasy genre so it wasn’t going to just drop the works-in-progress and abandon all those ticket-buying fans. And blaming comic books was sooo passe. But blaming teenagers’ popular music (again) might work…
Actually, the religious right (with its ludicrous paranoia) had been gaining ground since the early 70’s – as had the popularity of bands like Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, and those guys whom the Hyper-Christians were incorrectly (and perhaps intentionally) interpreting as an acronym for Kings In Satan’s Service. Tipper Gore was partly a product of the hysteria and partly a figurehead in the backlash. She didn’t start it, and it’s tough to discern whether she was exploiting the wave, truly believed, or was being exploited by the wave. In the 1980’s dozens of bands made fun of the hysteria by including visual effects (in the burgeoning Music Video fad fostered by the new MTV) and lyrical passages that evoked demonic, satanic, pagan, and occult themes.* There were even a few movies made to dramatize the connection between that “new” Heavy Metal music and sinister forces. The religious right, lacking a sense of humor about themselves as usual, took the stuff seriously and pointed to those bands and videos as signs that the world** (or at least the USA) was falling under the Devil’s control.
Eventually, since Al Gore was in early considerations as a challenger to The Gipper’s incumbency, his wife Tipper was basically told to ‘cool it on this musical hysteria or we’ll never be taken seriously’ and the Parental Advisory Board stuff (mostly) fizzled away.***
–G!
“Mr. Lennon, do you consider yourself a Mod or a Rocker?”
“Neither. I’m a Mocker!”
*While panned by fans, the Kilroy was Here concept album (and stage show) by Styx did a nice job of encapsulating a dystopian What-if-the-Moral-Majority-winds-up-controlling-our-entertainment-choices? world. That seemed more horrific and plausible than the evil entities we all know are…well…fantasy.
** Remember the claims that Gorbachev either bore the Mark of Cain or was the devil incarnate because he had a birthmark on his scalp?
***Actually it just increased its attention on the newest media craze: computer video games.
There was a span of a few years when Metallica utterly dominated these kids’ imaginations, and trying to “join” without approval would have been like desecrating their religion. (Not to mention, you’d get a load of verbal abuse from parents as well)