Donning pores and skin-restricted denims and snakeskin boots, his eyes lined with mascara, Dee Snider strode into the US Senate’s Commerce, Science And Transportation Committee to confront an array of sharp-suited congressmen and their wives. The Twisted Sister singer represented every thing they identified repugnant about rock’n’roll and they were poised to rip him to shreds. The challenge was that they’d picked the mistaken man.

A year previously, in 1984, Mary ‘Tipper’ Gore, wife of Democrat Senator Al Gore, experienced stumbled throughout the Prince song Darling Nikki with her daughter, Karenna. Horrified by its undisguised references to masturbation, Mary Gore started investigating the extent to which preferred tunes was exposing impressionable youngsters to intercourse and violence.