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'Darling Nikki' is back, but where's the outrage now?

By Jim Abbott, Tribune Newspapers. Jim Abbott is the Orlando Sentinel's pop music critic
Published January 27, 2004

"Darling Nikki" came back, but no one really noticed.

Maybe we were too busy ogling the Paris Hilton video.

In case you don't remember, "Darling Nikki" is a song about a "sex fiend" and the dirty things she does in a hotel lobby with a magazine.

It was pretty racy stuff in 1984, when Tipper Gore heard her young daughter listening to the original version on Prince's "Purple Rain." Because of "Darling Nikki," she started the Parents Music Resource Center in 1985 and a movement that eventually succeeded in putting content labels on albums.

Two decades later, the new "Nikki" has made nary a ripple on rock radio, where young listeners are surprised to learn that the Foo Fighters version isn't the first.

Nikki still likes to grind, but it doesn't sound that shocking anymore. Besides, the world is full of real-life Nikkis -- Paris and Britney and Christina, for starters.

Pornography is a mammoth and legitimate business. Violence and sex have been transformed into critically acclaimed art on HBO's "The Sopranos" or low-brow farce on Comedy Central's "The Man Show.

The old girl is more of a nostalgia act now, which is just the way it goes.

"Every generation's mores shock the previous generation," says Ken Paulson, executive director of the First Amendment Center, a free-speech advocacy organization based at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. "Just look at Cole Porter, who wrote that a `glimpse of stocking was once thought of as shocking.' That's a song writen 70 years ago about how shocking the new generation is.

"That's what happens with popular culture, so it's really important to maintain a sense of perspective. The song `With a Little Help From My Friends' was denigrated by Vice President Spiro Agnew in a speech in Las Vegas, in which he told the audience that the Beatles were trying to subvert kids through code.

"Now that song is in elevators and in frozen-food sections."

Though Gore was maligned by some corners of the media and by rock stars, Paulson says he has no quarrel with her instincts as a concerned parent.

Not good for free speech

But he doesn't think the PMRC was ultimately good for the record industry or free speech.

"The moral of the story is that today's dangerous music is tomorrow's Muzak," he says. "It's just the rhythm of life."

Gore stepped down from the PMRC when her husband became vice president in 1992, and the group maintained a low profile in the 1990s. She couldn't be reached for comment, but other organizations are still busy monitoring an exponentially expanding media landscape that is still pushing the boundaries of taste.

Everything from rapper 50 Cent to the language and situations on TV reality shows to Internet porn vindicates Gore's foresight two decades ago, says a 10-year staff member of the conservative advocacy group Focus on the Family.

"Tipper was definitely on the right track all along," says Bob Waliszewski, manager of Focus on the Family's entertainment-review department. "I'm not sure if the culture as a whole is ready to accept that. If we were, there wouldn't be this collective yawn right now over `Nikki."'

Waliszewski says that, in 1984, "Nikki" was "kind of the worst thing that was out there, and now this kind of stuff is way too commonplace, but that doesn't make it right. What it does say is that parents have been desensitized and have delegated that area of child-raising to kids themselves."

As a CD reviewer for Focus on the Family's Web site, Waliszewski praises groups such as Lifehouse, Creed, Train, Jimmy Eat World and singer Michelle Branch, but says that he can't endorse the vast majority of music he hears.

"When Eminem speaks of raping his mother, or when Trent Reznor sang a few years back that he wants to `blank' you like an animal, it's all about perverse sex. Where is the outrage? It shouldn't be just from conservative groups like Focus on the Family. It should come from women's groups, men's groups, parenting groups, PTAs. This should be your mechanic in the local garage saying, `What is this garbage?'"

Even if such images are shocking, there's no evidence that outrageous or profane lyrics have ever permanently scarred young listeners, says writer and radio commentator Eric Nuzum, author of "Parental Advisory: Music Censorship in America" (HarperCollins, 368 pages, $15), a book on the rise of the PMRC. Nuzum was 18 when Gore first heard "Darling Nikki" and was outraged by the congressional hearings that called stars such as Frank Zappa, Twisted Sister's Dee Snider and pop star John Denver to defend their music.

"There was a widespread belief at that time that rock musicians were Satanists and worshipped the devil. My girlfriend remembers a lecture that she had in her junior high class about the evils of satanic rock musicians, so it was a very mainstream belief at that time. One of the most terrible things about the PMRC was that it legitimized that for the first time."

Heavy-metal focus

Heavy-metal bands were a major focus of the PMRC, but it was another form of pop music that ultimately was more affected, says Paulson.

"Hearings about heavy-metal rock 'n' roll actually had modest impact on rock 'n' roll and had maximum impact on music of African-American hip-hop and rap performers. In 1991, Wal-Mart decided it wouldn't carry stickered CDs, and that has affected a disproportionate amount of music from African-American performers. So, sometimes, the target is not the one that gets hit."

To get around the roadblock, artists and record labels release both "clean" and explicit versions of labeled albums, which dilutes the credibility of the advisories.

No label

The Foo Fighters' "Darling Nikki," a B-side to the band's "Have It All" single, does not carry a label.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that society has become more shock-proof in the intervening years, says Paulson. He says that there are many groups lobbying the Federal Communications Commission to tighten the constraints on language and situations on television.

Still, Paulson says, the explosion of media in the last 20 years will make it harder for any group to wield the influence once carried by the PMRC.

"For outrage to build, it takes one guy saying to another guy at the water cooler, `Hey did you see that last night?' More often than not today, the answer is `No.'"

"A program like `The Man Show' wouldn't have existed 20 years ago. It wouldn't have lasted 10 minutes on network television, but you build a niche audience through excess, and that means there's not a consensus of outrage. The person who tunes into `The Man Show' is not the person who will call the FCC."

The most powerful forces affecting content now are economic, Paulson says.

In the 21st Century, the new dirty words are politics and religion.

"The most censored group of this past year was the Dixie Chicks, and it had nothing to do with sexuality or profane words," Paulson says. "It had to do with politics."

The multiplatinum country trio found itself shunned by country radio after singer Natalie Maines made remarks critical of President Bush to a London concert audience. There were rallies at which the band's albums were burned, and the group was vilified by some corners of the media. Singer Toby Keith, who had a hit with the jingoistic "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)" projected images of the Chicks to spark boos at some concerts.

The Chicks aren't alone. Bruce Springsteen incurred the wrath of New York City's Fraternal Order of Police for performing "American Skin (41 Shots)," a song that decried the controversial police shooting death of Amadou Diallo. Singer-songwriter Steve Earle was called a traitor for "John Walker's Blues," his song that attempted to go inside the mind of the American Taliban.

So, while sex sells, politics often is bad business.

"There's a reluctance in the record business and the radio industry to embrace a song that actually makes a point about anything," Paulson says. "When was the last time you heard a popular song that said anything about the human condition, injustice or political change. Contrast that to the 1960s, when seemingly every song was on one side or the other and recording artists were free to express themselves politically in music.

"No one wants that anymore. They are afraid of boycotts."

It's equally rare to hear a mainstream hit that alludes to faith.

"Did they stop writing those songs? Or did they just decide they aren't particularly good for business?" Paulson asks. "There's no question there's a market for Christian music, but it's not on mainstream radio. Anything that might divide us gets left out of the mix."

So until she makes a political endorsement, Darling Nikki fits right in.

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I knew a girl named nikki
I guess u could say she was a sex fiend
I met her in a hotel lobby
Masturbating with a magazine
She said how’d u like 2 waste some time
And I could not resist when I saw little nikki grind

She took me 2 her castle
And I just couldn’t believe my eyes
She had so many devices
Everything that money could buy
She said sign your name on the dotted line
The lights went out
And nikki started 2 grind

Nikki

The castle started spinning
Or maybe it was my brain
I can’t tell u what she did 2 me
But my body will never be the same
Her lovin’ will kick your behind
Oh, she’ll show u no mercy
But she’ll sho’nuff sho’nuff show u how 2 grind

Darlin’ nikki

Woke up the next morning
Nikki wasn’t there
I looked all over and all I found
Was a phone unmber on the stairs
It said thank u 4 a funky time
Call me up whenever u want 2 grind

Oh, nikki, ohhhh

Come back nikki, come back
Your dirty little prince
Wanna grind grind grind grind grind grind grind grind grind

{backwards at the end...}
"hello, how r u? I’m fine. ’cause I know
That the lord is coming soon, coming, coming soon."

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Originally posted by C_Fletch

I believe that was exactly his point. Todays 'satan worshippers' are tomorrows 'Hit Reality TV Show'. Osbournes anyone?

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Originally posted by slop101
My milkshake is better than yours...

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Originally posted by balancer
The Reagan/Bush era was great for this kind of stuff.

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Originally posted by brianluvdvd
Funny how it was a GORE that made the biggest deal about it.

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Originally posted by funkyryno
Ahh, you must have forgotten about the Moral Majority.

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