The Soviet Union Creates a List of 38 Dangerous Rock Bands: Kiss, Pink Floyd, Talking Heads, Village People & More (1985)

Images by Mario Casciano via Wikimedia Commons

Music is dangerous and powerful, and can do so without the intention of political weapons. All authoritarian regimes understand this, including the oppressive elements of the United States during the Cold War. I remember getting a book before the Berlin Wall descended, especially by punk rock and metal, but also almost every other family friend, before the Berlin Wall descended. The description of these paranoid realms of bands I knew and loved sounded so slurred and hyperbolic that I couldn’t help myself suspect that each one was in fact a work of satire. They were at least anachronistic but ideal type. Poe’s Law.

This may be your reaction to the list published in 1985 Komsomol, a Soviet youth organization, was formed as the All-Integrated Raininist Young Communist League In 1918 (find below) consisting of 38 punk, rock, metal, disco and new wave bands, the list is completely different from the materials printed by the particular youth organization I have come into contact with.

The mechanism of state oppression in the Soviet Union the night before Perestroika Although it was overmatched against the relatively mild attempts of music censorship made by the US government, the mechanisms of propaganda were similar. Like the surprising pamphlets and books handed over to me at churches and summer camps, the Komsomol list describes them in dull and absurd terms, each of which is the category of “types of propaganda” offered.

Black Sabbath is a legitimately scary and politically sharp band that is nailed alongside Iron Maiden for “violence” and “religious obscurity.” (Nazaré is similarly guilty of “violence” and “religious mysticism.”) A huge number of artists are charged with “violence” or “sex” alone. A handful of punk bands (sex pistols, clashes, the strangler) have been charged with “punk,” a crime cited for violence and simply given as the Ramones’ only crime. There are some strangely specific accusations. Pink Floyd is guilty of “distorting Soviet foreign policy (“Soviet invasion in Afghanistan”) and supports the “myth of the threat of the Soviet army.” Several hilarious and incongruous tags offer LOL: Yazoo and Depeche mode, two of the mildest bands of the time, are called for “punk, violence.” Kiss and Village People (above), the two stupid bands on the list are said to spread “neofascism” and “violence.”

1. Sex Pistol: Punk, Violence
2. B‑ 52S: Punk, Violence
3. Madness: Punk, Violence
4. Clash: Punk, violence
5. Stranglers: Punk, Violence
6. Kiss: Neofascism, punk, violence
7. Crocus: Violent, strong personality cult
8. Styx: Violence, vandalism
9. Iron Maiden: Violence, Religious Ambiguity
10. Priest of Judah: Anti-Communism, Racism
11. AC/DC: Neo-fascism, violence
12. Sparks: Neofascism, racism
13. Black Sabbath: Violence, Religious Ambiguity
14. Alice Cooper: Violence, Vandalism
15. Nazareth: Violence, Religious Mysticism
16. Scorpion: Violence
17. Gengis Khan: Anti-Communist, Nationalism
18. UFO: Violence
19. Pink Floyd (1983): Distortion of Soviet foreign policy (“Soviet attacks in Afghanistan”)***
20. Talking Head: The Myth of the Soviet Army’s Threat
21. Peron: Eroticism
22. Bohannon: Eroticism
23. Original: Sex
24. Donna Summer: Eroticism
25. Tina Turner: Sex
26. Junior English: Sex
27. Canned food fever: homosexuality
28. Munich’s Machines: Eroticism
29. Ramones: Punk
30. Van Halen: Anti-Soviet Propaganda
31. Julio Iglesias: Neofascism
32. Yazoo: Punk, violence
33. Depeche Mode: Punk, Violence
34. Village People: Violence
35. 10 CC: Neo-Fascism
36. Stooges: Violence
37. Boys: Punk, Violence
38. Blondie: Punk, Violence

This list was circulated for “the purpose of enhancing control of discot activities.” It comes to us from Alexei Yulchuck’s Everything was eternal until it was gone: the last Soviet generationquoting it as an example, I write one reader about the “contradictory nature of Soviet life.” Proforma Ideological discourse, this highly discourse, allowed them to carve out what they called “normal meaningful life” that transcends the ideology of the nation. “The majority of the ideologically circulating bootlegs, with discarded and stolen, improvised material, played out Yurchak documents in his book.

Check out the full list of the 38 bands above and their “Types of Propaganda”.

Note: Previous versions of this post were published on our site in 2015.

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Josh Jones He is a writer and musician based in Durham, North Carolina. Follow him in @jdmagness