1985. USA.
The most prominent group in the history of music censorship in the US, the Parents Music Resource Group, PMRG, is formed in Washington DC by Tipper Gore, wife of then-senator Al Gore, and Susan Baker. The PRMG's primary focus is to convince record companies to monitor and rate artists' releases with a system similar to the MPAA system for movies. Their efforts spark a renewed interest by a variety of groups to censor music and lyrics – interest that runs high for longer than five years. The organisation's name is later changed to the Parents Music Resource Center.

August 1987. USA. The Dead Kennedy's
Jello Biafra, leader of the punk group The Dead Kennedy's, is acquitted of distributing pornography. The case involves the artwork by H.R. Giger, featured on the band's 'Frankenchrist' album. Biafra is prosecuted after an attorney's daughter bought a copy of the record for her brother as a Christmas present. Copies of the album are seized and destroyed.

1989-1993. USA. 2 Live Crew and Too Much Joy
In one of the most famous American music censorship cases, police in Dade County, Florida, set up a sting to arrest three retailers who were selling copies of a record by 2 Live Crew to children under the age of 18. Objections to 2 Live Crew had started with the break-through of their hit 'Me So Horny'. Similar prosecutions regarding 2 Live Crew record sales occurred in Alabama and Tennessee. No prosecutions resulted in standing convictions, though.
Members of 2 Live Crew were also prosecuted for performing the material live in concert. In 1990, the New York rock band Too Much Joy played a show in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, two months after 2 Live Crew had been arrested for performing "obscene material" in the same club. Too Much Joy played a set entirely of 2 Live Crew material and was summarily arrested. The case was thrown out of court.
In another case, which started in 1989, the controversial 2 Live Crew recorded a parody of the Orbison song ‘Oh, Pretty Woman’, using the alternate title ‘Pretty Woman’ for their album ‘Clean As They Wanna Be’. The 2 Live Crew sampled the distinctive bassline from the Orbison song, but the romantic lyrics were replaced by talk about a hairy woman and her bald-headed friend and their appeal to the singer, as well as denunciation of a "two-timing woman." Orbison's publisher, Acuff-Rose Music, sued 2 Live Crew on the basis that the fair use doctrine did not permit reuse of their copyrighted material for profit. The case, Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court decided in 2 Live Crew's favour, greatly expanding the doctrine of 'fair use' and extending its protections to parodies created for profit. This was considered a seminal 'fair use' decision.