Society's Blama On Music

How Society Likes to Blame Music

Universally, music has always been a unifying way of bringing people together. Since pre-historic times when cavemen made animal-skin drums to presently when we have tons of different musical genres of whatever you can imagine, we always operate to some sort of a rhythmic beat. But as of recently, certain types of music have come under scrutiny, predominantly gangsta rap and heavy metal. Now you'd think that these two genres of music are complete opposites of each other, musically as well as culturally-based. When in fact, they have quite a few similarities.

Gangsta rap evolved from the early days of rap in the late 1970's [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/gangsta_rap] to include lyrics of violence and supposed mayhem. But if you take a look at some of the lyrics it's actually the rapper's life, but exaggerated. Now, you may ask, why bother exaggerating something as horrible as a drive-by shooting? But it's all about bragging rights, guys do that everywhere, listen to a typical gym locker conversation and you'll realize that 1/4 of the stuff that comes out is the truth, the other 3/4 is exaggeration. Same goes for rap. It's horrible that people have to witness such monstrosities as drive-by's, drug deals, and rape, but it's part of some of the most negative aspects of life. And musically, this is an artist's release from those negatives. Also, you can't read too much into these rap lyrics, a lot of them are written for satirical purposes. Some might say that it's degrading, and these types of purposes are showing how morally-starved our culture really is. But personally, to me, and to a huge majority of my generation, we don't listen to the lyrics word-for-word, and even of we do, we laugh because most of the situations depicted are so unrealistic.

Heavy metal is another genre of music that has been given the cold shoulder by critics, and by many god-fearing adults. They see a pentagram and think "satanic worship" right away. It's the same with 666 and many other such symbols. And I'm sure that yes, historically those had something to do with the belief in the devil, but a typical white, suburban high school student isn't going to dig too deep in history. And heavy metal groups are using this devil-idea as a shock factor, because it will get them more attention in the media, more airplay on MTV, and more airplay equals more money. Because as they say "Any publicity is good publicity."

Heavy metal lyrics might involve violence as well, but again that's extremely exaggerated. Most of those bands are just in it for the money, fame, and women. Materialistic? Yes. But is it going to turn some kid into a psycho killer? No, probably not, unless he was disturbed to begin with.

Gangsta rap and heavy metal have quite a few similarities in the fact that both involve lyrics that by conservative society, is deemed unbelievably shocking and inappropriate, but what they fail to realize is that, yeah, it is shocking on purpose. The shock factor is also an attention factor. These musical groups can get so much attention and publicity just by producing something that is controversial because it causes them to receive attention. And it's like watching a car crash, you can't look away. And why is it that it's always the individuals that don't like the music that protest about it first? It's like adding more fuel to the fire, and that's exactly what the musical artist wants.

Granted that it is true that the more violence a child hears and sees the more they think it is okay to act violently towards other [my psychology101 book]. But even if you decide to get rid of this violent music; the actual, real violence of life will still be out there. Because most of these lyrics are a reflection of the artist's life, albeit very exaggerated, but nonetheless they still have some truth.

It seems to me that parents and people in congress get all huffed up when they hear of a song that involves something that goes against society's social standards, but completely getting rid of it won't get rid of the real life issues. I'm not saying let your five-year old listen to songs about drugs and violence because, yes, they're young and such topics are perhaps too explicit for them. But I believe that a typical sixteen year old should be mature enough to at least realize what they're singing or rapping about shouldn't be taken seriously. On this note, many of those musical artists have put out disclaimers saying that these lyrics shouldn't be taken in all seriousness.

I find it ridiculous that parents can point the finger and blame a musician for the suicide of their children [www. Urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=suicide+music] because their child was listening to a certain song when they killed themselves. I know that there are plenty of teenagers and adults out there that deal with depression and suicidal thinking, and listening to music is their outlet for their anger. Music isn't the initiator of depression, it's more of an anti-depressant if anything. Saying that a certain song "pushed" your son to kill himself is B.S., most likely what pushed the boy was a re-occurring event at school, such as bullying or a conflict in their family or at work. Also, most likely listening to loud, angry music such as heavy metal, helps someone relieve their anger in a healthier way than punching a wall.

Although it's very sad that certain individuals decide to end their lives, blaming music isn't the answer. It's a completely different problem than music that causes kids to kill themselves, and if parents are stupid enough to think it was the type of music their child listened to, well, it's no wonder they ended their life. Obviously, they weren't getting the help they needed from the ones closest to them, considering the ones closest to them decided to sue a band for "persuading" their child to kill themselves [Punk Planet Magazine 2001]. That's just pure, naive, ignorance!

Most quickly would point out the kids that initiated the Columbine shooting, were "gothic" and listened to Marlin Manson. And even now, I remember that because at the time that Columbine occurred I was in perhaps the third grade and the teacher had to have a discussion with us about it. From what I remember the teacher warned us about never listening to Marlin Manson (and this sticks in my memory to this day) because he ate one of his toes on stage. This incident never occurred. Using scare tactics on third graders against listening to a certain artist? Very intelligent.

The Columbine shooters never even listened to Marlin Manson,