loveissucide

I'd like to quote High Fidelity here.
"People complain about kids playing with toy guns and teenagers watching violent films, thinking this means some kind of culture of violence will kick in. But I've spent my life listening to songs of heartbreak and loneliness, and nobody ever said anything about the effect that might have on kids.Am I miserable because I listen to pop music or do I listen to pop music because I'm miserable?"
Surely that's a bigger deal?

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KyleSchmidt

Everybody knows that the drugs they talk about in songs are not talking about medication.

Music is music I guess. I'm not talking about just music. Movies, pictures, AND songs can influence the way people dress and act. 'Emo' is apparently a genre. Do you think 'emo' was a genre in the year 1990?

^^^
That's my point I'm trying to get across.

Lady Gaga turns Christmas into a sex-related parody. CHRISTmas tree. Go listen to "Christmas Tree" by Lady Gaga and you'll see what I mean. In my opinion, Christ should'nt have anything to do with sex besides the fact that Jesus was born on that day.

I'm not saying that getting high or having sex shouldn't exist in songs, but some music artists take those theories a little far. I guarentee if you were to take the lyrics out of all of those songs, you wouldn't see some of the things you see on Youtube, movies, etc.

Media has a major influence on people. And my question was "Do you think pop and rap are a bad influence?"

I'm sorry; I should've said MEDIA IN GENERAL. My mistake.

I didn't make this thread to get bashed at. That wasn't my intention.

bungalow

Uh, yeah.

Fruitonica

Generally, the saturation of sexual imagery in pop music only bothers me when it's marketed at young children children. By the time you're a teenager you've formed your personality enough to see how ridiculous the songs are - but it makes me feel a little bit sick when I hear seven year old girls singing and dancing along to The Pussy Cat Dolls.

storymilo

If I was sick at the sight of that, it wouldn't be because of the lyrics. It would be because the music is god awful.

No, I don't think pop and rap are any worse influences than anything else kids see.

daydreamdani

I think that if the media has such an effect on the young minds of the world there would only be one way to solve that, and that one way would be to have complete and ridiculously strong control on what the media does. Which might start infringing on the rights of people, limiting self expression and angering thousands. All that would take money, time and power, and well, I'm pretty sure that much power for one group to have would end bad.
I believe that if people have a problem with their children being influenced by the world around them then they can monitor their own children. We should not be parenting all of the worlds youth, take care of your own. I would like to use me as an example as to how the media does not have a MASSIVE effect on youth. I am seventeen, and grew up Cali and my parents have let me be exposed to everything. I was not really monitored in what I was viewing and I'm doing pretty good. I mean, I've seen porn that would blow your mind, I listen to popular mainstream music and see anorexic models in magazines and on t.v all the time and I think for my age I'm a good person. I follow the rules and most of the laws, I come home by curfew, I don't do drugs,and I weigh what a normal person my size should. Given I do have premarital sex, and did do drugs but not that was not because of Lady Gaga or Little Wayne. That is because I wanted to. For me the music just came with what I was doing, I didn't go with the music.
So, I think us youth should be given a little more credit when it comes to the media's influence on us. In the end when we start to grow up were just fine, and if we are not, well, don't blame what we hear on the radio, blame our parents.

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michelle_elle

Blow!

michelle_elle

I don't think the youth today is any different than any other time. They are ahead of everyone (as the ones before them), they rebel (as the ones before), they listen to music that their parents don't like... etc. They are adjusted to the era.
Sure, the era is a bad one: wars (always have been), alienation (subjective), bad music (subjective).

I too think that when I was a teen the music was better. But didn't our parents think the same? and their parents? and their parents? and their?... I think that every time has it's time & it's teens

I think the problem is not with them, not with the music (that is sadly, SADLY, adjusting too) - it's with the world itself.

Janszoon

I don't remember really hearing about emo before the mid-90s but it certainly could have been a genre label as early as 1990. Not really sure of the relevance to this particular conversation though I have to say.


I'm not a religious person so it's difficult for me to imaging caring about something like that. It is worth noting though that Christmas trees are not Christian in origin and Jesus, if he existed, was not actually born on December 25.

I disagree with your premise that media has a major influence on people because it's far too vague a statement to be meaningful, but suffice it say that art which talks about substance abuse and sex has been around for thousands of years so I'm not very worried that it will ever destroy society.

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ElephantSack

The worst thing about these aesthetic scenes in my mind is the wholesale spread of banal and mindless mediocrity. Sex, drugs and clubbing are just part of that scene these days. It's the return of disco. A lack of true art... fearlessness, is what popular culture is missing these days. They parade a pretty girl in skanky clothes and call her brave, a virtuoso, taught to dance and sing before she can remember. They give an ugly black dude lots of bling and groupies, and they call him an artist. They construct these mind parasites from the toddler up. These people rarely know who they are, until their publicist eventually reminds them who they are supposed to be. Some might think that this makes them befitting for your sympathy. I don't think so. They sold themselves at the knowledge that they would be torn apart and depleted by mass media exposure and widespread consumerism. Buy the ticket, take the ride. The worst to me is that people love it. It's a tradition. There's no room for the tearing down of walls and the crumbling of illusions in popular culture. It makes people think too much, and when they're busy thinking, they're not busy buying.

But this makes for interesting point. If true art were to become mainstream, then it would be the non-intellectuals - the fashion bitches and the agents, the druggies and the skeezers, the sluts and the thugs - that would become the outcasts. They would be the underground. And they would be seen as the avante-guard. It might be a Golden Age for art, thought and feeling on the whole, but those that are at the forefront today would be receiving the same glory for being stalwart and dogged and determined that the underground artists of now are receiving.

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