Which had a greater effect on music?
 

I was pondering the other day about how much music was influenced by sex or by drugs. I also wonder if people just over-interperet songs and assume that they are about such things.

Money, it has steered alot of idiots into thinking they can be musicians.

http://www.zmemusic.com/wp-content/u...kelback-02.jpg
Agreed.

Sex, easily. Before there was money, before drugs were easy to come by, sex was there inspiring musicians to write music to get people's blood flowing.

I'll say sex. There are a ridiculous amount of "love" songs out there, a lot of people I've known have picked up musical instruments to woo or impress the desired gender, etc.

I see it this way: There are musicians who don't do / approve of drugs. There are musicians who don't give a **** about politics. There are musicians who aren't doing it for the money. You'll be hard-pressed to find a musician with no interest in love or sex at all. I'm sure they exist, but there have to be far less of those than the others.

I know love and sex kind of go hand in hand, but I'd say that sex is just about that. In this instance, the actual physical act of sex is key. Rather than the emotional attachments that's embodied in it. So for that reason, I voted drugs.

i say drugs. how many musicians have u seen who ARENT high out of their minds when they write or perform?

Music isn't always tied in with drugs.
What is Metal influenced by?

lack of sex. where else do you think they get the stamina and practice to strum like that?


but still... the answer is sex.

Ah that's messed up. I think it's more of an anger thing.

Rush is one of those bands. Neil Peart refuses to write about love. He finds it to be nothing more than a chemical response to attraction and the need to reproduce. I love that band, but that seriously depresses me.

concur'd

if you were getting laid (with the gender you honestly prefer) you wouldn't/shouldn't be as angry.


answer is still sex.


it might not always be direct but just about every aspect of music revolves around bringing people together and celebrating life (and indirectly encouraging the people to go out and make more life).

Drugs = mind fuck.

Somewhere along the lines seems like modeling agencies and money took over the music industry!! If you'd asked me 15 years ago I would have said drugs influenced alot of music

That happened a lot longer ago than 15 years.

Anyway, people in this thread talking about money and drugs are focusing way too much on modern times. Music has been around for thousands of years and at its root are very basic human things like sex and community.

Rush is a fantastic band, and one of the reasons I like them is because they avoid the love song. I have a big spot in my heart for wonderful love songs, but there are so many. Our culture is infatuated with nothing but "silly love songs", as one of history's greatest perpetrators, Paul McCartney, once put it. The only girl Peart ever wrote about was Ayn Rand, and I kinda like it that way. Rush's apollonian logic nicely balances out the dionysian sex/drugs/angst trifecta that plagues most popular music.

One of the reasons I loved Nirvana so much as a kid is they weren't doing the same old "Love is this love is that" thing that I had grown so accustomed to hearing.

what do you mean? Drain You is a beautiful love song.

I have to say cash.

most songs are about love and/or sex so...

Of course it's sex, especially if you look at it more broadly, like a desire, a longing, libido, life energy etc. It's the driving force of every creative (and destructive) process. (Well, according to Freud and...Jung, I think).

I think lack of money should be the option rather than money.

Where's religion? That seems like it should have been an option too.

Hehehehe

Money is a pretty all inclusive term to all things financial.

to the people saying it's money... think about it. really...

think of how many people do you know picked up a guitar because they honestly thought it would make them independently wealthy?

now think of how many people picked up a guitar because they wanted an 'in' to getting laid.

it's not even close.

Alot of people dont get laid because they have no money :)

Yeah, so is About a Girl. I meant more like they didn't do it in one of the two biggest cliches. It seems a lot of love songs are either sappy and twee to a level that's just uncomfortable ("I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston) or they're sexually charged, with a hint of bragging, and hit every trope about women and men (most Hard Rock love songs). Nirvana just seemed to do it differently. I don't know. I guess I just related more to their choppy, surreal take on things.

Well yes, but that wasn't really the point I was getting at.

People that pick up a guitar just to get laid usually don't play for very long, but if you were already into music and impressing a girl was the final push then...

Agreed. I feel like theres much easier ways to get laid. If I spent all the hours iv wasted noodling away on various instruments at the gym Id look like Mr Universe with woman in every room of my house, but instead I have a noodly body and have to work to get laid!

Most songs you find out there are going to be love songs, so the obvious answer to this question is sex. sure rap songs about having money and blues songs about not having money are always in surplus but are nothing compared to the amount of love songs same with drugs and politics you put drugs politics and money together it still wouldn't stand up to the amount of love songs. and also a lot of songs about drugs, money, and/or politics usually have some sort of "love" part to it. sex wins hands down.

...pants.

i was going to make the joke more obvious but i guessed it's too late

I would've voted for that.

i'd like to vote for love. And heartbreak.
And drugs probably, yah.

Definitely not drugs. Some of the greatest musicians ever (Mozart, Bach, etc..) weren't making amazing pieces of music because they were stoned or shrooming. Although I have to admit, it would have been very interesting to see what the result of that would have been.

I'm hard-pressed between money and sex, and can't really decide. As a musician (if you could call me that), I would have to admit my musical career (if you could call it that) has been driven more under the sex category than the money category. Granted, a) as a young adult I'm supposed to be horny, b) as a young adult I still can leech off my parents, and c) I'm a crap musician.

So I guess that debunks my logic, oh well, **** it.

No they just drank heavily, because thats sooo much different than doing drugs. Thats how they presume Mozart died. From led poisoning. He got that because they would put led balls in the bottom of the wine and he drank a hell of a lot.