Do you think rap and pop are a bad influence?
 

Okay, so this has been bothering me for quite some time now.

To me, it seems like all the songs that you hear on the radio in today's world is talking about clubbing, sex, drugs, and everything along those lines. And quite frankly, I wanted to start a topic.

Lady Gaga, Lil Wayne, Brittany Spears, and the list goes on.

It's mostly rap and pop that has been effecting the minds the most.

So I wanted ya'lls opinion; do you think that these popular music artists are a bad influence?

What's bad about those things?

I think that's a pretty speculative statement.

Drugs, sex, clubbing? So you're saying you want our teen society to be influenced around those?

I think the influence of music lyrics on the adolescent mind is largely overestimated. The correlation between lyrical content of the music one listens to and lifestyle has always been tenuous at best. It's a simple fact of life that most teenagers are going to listen to music that has suggestive or controversial lyrics. Same old story as it ever was. Believe it or not there is a lot of positivity that can be found in both the hip hop and pop genres, and If you think pop and rap are the only genres of music that contain suggestive and gratuitous lyrics you really need to listen to more music.

Then let me narrow it down; MEDIA IN GENERAL.

Is that better?

Some drugs in moderation are actually good for you.

If it wasn't for sex you wouldn't be here.

And what's wrong with going somewhere to go dancing?

I will just ask my 16 year old son just as soon as he stops shagging his GF whilst snorting the white stuff off her naked body as Lady Gaga plays in the background what he thinks about this.*

















































*He's not really like this. He fucking hates Lady Gaga.

Totally, because your thoughts, actions, and beliefs are solely dependent on mainstream music.


Grow a ****, a heart, and a brain and then we'll talk about influences.

I don't know, he might be onto something. When my mind was young and impressionable I listened to 'The Thong Song' on the radio... Strangely enough, years later I find myself chasing that whale tail religiously. 92% of my sex drive is attributed to Cisqo.

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?

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.

Uh, yeah.

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.

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.

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.

Blow! :D

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.

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.

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.

Yeah if their an influence, and the only influence. I don't think people who like Lady Gaga are bound for jail.

The assumption there is that people who listen to classical are bound for harvard. They aren't.

Edit:

Having read through this, I guess theres some religious connotation here and if thats the case I have reason to believe the OP's made up his mind. If thats the case I'm done arguing. What you're seeing is Post hoc ergo propter hoc. "Since that event followed this one, that event must have been caused by this one."

Its a logical fallacy and is wrong based just on the opening assumption - Lady Gaga is popular. People suck. Therefore, lady gaga is why people suck. No, people suck because they have no influences, not bad ones. The reason the phrase "idle hands are the devil's plaything" exists is because people without constructive direction are generally societal nuisances. You don't get rid of sucky people by banning Lady gaga, you get rid of sucky people two ways...

Murder
Positive Influence.

Yes! Finally some one. HIGH FIVE!!!

We down. :dj:

Yes sort of the whole live by the gun die by the gun, get rich or try dying, see it the area i live in with all these chav scum thugs

Well, some media can be a bad influence. The only media that really has a bad influence on kids today (As in the actual problem, bot a manifestation of it) is the kind of ridiculous physical standards you see on magazine covers and in movie stars. And Jesus was born in March.

Do you really want some kid somewhere in the world who has nothing better to do than to think that that is approiate?? I see it all the time. Teenagers listen to it and act like a punk and start sh!t they have no business starting.

Has more to do with them being teenagers than anything else.

You don't think Teenagers were douchebags in any other day and age? Didn't they say this same **** when Elvis was popular?

When I was 15 my favorite music was Insane Clown Posse and Twiztid. Do You see me cutting people up and committing mass Murder now 10 years later?

KHIA LYRICS - My Neck, My Back (Dirty Version)

judge for yourselves ;)

They do it because they are idiots, plain & simple.

I listen to punk, I listen to grindcore. Never been in trouble , always held down a job, hardly every drink , don't take drugs , help old ladies across the road......

Why not say I do all those things because I listen to punk as well?

I'm not saying that all teenagers who listen to it do, Urban. I'm just saying that it's a d^amn strong part of them. Part of it is their parents. The parents don't teach them the difference between right and wrong. Clearly, your parents did.
And I will admit, people do have the right to decide for themselves about anything and everything, as everybody as a freewill, but it doesn't help that's what they THINK they should do. And because they think they should, they will. But where'd they get the idea from?

Rebellious music has been around since the 50's and generally kids start stuff due to peer pressure more than any other criteiria.

I will always be the first one to stand up for the youth. But I'm looking at it from a stastics stand point.

One of the worst threads I've seen on any forum.
So now you say they act badly because of their upbringing? I thought it was them listening to Lady Gaga and 50 cent.

Art has always, and hopefully will always, challenge the norm. There's nothing wrong with sex, drugs and dancing if done properly. The music in the 60s and 70s also dealt with those themes, and do you think the people who were young then were destroyed or corrupted by it?

did the mainstream media turn you into a hedonistic zombie?

do you really think you are the only young person with the mental fortitude to see through the crass commercialism of mainstream?

do you remember what the bulk of the music on the radio in the late 80s was about? i'll give you a hint, it was the exact same as your complaints only they replaced clubs with parties.

so... what's the real issue? are you really concerned about the well being of kids, or just peeved that the radio doesn't play what you consider 'good' anymore?

if anything i think the mainstream has LESS influence on young people today than it ever has. as soon as youths start really getting into music they turn to the net and as soon as they start topics like this one they're shown pretty quickly that their narrow view on the world and mainstream media don't really amount to anything to be concerned over. basically, mainstream music is the equivalent to fast food, and fast food is only a detriment to society to those who lack the ability to take control of themselves (ie: worthless).

just like that High Fidelity quote from ealier, although i remember it from a Frank Zappa interview, the VAST majority of pop songs have ALL been written about love, falling in and out of it, relationships, breakups, etc, etc. but still, all about love. has it turned us into a society of Cyrano de Bergeracs and Morrisseys?...

while it's normal to react against it when you noticed you've been played, it's really not that harsh of a 'trick' being perpetuated against the youth of our world.


@bandteacher - looking for stats about how and where the youth went wrong and lacked in the learning of 'right' and 'wrong'. i'd suggest taking a look at divorce rates. north american rates peaked in the late 70s around 50% (thanks 'free' love movement...) and they're still up around 40%, makes it seem appropriate that generations of kids who were abandoned by 1 parent and neglected by the other would turn to mainstream media for any sort of guidance.

and while it wasn't divorce rates per se, kids growing up in the 50s had to deal with the fact that a lot of their fathers didn't come back from the war, and again, one sense of abandonment and another sense of neglect while the living parent tries their best to afford the physical necessities for their family at the expense of their emotional health.

I grew up listening to Moz & The Smiths and I'm still alive to talk about it. ;)

I have no problem with MEDICAL drugs. It's when people abuse them that their lives often start to suck.

I have no problem with sex, it's just that I don't believe in sex before marriage.

I have no problem with going somewhere and dancing, it just often leads to people abusing drugs and premarital sex.

I'm not trying to shove this down your throat,I'm just answering the question.

What is this, the 50s?

what is this, the 30s?