Identity In Pop Music Essay

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The Hollywood music industry has a tendency to emulate the idea that musical bands or artists express “their” individual thoughts and beliefs through the music they produce and more importantly the lyrics they preform. From gangster rappers portraying a tough or thug lifestyle in their dress, actions, and lyrics, to various boy bands constantly being portrayed as sensitive heart throbs singing countless love ballads. However, when it comes to these “individual identities” they are often nothing more than carefully constructed “characters,” that have their lyrics crafted and perfected in order to appeal to certain groups of people. What is interesting about the modern idea identity, is that one can observe clear changes in the “identities” of targeted demographics based on the types of things that massively successful artists sing about. Specifically one is able to see a link between certain behaviors of adolescents, and popular music subject matter. Though there are obviously examples of popular songs that do not have sexual undertones, pop music has become a heavily sexualized genre. Explicit images and lyrics have been thrust upon youth through the songs their pop idols sing, the music videos they record, and the activities they endorse. Consequently, these stars have influenced what young people consider important factors in the development of their own identities. The fact that most adolescents try to identify with the lyrics …show more content…

Young girls tend to develop romantic feelings for these pop stars and try to create their image in a way that they believe would be most appealing to their celebrity crush. Adolescent males tend to try less to become what their idol would be looking for and more towards achieving an appearance and/or image that they believe will help them become as popular and well liked as those they try to model themselves

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