Lyrical Content in Music

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Lyrical Content in Music

With lyrical content in music becoming more graphical it is being

blamed for behaviour of impressionable teenagers. I am interested in

this because I play in a band and listen to a wide range of music. In

1999 the Woodstock festival highlighted this. The festival was

originally about peace but as the bands got heavier throughout the

night the crowd got worse. By the end of the night there was fires and

people stealing everything insight. The bands were accused of inciting

riots by the nature of their music. So from this I draw the hypothesis

that the lyrical content within some genres of music can affect

teenage behaviour.

Contexts

Redhead studied the rave subculture. A subculture is a cultural

subgroup differentiated by status, ethnic background, residence,

religion or other factors that functionally unify the group and act

collectively on each matter. Of the late 1980's Which was labelled as

the "acid house" this was because of the illegal drugs such as

Ecstasy, amphetamines and LSD which were being taken. This then meant

panic due to impressionable teenagers being drawn to this subculture

because of the way the media presented it. When especially in 1988

when raves where suffered due to police being called in to control

them. Another fact is when in 1990 when a bill was passed through

which meant a penalty fine was given to people who organised illegal

raves. It was then suggested by Redhead was that the moral panic and

increased coverage within the media meant increase in crime deviance.

With criminals moving into organising raves and also selling illegal

drugs to the teenagers in attendance. A moral panic is where increased

media coverage in a deviant act and is outlawed further appealing

itself and further calls for stronger measures against the deviants.

This shows how the media stereotypes people in a subculture and puts

the music and people in groups in a bad light.

Medved is very critical of popular genres of music with his main

focuses being "rock" and "rap" music.

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