Music's Negative Effect On Youth

I believe music does play a significant role in negatively affecting our youth  of today. There are all kinds of music that kids turn to for their escape from reality. Today's rappers rap about violence and kids today want to follow in those footsteps. They turn to gang banging, drug dealing, theft, home invasion robberies, car jackings, and the raping of women as a way of life simply because their favorite artists seem to have a good way of life doing those exact things. The lifestyle looks so great and tempting. And artists make that way of life look so easy to live as well. I'm even pretty sure that some artists dont even live that way, they only rap about it to earn a living, not realizing the consequences of our youth going out and destroying their lives. Rap and rock stars also talk about doing drugs and degrading women. Our youth today see that rapopers and rock stars are for some reason successful while they are doing drugs, so therefore they believe that they too can lead a productive life while on these drugs. Like for instance, the song called "Brown Sugar" by D'Angelo. This song is supposedly about using heroin. And then they ever-popular "Mary Jane" which is sung by our late Rick James. Now that song will never get old with anyone. But Rick James made it look cool to do certain things, so then they want to follow in their footsteps. Kids want to be cool and fit in like they "see" most of our artists being cool with the cool songs they sing. All they see in the videos is that they are having fun and nothing can harm them when on these drugs. But before they can fing out how hard life is on these drugs, they are in too deep and cannot get out. The same way with degrading women in songs as well. Kiss's Heaven's On Fire is a good example of degrading women. It only talks about what a woman should be doing to her man sexually, and they make it look glamorous, so our youth today think that they should be saying these things to our young ladies of today. And in turn our young ladies turn into prostitutes and drug dealers as well. Then the children they bring into this world are also sucked into a world of violence and hatred and drugs. Yes, I do believe that music plays a major role in the way our youth of today behaves in society. But I truly believe that for the most part of society, that parents need to be there ultimately and they need to listen to the music that their children are listening to and if something isn't right with the lyrics, parents need to make they "express" out of their mouths that certain things are just not right in society. They might even have to say it for the rest of their teenage lives until it finally sinks in. I always tell my sons that whatever they see or hear in a song or video, does not make it right to do those things in life. We have to contantly be on our toes when it comes to us shaping our children for our future without giving up.

I believe what Bloom was saying about how music is the passion of young people and how it excites them like nothing else does; they cannot take anything else seriously that doesn't have to do with music, is a rather fare statement. I Have son that is into music, he makes music. He goes to community college going for his AA degree in commercial music and he tells me how he is taking three classes that are music orientated, and one that is general education, history. He has trouble focusing in on his work for his history class because he is always thinking about music, or he learns something new in class everyday and goes home and experiments with his music equipment. He tells me that it even gets as bad as him not running the errands that he has to and he gets behind on a lot of tasks because of his passion for music. But no matter how much he realizes it he wont change, because when your passion is music its not just a hobby, a passion is something that you have a powerful emotion towards, that you love. I believe that what bloom said about young people and passion for music was sort of an over-generalization. I have plenty of young people in my family and outside of my family that i know that are big fans of music, but still maintain to focus on their daily tasks and succeed in their goals. I have a niece that is going to college to be a pediatrician because she has a passion for children, she's twenty years old. She is also taking advanced piano classes and takes part in orchestras and band concerts throughout California, but still maintains a 3.0 within all the classes for her degree. I also have a cousin who works at as a painter with his own business and that is his main focus. But he loves music he goes to at least 2 concerts a month and even has friends at Arco arena that let him come and help set up sound, and gets backstage passes. But he takes his painting business very seriously it is his true passion and he's Twenty three. He wakes up every morning happy to have work making money doing what he does best and what he loves doing, and has been for a few years now. Then you have people that really don't even have a passion for music. i remember my son having one of his friends over at the house and my son was asking him if he's heard all of these songs before and my son's friend is just shaking his head and told us he doesn't really like music, it doesn't grab him. He told us he liked Television and being outdoors. So i think that it was a slight over generalization because there are plenty of young people that have other passions or love music but focus their life on another passion.

Music/How It Has Influenced My Life

Music has definately influenced my life. Ever since I was a little girl. I listened to everything my mother listened to. From Kool and The Gang to the Temptations to, of course my favorite, Barbara Streisand. The first beautiful music I remember hearing was Jesus Christ Superstar when my mother took my to see the play when I was around 4 or 5 years old. Then when I was about 7 years old, "A Star Is Born" came out and when she took me to see the movie and the music Barbara Streisand sang was unbelieveable and amazing! My mother bought the album and I would listen to it over and over and over again. I know every word of every song Barbara sang in that movie. I even remember how she would stand move to her music. It was spellbinding. That was the first time I learned about love from watch that movie. True love. From then on it was more and more music that I wanted to hear. I adored anything about emotions. Then I heard Pat Benetar sing on the radio. Love actually is a battlefield! And Fleetwood Mac singing "You Can Go Your Own Way." Then came the big one. Madonna! Oh yes! I am a Madonna fan. I learned sex from her. I wanted to do everything she said in her songs. But then I also started dancing when her music came out. The first three albums that came out are my absolute favorites. I blast them to this day. But music has definately influenced my life. And it always will.

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