Mindfully or mindlessly turning on a popular radio station on any given day, it is inevitable that any bystanders of teenage or adolescent age will somehow emotionally, logically, or physically react to the music. There are teens who would immediately fiddle with the tuner until the soft cry of bow on string engulfed their buzzing brains with a wave of peace and calamity, and those who would seize the deep bass beats and fluctuating high notes of hip-hop and feel empowered. In our society there exist young people that are active, engaged listeners of the music of pop culture, indifferent, passive listeners, and still yet a branch of very unwilling, opposed listeners. At this point in our history, it seems that the majority of teenagers/adolescents are somewhere between active and passive listeners. Many of us hear the popular song’s lyrics, mentally process the message and meaning of the song, and sometimes act upon the final thoughts we arrive at, while a lot of us also hear the words and feel the song, but does not necessarily let the song tap into our rationale or thought processes.
To begin with, we have to ask ourselves what constitutes the music of our current pop culture. Hip hop and variations of disco beats, a mix of alternative and pop music, as well as a taste of rock here and there comprise the majority of popular songs among American adolescents. With that in mind, to understand the origin and nature of the music of pop culture and its effect on our society, it’s necessary to understand the different purposes adolescents have for listening to the music. The active, “engaged” listener of the music of pop culture will mainly listen to hip-hop and occasionally a variation of disco/pop. They voluntarily do so, many times to release their positive or negative emotions, or to relieve stress. Often times they will listen to the music for hours on end to help cope with relationships, but the songs are often written with a tone that encourages “invincible youth” and having fun. This will appeal to some adolescents, and applies to many songs of the pop culture that don’t imply consequences of actions, and that demonstrate oversimplified thinking. The “passive” listener, in contrast, will note the melody and musical structure of the song, and might be emotionally affected by the lyrics, but will not end up taking away any idea or message from the song. And then at the bottom of the list sits the unwilling, opposed listener, who would never listen to the music of pop culture voluntarily and always has alternative views on popular music.
Why is it that there are people who will willingly listen to the Billboard Top 10 on any given day in their adolescent lives, and those who could care less for what artists like Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars are singing? Or even, why are there people who can take a well-developed message from a very unsophisticated song and apply it to their lives? Part of the reason has to do with standards and beliefs/upbringing, as well as social status in some cases. People who are social outcasts because of some sort of risky behavior they choose to partake in, or that are frequently in trouble at school, sometimes will resort to hip-hop and other popular music for emotional support. Certain songs seem to “scream at the world”, and dismiss the importance of authority, and this somehow appeals to them.
In addition, beliefs and standards will often dictate whether a person will solely accept popular music or fluctuate between popular music and their preferred type of music. In many popular social groups, there can be found “blind followers” who accept and take pleasure in what their group is doing, but that do not have the ability to digress from the social norm and do something unique or different that the group might not accept. These types of adolescents also tend to stay within the boundaries of the music that the group establishes and/or develops.
Still, many questions remain. Does intelligence, in any way, dictate musical choice? Sure, we might think there are not many perfect 5.0 students at the high school rhythmically shaking their heads to the latest hip-hop hit. It is thought that those who are intelligent and/or diligent workers are sophisticated, and thus have a sophisticated choice in music, choosing to listen to classical music or perhaps pop from the 20th century. However, to whatever degree it may be true that sophisticated people have the ability to digress from pop culture and encounter other musical pieces that are to their liking, can a low level of sophistication or a blind adherence to cultural norms then be considered unfavorable, or as having negative effects?
In one sense, a “low level of sophistication” implies immaturity, while in another, a voluntary choice to follow the trends of cultural. Immaturity, generally and musically, is not always a bad thing, as when an adolescent does mentally mature and begin to expand their range of music, activities, and ideas, they immediately realize what they had been missing, if anything. A “blind adherence” to pop culture, either because of social norms and pressures or general indifference to the topic, can sometimes have negative effects. The fact that you are “blind” implies that you aren’t thinking for yourself and are not actively aware of where pop culture may be taking you. Maybe some may see it differently, but it is of my belief that many of the extreme ideas, stretched limits, tolerance, and outright “unruly behavior” of adolescents today is due in part to the influence of music. I’d like to think that there’s somebody out there among the high ranks that realizes where this music is taking us, and hopefully has a plan to stop the train of pop culture from derailing before it happens.
What I see in pop culture today almost grinds that hope into my mind. Teenagers that I have heard about within our school, upset with life and themselves, turn to music as an outlet, as an explanation for why their troubles are so deep. They are not wrong to do so; when any human is subject to pain or suffering, it is their natural instinct to somehow release their emotions. The problem starts, however, when in those same songs, hip-hop artists especially will sing about dismissing authority, doing whatever you want to do, forgetting about other people and their thoughts. These thoughts are not logical in any sense and purely fueled by anger. This has brought me to ponder whether musical artists have a greater purpose (than selling millions of albums) for their songs in mind? If so, why are they not aware of how they are negatively impacting society? Maybe it is true that we need songs like theirs in the loop for people who feel similarly to the emotions expressed in songs, but then doesn’t the music business (specifically for popular hip hop music) turn into a place where artists can simply release their emotions, mix the beats and notes in a way that stresses the mood they want to establish, so a listener can come along and relate to those emotions?
I may have gotten a bit ahead of myself, but this to me seems like a return to primitive communication. How is it not fundamentally different than recording someone crying, selling it to millions of people, who can empathize with someone else who is also suffering? It makes me wonder why words were invented in the first place, and whether the oversimplification of ideas in songs, the shortening/abbreviation of words, and such are in fact an aspect of postmodernism. In fact, that seems to be rather plausible. As is evident, songs are becoming more and more simplified, the emotions conveyed more easily, and yet the different genres of music, purposes of artists, etc. are expanding, making the music business a more complex and diverse place.
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