Pop Music and Its Influence on Adolescents - Essay Example

POP MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCE ON ADOLESCENT Student’s Name Course Institution Course Introduction Pop music which is basically a term that is an abbreviation of popular music is generally understood to be a recorded music that has a lot of orientation to the young generation. It consist of very simple, short songs that currently makes use of technological advancements to come up with new variations on already composed themes. Pop music has emerged due to influences from other forms of music. As a genre of music, popular music is more closely linked to rock and roll as paying critical attention to them demonstrates the high degree of similarity. Pop music has been linked to a lot of youth culture which is at the foremost marked by pleasure and eventual evolution to other aspects of undesirable life such as violence and rebellion to societal authority. Many of the American leaders as well as school authorities are on record to be have advocated for regulation of music industry so as not to be a recipe for cultivating bad traits in the young generation. Pop music and youth culture Parents of youths who don’t have the ability to differentiate pop music from heavy metal music may generally have a hard time having a concerted discussions with their children as the former is a favorite of the youth especially in the developed world such as the United States. That may be attributed to the fact that music is key to the youth culture which cuts across the adolescent ages. For instance, at an adolescent get together, the fundamental question relates to what one listens to and not what one does. Different pop music has diverse lyrics as others may have decency in use of language; others may be too obscene and as such may offend so many in the society. Teenagers and entertainment moguls who mostly argue that pop music is not different from other types of music do not consider the fact that a lot of human learning is principally incidental in nature and more often than not occurs outside the realms of educational settings. Entertainment managers would not be so much concerned about what they offer to the consumers as most of them are driven by capitalist ideology of getting rich. It is in this aspect that pop music may be referred to as a heavy equipment ­ that has more influence in the lives of the young people as compared to movies, television, and computers (Denisoff and William, 1986). The consumption of pop music by the youth According to Hatch and Millward (1978), it has been found that on average, a typical American adolescent listen to music as well as watching music videos for four to five hours on a daily basis, which is in fact more time compared to that they spend with friends at home or the neighborhoods. Music therefore matters a lot to adolescents, and hence cannot be well understood without a critical examination of how it perfectly suits their lifestyles. As is the case of American youths, pop music intensifies and alters their moods, dominates their conversations, furnishes a great deal of their slang, and provides the right ambiance during their social get together. Music styles such as the ones noted in pop music define the cliques and crowds the youth associate with. Music personalities therefore provide models in relation to how they dress and behave. The consequences of music may not show up as fast as possible to the mind as violence and sex, but ultimately may play a very significant role in the development of adolescents. Many a scholar have in fact viewed television as the main media influence on the youth, but in the real sense, they devote a lot of their time and energy to music. Most youths use music to enhance their emotional beings and moods. Music is believed by psychologists to have the ability to make good mood to the better and can enable one overcome the bad ones. The latter has led many to believe that music lyrics about violence and suicide against the feminine have resulted in troubled youth committing violent crimes and suicide. News and movies reports have the tendency of over-emphasizing the bad examples drawn from music, but psychologists have suggested that music has the potential of energizing listeners as opposed to de-energizing. Youths also use pop music to get vital information about the adult world as well as withdrawing from other social contacts. It also helps in the facilitation of social settings, friendships and creation of a personal identity. Youth and music passions Understanding the role of pop music in adolescent culture requires deeper understanding of the fundamentals of adolescence life. This is so because many people tend to assume that adolescence life is basically the same as the teenage years. Child development experts have shown that on average adolescent now starts at around the tenth year, which is about two years earlier than it was fifty years ago. Owing to the current variability of the social and biological developments of modern-day child, the experts have suggested that the best and easiest way to confirm if a certain child has reached the adolescent stage is to find out if such a child has developed immense interest in popular music or any other music. According to Watkins (2005), psychoanalysts, books that talks about parenting, and mass media have portrayed the youthful stage as a life of crisis, conflict and rebellion against any kind of orderly authority, although the views are not supported by research undertakings. For most children, adolescence marks a period of gradual, normal development in some harmony with parental expectations and cultural values. It is estimated that in about 10 percent of the American families, there is serious domination of generational conflicts while about 25 percent find the adolescent stage a period of sadness in their families as children are restless and in constant conflict with parents. The meaning that adolescents derive from popular music lyrics or videos is in part determined and characterized by their stage in life. Generally, people do not discover before hand the meanings of the kinds of lyrics as they construct them, but mostly draw heavily on the available knowledge. Teenagers, who mostly focus at a time on one novel adult issue, are more likely to comprehend varied messages as contained in the lyrics. Researchers have shown that, for instance, girls who watch the video "Papa Don't Preach" by Madonna give varied interpretations of it. One girl interpreted it as a song depicting true love while another explained that it is about child and parent authority conflicts. A third talked of assuming the roles of adult. In another related study to find out the interpretations of such music by the youth, adolescents interpreted Christian heavy metal and regular heavy metal music as being dominated with violence and sex themes. It also appears to them that the beats heavy metal generally has a reputation for violence and sex. The theme of violence in popular music Pop music has been marred with a lot of controversy as many in the society have been complaining about its influence on the youth. The controversy is even more heightened today with many authorities talking about it, for instance, the last presidential campaigns touched on it. The only issue is that when it comes to popular music, there is totally lack of consensus. The messages contained in the music are not in line with its effects. Again, most of the adults who are quick to criticize it were also served the same lyrics during their youth. Although the entertainment industry managers argue that pop music can have no detrimental effects on the youth as it is only for entertainment. In a host of studies, researchers have been able to demonstrate that music videos spruced up with intense violent images can make adolescent male viewers to become antagonistic in relation to their treatment of women. They may view women to be weak and can therefore be smashed by the more muscular men displaying their body physique in the music videos. They are also likely to promote violence amongst themselves and others. The nature of violence in pop music videos only pitches men smashing things hence the domineering character of men in the society and their quest to subdue women. Most of the top pop songs more often than not mention sex as subliminal meaning or lyrics, whether it is just the lyrics or the background music that is well hidden fro the public sight. One of the fundamental reasons why popular culture has assumed that form is found in the way the society is moving very fast forward. In the modern world, there is a lot of openness in relation to issues that were previously not in the domain of societal discussions such as abortion and homosexuality. As there is fast movement in society so does the culture. So what the current society movement portends for popular culture and music means that almost all artists and providers may wonder why not move in the same pace. As the society is moving forward, what used to be natural is loosing its value and is becoming less natural thus what used to be a natural process of the body is becoming a sphere of entertainment, and ideally entertainment is money. Taking, for instance a typical music video that rides high in the American music charts by a popular female artist such lady Gaga, it is most likely that one will find out that such artist is wearing very strange clothing or very little piece of clothing as well as discovery of many other aspects that points towards sex. Therefore if someone is a parent there is a provision to be worried because popular culture and music can make a long lasting impact on a teenager, although the extent of impact is not easy to determine. On the other hand, depending on how much parents shield their children from the real world, they eventually have to step out behind the parents. What matters is having and upholding of virtues amongst the adolescents. While the modern-day music can be considered very appealing, sometimes music may take it too far. For example, it is not bad to sing about the general theme of love but when it is taken to another level and eventually offering it to the youth who may not be of age for such exposure; it may then be a source of confusion to them. Role of music in society At the basic level, people of different ages do listen to music because for it is a source of pleasure. Especially for teenagers, the pleasure may be intense so as to be associated with the experiences of life. Music therefore promotes experiences that may be extreme for its listeners and makers, hence turning the vulnerabilities, triumphs, emotional edges, antagonisms and celebrations of life into hypnotic and reflective tempos that may be experienced privately or shared with others. Owing to the significance of music and the key role it plays in adolescence, it is very clear that quite a number of effects accompany it. Although there has been a lot of concern for so many years about possible bad effects of pop music, for most of the young people, popular music has no such bad effects. While most uses of music are not categorized, the main classification relates to social uses, affective uses and the use of lyrics. It also should be taken into account that the use of music videos tend to show different effects compared to music alone. Some researchers have demonstrated that although the emotional uses of pop music may be important, the meanings and social uses provide the ideal avenue for understanding the niche it occupies in the lives of the adolescents. It is for that reason that the social category is divided into two parts thus quasi-social and socializing uses. The quasi-social use refers to listening to music that occurs on its own but still serves the needs and goals of social relationships in the society amongst peers and adults. A good example of this may be when popular music invokes or acts as a perfect replacement for absenteeism in peers so as to relieve one of the feelings of being lonely. For instance, in a study carried out amongst American college students, about 75 percent reported listening to pop music either very frequently or somewhat frequently so as to enable them not feel lonely when they are alone. This study as well as others has suggested that quasi-social application is more evident in girls compared to boys of the same age bracket. On the other side, listening to solitary music may be a predisposing factor for performing a host of delayed social applications as it may prepare adolescents for future peer relationships and interactions. It has also been singled out that there exist a strong relationship between peer orientation and vested interest and passion in popular music. To a wider perspective, teenagers who have no vast knowledge of current music or popular culture trends are therefore pushed to the wall by the pressures of the youth culture. In addition to that, youths who have become experts in adolescent music tend to attract very many friends thus enjoys status elevation in the social structure of the adolescent life (Winkler, 1978). The importance of music to the youth can also be demonstrated by the amount of time spent on listening to a particular type of music. In the United States, a survey of students from Southeastern junior high school showed that most of them spent about three hours daily listening to their favorite music and about four hours glued to the television sets watching programs of interest. More studies carried out recently have also shown high numbers of adolescents spending more time listening to music. For instance, in a study that involved about six hundred eighth and ninth grade students from government funded and private schools in the state of Minnesota, most of the youngsters reported spending about 22 hours on a weekly basis listening to music and an average of 25 hours in a week watching television. The trend can also be common across the age ranges, although there is a correlation between the amount of time spent in listening to music and age. The only problem with many of the research work carried out on adolescents and music, there is a higher degree of underestimation in regard to the amount of time the adolescents spend listening to music, for music is basically taken as a secondary activity that appears in the background for a host of other activities such as talking, studying, doing domestic chores and driving. The tendency of music to sandwich itself between background and foreground is a good platform for raising some fundamental questions in relation to the types of listening to music that can be classified as true exposure. Some researchers have argued that background listening to music should be part and parcel of performing foreground activities by saying that when a parent turns off the background music when children are studying, doing domestic work or chatting, one should observe the kind of responses emanating from them. Through many different a time in the history of mankind, music has been a focal point in influencing the life of teenagers. American teenagers are a perfect example of how music has impacted on the lives teenagers psychologically, physically and economically. Different times have led to many styles of popular music, although the effects are somehow unchanged. Popular music has increasingly gained use in marketing and diverse ways of entertainment. However, the most significant effect is its role in the teenage and adolescent life. Pop music has witnessed a lot of transformation over the years. In reference to the different kinds of tasks at various stages of life, for example during the middle childhood at around the age of eight years, children generally develop a passion for popular music. The interest intensifies as one starts the adolescence stage. There are two main developmental tasks related to the middle childhood thus the urge to learn how to build mutual friendships and how to gain acceptance by the peers, and self-concept consolidation in terms of the kind of group to subscribe to. Popular music therefore correctly serves such goals. It can hence serve the foundation for friendship and peer acceptance. In adolescence stage of human development, there are two main tasks; one is to learn on how to build long lasting intimate relationships across the sexes and to strive for personal identity development. Popular music can be cited to have continued well in serving such goals by perfectly becoming part and parcel of the social platform for exploration of intimacy feelings and also defining peer groups as far as musical preference (Frith, Straw and Street, 2010). The need for regulation of pop music It is well known that one of the principal sources of moral decay of the teenagers is popular music. Decadent and perverted images of artists performing shocking uncensored lyrics promoting hedonism and irresponsible behavior attest to the fact that law need to be amended to catch up with those who are out to deprive the society of morals. Considering a hip of negativity emanating fro the sound of popular music, it may prompt one to ask what may be done to contain the situation. One of the suggestions that may come in handy in helping out the situation is the provision of violence rates information to the artists and makes them understand that they are very important in finding a solution to the problem. If some of the top popular music artists would consider making positivity in their songs, then obviously others will a positive change in their lyrics, then others would follow suit and make their lyrics positive as well. As mentioned by Starr and Waterman (2002), if popular music artists can realize that they have a noble responsibility of advocating for good values and positive change to their followers, there is no doubt that such negative connotations resulting from pop music would rapidly fade into the oblivion. Making of the media gain awareness of the myriad of problems faced by the youth could also be a perfect remedy for averting the bad images dotting pop music. The main American music video and television stations have to join in the war and critically analyze what products they are rolling out to the consumers. Conclusion Most of the genres of music are not the way they used to be. The ordinary pleasures of listening to pop music are long gone. This has ushered in explicit lyrics, violence and a lot of sexism. The negative lyric in popular music is ravaging the modern day youth especially in the developed countries. Women have never ceased to be a source of exploitation in pop music videos while the artists themselves have refused to act as positive role models for the millions of youth the world over. To fully comprehend the overwhelming popular music movement in the American culture, it is important to acknowledge that popular music is not a representative of any other form of music as it has evolved to become a unique social culture. References Denisoff , R. Serge and William L. Schurk, 1986. Tarnished Gold: the Record Industry Revisited New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 3rd edn. Frith, S., Straw, W., and Street, J. eds, 2010. The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press pp. Hatch, D. & Millward, S. 1978. From Blues to Rock: an Analytical History of Pop Music. Manchester University Press. Starr, Larry & Waterman, Christopher, (2002). American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MTV, Oxford University Press. Watkins, S. Craig, (2005). Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement, Beacon Press. Winkler, Peter (1978). "Toward a theory of pop harmony", In Theory Only, 4, pp. 3-26. Read More