In today's society, there is a lot of music about. It has grown in popularity rapidly over the past half a century, particularly in the past 3o years. Since the 70's there has been an increase in music that many class as Rock. Rock has developed into many different genres of music, including grunge, punk and emo. The genre known as emo is seen by many, particularly parents, as dangerous. It is believed that those who like emo music are prone to harming themselves, harming others, wearing dark clothes and committing suicide. It was really the Daily Mail who started this common belief, labelling bands as death cults, claiming that all those who follow will eventually commit suicide because that is what the songs tell them to do. One band in particular has been targeted a lot over the past couple of years; My Chemical Romance. Other bands targeted include Green Day, Fall Out Boy and Linkin Park. When a girl of thirteen hung herself, the music she listened to was blamed. She listened to My Chemical Romance. The Daily Mail said that Hannah Bond killed herself because she believed she would go to The Black Parade, a place that emo's believed they would go when they died.
Can music have such an influence on people that they would commit suicide? Do the lyrics contain hidden messages that convince fans to kill themselves? There are many people out there who believe that yes, they do. The Russian Government believe it so much that they plan, or plan to try and ban rock, emo and goth music.
Music does have an influence, but has that influence been exploited and taken too far?
www.freemuse.org/sw29040
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-564611/Girl-13-hangs-obsessed-Emo-suicide-cult-rock-band
Hi, Jordan I don't believe that the music someone listens to is solely to blame for them committing suicide I do think that music effects mood because happy songs tend to make you smile. However to go to the extreme and say that bands like My Chemical Romance make people kill themselves is ridiculous. As you know I love music and don't go anywhere without my iPod and I listen to a variety of music including My Chemical Romance. I'm not the type of person that wears black all the time and I'm definitely not a emo I'm far from. I believe that it would take alot more than music to cause someone to actually take their life they must be psychologically insecure and lets face it if your insecure in that way anything can tip you over the edge so in my opinion its not music to blame, there is some other underlying problem. If music is solely to blame then how come everyone who listens to My Chemical Romance doesn't commit suicide?? They must have been extremely venerable people to start with.
ReplyDeleteMusic does affect us - there are certain songs that have personal meaning to me and they make me feel rather emotional in bad ways and good ways. However, I feel blaming music for acts of suicide, etc... does not necessarily make it "bad". We blame certain genres of music for our own actions - we are "bad".
ReplyDeleteThere will be people that have committed suicide that listened to Britney Spears and whos favourite celebrity was Paris Hilton.
On the other hand, I do agree that as humans, we like to pass the blame and we will blame music for our actions when we should be taking responsibility.