Popular Music And Its Effect On Society

11 Pages 2749 Words

teens. An example of this (in modern music) is the band Nirvana. Their lead singer Kurt Cobain was the creator of the “grunge” look that took the whole world by storm a few years ago. The look consists of baggy, ripped jeans, plaid and flannel long sleeved shirts and t-shirts with various other grunge bands on them. Cobain related all his lyrics to when he was a teenager and put words to other people’s experiences to look like a rebellious teen himself. When he died, obsessed teenage fans all over the world were in mourning, and three people committed suicide, leaving notes that they could not live without Kurt Cobain.
Events like the death of Kurt Cobain and it’s effect on his fans bring upon the “Appearance vs. Reality factor” (Society for Neuroscience). Even though these teens had never met or spoken to Kurt Cobain, they still believed and based their lives around his messages. Teens can not and/or do not differentiate between the appearance of their idol rock stars and the reality of who the people really are. They forget that the stars have promoters and publicists telling them what to say and how to dress, and instead truly believe that what they see on TV or hear on the radio is one hundred percent truth.
While Kurt Cobain and Nirvana’s music is categorized as heavy metal or grunge, Gangster Rap has also been receiving a lot of negative press. The cultural majority in America is up in arms over the rising levels of violence and horrific images that are portrayed in these hard core rap songs. “This style developed in Los Angeles in 1987, partly in response to drug-related news stories that represented, at least for many African American communities, a one-sided portrait of life in urban America” (Campbell, 94). Support of this rap form by teens grew in 1996 when Tupac Shakur was killed and even more in 1997 with the murder of Christopher Wallace a.k.a. Biggie Smalls (Notorious B.I.G.). However the older g...