Sex, Nudity, Violence in Modern Era Music - Essay Example

 Sex, Nudity violence… ..(and drugs alcohol and money…..) An inquiry into the downfall of popular music in the context of rock, grunge and rap music in the post modern era Introduction At the outset my choice of grunge rock and Rap music would see an odd combination for my research. However both these genres have seen the zenith and fall of many great musicians and talented artists. Much respect is to be paid to the late Grunge rocker Kurt Cobain ring in my ears when he sang in his famous song Aero Zeppelin and was probably screaming with his ulcer infested stomach at the crass commercialism which has become a part of the post-modern music “All I know is just a fact, Where the world is nowadays An idea is what we lack , doesn’t matter anyways” At the same time whether its grunge rock, or Rap music both have emerged as a reaction to the system. The musicians seethe with anger, remember their frustrating lives before they had a break through and so on. Despite their frustrating pasts which manifest themselves in their lyrics most of these bands have lived a commercial success through their bands and have entered the well known world of fame and fortune. At the same time the money and publicity brought with them sex scandals, drug addiction and public disorder. Few post modern bands have been prudent with their fame and fortune but the music world is full of sad tragedies like Kurt Cobain’s unfortunate suicide. In this vein my research will explore to what extent are Rap and Grunge bands a victim of drug effects themselves other than the alleged promotion of a culture of sex nudity violence and culture.The methodology of my work pertains to a few anonymous interviews with representatives of two local bands which play successfully at a nearby club. Their phenomenal success and popularity inspired me to explore their perspectives on the post modern era. Literature review The aim of this literature review is to discuss the issues and bands which will be discussed in the interviews in advance. The literature review was prepared after to interviews to become an aid to the understanding of the musicians concerns and perspectives. Understanding music in the context of post modernism Post-modernism has cut off the present from all futures. The daily media add to this by cutting off the past. Which means that critical opinion is often orphaned in the present?” John Berger (English Painter, b.1926) This section addresses the definitional and historical premises behind post modernism and its influence on modern music media . Visionaries like C. Wright Mills (1959) were looking ahead when they described the post-modern period as one where there would be a growth of tertiary sector and the services industry would boom in the era of multi nationals and a rise in capitalism. However the booming free market would be unable to boast of free speech and democratic values in the guise of political and social turmoil. For Doherty (1991)post modernism as a phenomena feared human progress and its realities. Other writers have said that this era is a time of uncertainty and doubt (Stacey 1990) and a melting pot of pluralism, democracy and information and consumerism. (Stacey 1990) The post modern person has a chance to see different beliefs and cultures and experience them through the media and information technology. (O'Hare and Anderson 1991).Shorter (1975) had some more interesting observations to make pertaining to the post-modern era when he said that the “nest” and become nuclear(in context of the family and children’s attitudes).This was the time of social change and feminism. Particularly in terms of newly evolving single-parent, surrogate-mother, and gay and lesbian families. Shorter (1975) explains thus that this was the time when marriage and children were not an social and economic necessity for the newly emancipated woman. The media in particular reflecting the cultural and familial diversity (Stacey 1990) So this age comes with its packages of closeness and aids to overcome the physical barriers/social barriers through the media and information technology.Shorter (1975) has identified this with “anonymous intimacy”as people scramble to find emotional depth due to family ties becoming more distant through TV talk and advice shows and texting and chatting.This is the age of the Candid cam and Reality TV(big brother and the like).The media is offering strangers to meet up and every individual has the chance of following the “American Dream” and achieve their fifteen minutes of fame via live television and game shows. This is an age of post-modern relativism and pluralism which has replaced the vials the generally accepted universal principles. More importantly critics argue whether Postmodern media actually represents a deteriorated renaissance. (Anderson 1990). Music is no longer the “food of love” alone.The modern musician makes profound reflections and or aesthetic values in his lyrics but the advent of drugs and crass commercialism seems to be promoting an empty and shallow culture and essentially a sign of quasi-intellectualism .However proponents of pluralism and a strong influence of post modernism insist that the modern Music is a bulwark of the modern liberal man with his right of freedom of speech.(Anderson 1990).One would not know who to trust in this regard however if we look at how Simon Cowbell and Howard Stern have proved popular for their blatantly and at times disturbing comment to participants on their show. So is diversity/pluralism of expression devoid of relativism the way ahead for the modern music? .Music as Commercial success: Eagles and Nirvana The business success of Eagles The Eagles Band has remained active in Music Business for the periods of 1971-1980 and from 1994 to present.. The American Rock Band is a very successful business venture in terms of strategy and revenues and originate from in California .The Band currently boasts of five Number 1 singles and four Number 1 albums.The band gained immense popularity in the 1970s and its album was rated number 37 in the Rolling Stone list "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time"..Since its break up in the eighties the band does not make any new albums but tours together often. However in 2007 they have released their first album in three decades called the Long Road out of Eden and it is currently on of UK’s top 40 Albums.The business career of Eagles encountered several legal battles(which gave them great revenue set backs as well).This began when Don Felder sued for $50,000,000 in damages after being dismissed as a band member in 2001 for wrongful dismissal, breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty. A leading entertainment and intellectual property lawyer Wallace Collins (who was also a recording artist for Epic Records)1 has thus remarked about the legal and business battles facing the eagles, “It is very difficult to form a good band and to achieve a successful career in the music business. Any group of two or more musicians working together would be well-advised to create and sign a good Internal Band Contract so that the band does not later self-destruct over money and ego issues and forfeit its hard-earned career success.” Kurt Cobain’s melancholic music: drugs and suicide Many would view Kurt Cobain as fresh breath of innovation in the stale post modern breeze. Here is a man who embraced his clinical depression and lack of masculinity and rejected the dominion of traditional rock masculinities. He expressed his anger and frustration with songs like “rape me”, I hate myself and I want to die” .Songs like paper cuts show his resentment to his mother and other songs like “Francis Farmer will her revenge will have her revenge of Seattle” present a social message. Many people think however that the legend was wasted by his addiction to drugs which was said to ultimately lead to his suicide. Others have commented that his success would not have been possible without his drug addiction which brought out the torture artist with in him. Eminem: “I can be your superman!”2 The third musician widely discussed in the interviews in the context of sex and violence and drugs was Eminem the popular white rapist whose claim to fame are his controversial, at times antagonising lyrics and the fact that like the majority of the rappers he is not black.His songs will generally carry a parental advisory due to the sexual and violent content of the lyrics although his videos are thought be humorous by many.He is also anti-gay and is known to speak out against gay people and electronic music in his songs. Methodology The methodology of this research involves two interviews with two representative of different bands. The reason I have chosen interviews are that they would allow me to facilitates the collection of both reliable and valid data that serve as answers to research questions and objectives. In popular research there are three types of interview; structured, semi-structured and unstructured interviews .or this study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with both interviewees. The reasons behind the choice of typology of interview were that: They are flexible and non-standardised – this allowed a natural flow in between the interviewer and interviewee, encouraging the interviewer to introduce spontaneous questions that may have risen from the interviewee’s answers and opinions on the planned questions. They give the opportunity to discover issues that may have not considered or known previously. Interview design and Interviewees There was a use of four to seven questions (dependent on the respondent) which were open ended and they pertained to a number of issues to allow the interviewees to expose their opinion and beliefs of the questions asked and to bring up any other factor, matter or issue not previously considered with the secondary research (i.e. literature review). Interviews were approximately 25 minutes long and were done face-to-face, and were tape-recorded and then transcripted with the aid of the downloadable software ‘E-speaking’. The two interviewees were: Tony Peter 42 retired drummer from a local grunge rock band who still plays for the local Night Club.(Real Name not disclosed due to data protection and preference of Interviewee.) Greg Reynolds 27 Aspiring white rapper and part time Project Manager for a copy rights law firm.(Real Name Not disclosed due to data protection and preference of Interviewee. Limitations of method of primary qualitative research The limitations of the primary qualitative research collection were primarily the bias of the chosen interviewees by the interviewer. These were not chosen fully randomly, but in a convenience manner. This could be considered as potentially making the research partly biased. In addition to this the lack of structure and open-ended questions made the results difficult to analyse and interpret without the researcher interpreting the results in his/perception Furthermore it was only possible to get a hold of two interviewees based upon their busy schedules. The author is grateful for that. ____________________________________________________________________ The interview questions The interview questions pertained to the performance experiences of the two musicians in an environment of drugs,sex and violence and whether they had embraced this as a form of music culture. Essentially would the nature of Grunge rock and Rap change without the popular use of drugs .Other questions pertained to their own performances,whether they equated popularity of a band with commercial success and finally how they perceived the recent ban on online peer to peer file sharing.This was a melting pot of questions but once the results were analysed it could be see how this fit into the greater picture of the entire post modern music scene. Summary of the views of Tony Peter: Interview 23rd January :Grunge Night at the Club Tony Peter is a retired drummer from quite a few local grunge bands and based on his experience he was able to give us a lot of insights as to how research pertaining to popular music has been paced and changed by the advent of the Internet and by the development of numerous journalistic and fan-based outlets for serious primary research in which the United Kingdom has mainly led the other jurisdictions.Our interview turned out to be an avid reader of The Journal of American Culture and periodicals such as Discoveries, Goldmine, Mojo, Record Collector, and Uncut. His second commentary was upon the massive scale of online copyright infringement as the internet has been famously defined as a network of networks, and the denser these networks become; the more complicated it becomes to prevent the bane of copyright infringement and other intellectual property violations from occurring. He referred to the Napster Saga and was of the opinion that people should have a right to fair use of the music as long as there is no commercial dishonesty.He wasn’t too happy with the modern legal suits and circumvention measures on music and stated that music should be enjoyed freely.When asked about his views on the post modern world he remarked “”The post-modern media has on the one hand manifested itself as a large source of information but information alone cannot replace critical reflection, and philosophy and culture which should be an important part of the modern information world.This is something I agreed with him on.Secondly he spoke about the Eagles and their sad break up and other reunions and was of the opinion that the Eagles have remained one of the few bands who have handled success with lesser drugs unlike Kurt Cobain whose heroin and cocaine addiction did not allow him to go far. In relation to his daily routines he told me that he played at different locations three times a day. An observation of his drumming style revealed heavy influences of Nirvana and although he denied taking any drugs he was a heavy smoker. Tony also made us aware of the increasing trend of teenagers to form small “nirvana” worship bands even two decades after the band collapsed. Tony also sang a few covers of the Sound garden and Alice in Chain bands which were inspired by Nirvana.The man was a huge nirvana fan although he was not prepared to admit so. This interview gave me valuable insights into the grunge rock scene of the post modern world and ended with a pleasant cover by his band of a recent hit by “puddle of mudd” called Away from Me which unsurprisingly was sung in the classic grunge style. Summary of the views of Greg Reynolds Interview 4th of February 2008 The way ahead for popular rap and grunge rock music The interview with Greg Reynolds was a surprise.Firstly the fact that his father had been a fan of classic and film music.He was able to remember his days listening to his father admire Andrew Webbers often and his musicals like Jeeves, Evita and the Cats, and Phantom of the Opera.Greg also admired the where his use of humour and parody of Andrew Webber as a composer and director but when I asked him what he was doing as an amateur White rapper his answer was humour. His talent displayed a number of qualities like his imitations and covers of the Beastie boys and then a switch over to the more squeaky complaining tone of Eminem.He admitted that white rappers are unable to match the vocal chords of Black rappers. When asked if Rap music should be a trademark of Black Culture he believed that although white rappers had matched their success on a more commercial level it would take quite a while to match the real talent of the black rappers.He was sceptical of Eminem’s songs although his cover of superman and lose it was fabulous along with his imitation of the annoying burping voice of Eminem.I saw very little influence of British Music here at the Club. Maybe this was because both my interviewees had a rather transatlantic back ground.Greg also pointed out that in his experience of his fellow band mates and audience young people who listened to rap and hip hop music had more problems with alcohol, drugs and violence and condemned the use of the alcohol industry to use rap and hip hop to market products.Greg noted that even when he sang these lyrics with all the profanity and swear words he was careful not to encourage his young audience.As a management consultant for a copyrights law firm he was quick to dismiss the proponents of DRM as “corporate vampires” and hoped that they would do something more ethical like reforming the Rap culture which the young generation is acquainted with.Greg also admitted that there had been three incidences of under age sex and rape during his performances and the parents of the children who had managed to gate crash the club had blamed the Rap environment the club. Towards some conclusions Music was never so commercialised it seems at the end of the literature review and research.My final thought in this regard is simple.If Music has to be marketed and marketing involves manipulation there needs to be a strict control of such advertising.The good practice regulations of the club were laudable where as young children were not allowed under 16.However the teen years are formative and Greg was a heavy smoker.He had had problems in drug rehab aswell.Similar insights were gained from Peter. I conclude that the Rap and Grunge scene has been much tainted by crass commercialism and the media which promotes sex and violence as a part of such music.It is about time it was realised by the media and the post modern state that Music as we know it and have come to cherish it does not have to promote a culture of violence and drugs.My point is that the music industry has to be able to consider moral philosophies to play a pivotal role in the shaping of marketing decisions. There has to be a stress on corporate values influence many aspects of an organisations decision making when it comes to advertising drugs ,sex and alcohol as we can see the complaint emerging for a less “sexed up” music scene. References Anderson, W.T. 1990. Reality Isn't What it Used to Be. San Francisco: Harper and Row. Doherty, W.J. 1991. "Family Therapy Goes Postmodern." Networker, September/ October. Mills, C.W. 1959. The Sociological Imagination. New York: Grove Press. O'Hara, M., and W.T. Anderson. 1991. 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