Bad Music? O_o

The end of my last post led me nicely onto this one, bad music. And by bad music, I don't mean rubbish music, I mean music that has been labelled "bad", such as rock, metal (my two passions) and rap.

Rock and metal have been branded "bad" and "dangerous" and parents have discouraged their children probably for as long as it has been around. I only have to mention Ozzy and the bat incident to make most people squirm or heave. Many rock/metal stars have been involved in drug scandals, and then of course you have Sid Vicious, the punk star, accused of the murder of his girlfriend. He later died of a drugs overdose. But does this make the music itself bad, or are the people who make it bad?

People don't like the thought that their children admire people who behave in such a "bad" way, but can any music be classed bad or good?

Wait, classical music...And pop *shudders*.

Anyway, back to my point. My nan personally is terrified that I listen to music produced by people who look like this:

But by the same token, you can't judge on looks. I'm sure she'd actually empathise with their music if she heard the lyrics to BOOM!, which is one of their more controvertial songs.

"Manufacturing consent is the name of the game,
The bottom line is money,
Nobody gives a fuck,
4000 hungry children leave us per hour from starvation,
Whilst billions are spent on bombs,
Creating death showers."

Yes, I'm sure she'd like the lyrics more if they were set to violins and flutes rather than harsh guitars, but still, why should that make the message they send out any different?

I'm sure by now everyone has heard about the massacre at the Virginia University, when Cho Seung-hui killed 32 of his fellow pupils. But how many people know what they are now blaming for this unspeakable tragedy?



Yes, Guns N Roses 1987 album Appetite For Destruction.

Why?

Because Seung-hui once wrote a play, entitled 'Mr. Brownstone', which is also the name of one of the tracks on the album. How this connction was made I do not know, but this is now the theory that is passing around. Does this mean Guns N Roses influenced Seung-hui? Or are people just looking for someone to blame? In my opinion, the latter is most likely. You can read more about this here: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/virginia-tech-blog-roundup/

Music and murder have been conected before, most famously by Bob Geldof and The Boomtown Rats, who wrote a song called "I Don't Like Mondays" after 16-year-old Brenda Spencer walked into her school and killed 13 pupils and her headmaster. Her reason? "I don't like Mondays. This was a way of cheering the day up." This song was, though written some time AFTER the murders.

So is music bad? Are the artists bad? Or is music just easy to blame for certain things?

I'll leave that one with you.

Over and out.

~Meg~