week 7

I believe that there several artist that see being portrayed negatively in the main stream popular press. But a rapper whose music I see is constantly being portrayed as a negative influence is Tupac. I can see why a lot of people would target his music as being negative. I think it is because he has a lot of proactive things on his music. Another reason is because he passed away so he cannot defend himself and explain what his songs really mean. Although there are a lot of people who try to defend his music the only person who can actually explain his music is himself, but obviously he cannot because he died. So I think that people take advantage that no one can actually prove them wrong about his music being negative because there is no one who can truly explain his music. He has a lot of songs about drugs and sex, but I believe his music is harmless it is just entertainment and a lot of people enjoy listening tot that type of music. But I believe that it is because he is so popular that people choose to portray him negatively in the mainstream media. And it is not just him being targeted it is any artist who is popular with the kids; people just look for things in their music to try and bring them down. The media targets Tupac because in his music videos you can see him dresses like a gangster and he is smoking and drinking, but people do not understand that back then when he was making music that is what people wanted to see. They wanted to see someone who was hanging out with their friends and having a good time. I constantly see parents talking to the media about how their kids are rebelling against them because of hip hop and rap and they blame artist like Tupac because of their music. But, what is really the problem is the lack of attention of the parents. To me it seems like the media does not have anything else to do so they want to try to portray rappers as being the reason that the kids are acting badly towards their parents and why they do bad in school, and join gangs and do drugs. But I see that it is just entertainment there is nothing that music can do to make kids act bad. In Tupac case he is just being portrayed as negative influence because he became famous really fast and he has a very large number of people that listen to his music and still continue to buy his albums. And I believe some people see him as a threat to their community because they do not want kids listening to the music he created even if those people have never heard it before. They are just being irrational and looking for someone besides themselves to blame for the kids acting up and not being good how the parents want them to be.

week 6

When it comes to music I believe that there are song groups and artist that should not be listened to by children. That is why I believe that record companies should be responsible for putting parental advisories on the music they distribute. The music now and days is full of things that kids should not listen and be exposed to. There is too much of this going on in the movies, shows and even cartoons that the kids watch. The record companies know what kind of music they are distributing and they now the lyrics and their messages that the artist are putting on their songs, so it is up to them to put these parental advisories on the albums. At least that way the parents of the children know what kind of music they are buying their kids.

And I know that some parents do not even care what type of music that they listen to, but that is no excuse for the record companies not to put those parental advisories on the albums. It is up to those record companies to at least try to warn the parents and even prevent kids under seventeen to try to buy the music on their own. At least with this if a young kid goes in to a store and wants to buy an album that there not supposed to the sales clerk cannot be allowed to sell it to him because of the parental advisory. This way some kids will not be exposed to this type of music, and I know it is not going to stop a lot of kids from getting their hands on this type of music, but at least it will prevent some kids from this type of music. And that is a start, and maybe later on they can start to prevent the artist of saying certain things when they want make a new song.

Just think about it if record companies were not made to put these parental advisories on the music they distribute. what type of music will there be now? I think that there will be music that is even filled with more filth than there already is in the current music that these artists make. Just imagine a word with no boundaries when it comes to music. If this happened then almost every single artist would start to talk about everything and anything that they can think of. This should not even be up for discussion; it is something that just has to be done no matter what. It is not an option. Kids are very vulnerable at a young age and music can be somewhat of a big influence on them, it all depends on what type of music they listen to because it can either be a very good influence on them or an extremely bad influence on them. I just cannot stress enough the fact that the record companies need to put parental advisories on the music that they distribute.

Blogg(week 5)

I believe that music has very little negative influence on the behavior of our youth. Music is entertainment and I believe that is the only effect it has on our youth. It entertains them. I really do not see how music can influence them in a negative way. Music does not have that much power over anyone. The most that I believe that can possibly happen is that people will start to sing along with the song. And maybe the song will have curse words or talk about sex and drugs and that might be the only thing that can be a negative thing about music because the kids will be repeating those things. But I do not believe that the kids will take those things literally. Just because some rap songs talk about getting money, selling drugs does not mean that they are going to go out there and do those things. It also does not mean kids will join gangs and kill people just because a song mentions those things. Again, the only thing that can music can possibly do that would affect kids negatively is the constantly curse words, but I believe that is about it.

There could be a couple of kids that could be negatively affected by this, but I believe that those kids could already have something psychologically wrong with them. They could possibly be depressed or something like that and that could be the reason that they take the songs literally. When they hear certain songs that they might feel are about them. And if that happens then they might get negative influences through the music I listen to. Other than these things that I just mentioned I do not believe that there are any more negative influences that music can cause. So I do not believe that music is a negative influence I believe that it can be more of a positive influence to most of us. Music can make people happy and relax you when you need to relax. It is something that can make you feel like you have nothing to worry about. It is a perfect way to escape the real world for a while so you will not be stressed out all the time.

If I had to choose a genre of music that could possibly be a negative influence on the youth, it would be rock music. I have nothing against rock it is just that some of their songs seem to really influence people it is not just youth it is all different group ages. When I listen to rock music it makes me feel angry and pumped up, but I do not think that I will ever do anything out of the ordinary just because the song mentions a couple of things that people should not do. These are some reasons why i do not believe that music can have much negative influence on our youth. The sooner everyone understands that, the sooner every one can go back to enjoying music the way it should be enjoyed.

Blogg week 4

When bloom writes that rock music “ruins the imagination of young people and makes it difficult for them to have a passionate relationship to the art and thought that are the substance of liberal education." I believe that there are some readers that would agree with him because there are some people that are really against rock. And they believe that rock distracts kids from getting a popper education. They might believe that rock is even brain washing them in to thinking that being a rock start is better than going to school. They believe that kids will get it into their heads that sex and drugs is the right thing to do. I personally do not believe that this is true. I do not think that music has that much of a control over kids. Music is just made for entertainment and that is what the music does, it entertains us. People might be offended by some of the vulgar lyrics, and the talk about sex and drugs, but that is not a reason to think that rock music corrupts kids. I believe that the real problem with kids not being interested with school is because there is a lack of parental control over them. And since people do not want to admit this, they find any other reason to make it seem like there not at fault. And that is why they blame rock music. Bloom says “ the result is nothing less than parent’s loss of control over their children’s moral education at a time when no one else is seriously concerned with it.” The only thing that music does is make people feel good. I believe it relaxes you and cheers you up. I do not believe that it makes kids act badly in any certain way.  Bloom also says that students “can not hear what the great tradition has to say, they find they are deaf.” I also don’t agree with this point that he makes. It is not that the kids can’t hear what the great tradition has to say it is that the parents and other adults do not show them what the great tradition is! If it does not interest the kids than the kids just do not want to be a part of it. So it is not their “deaf” they just do not care for because no one has ever shown them how great the traditions can be. The only thing that has always been there for them is music. Music is there when there down, when there happy and tired so it only makes sense that kids will be interested in music more than anything. They will put music in front of everything as their first priority. And there is no “traditions” that can change this. Again there are some people who agree with Blooms points, but those are mostly parents who don’t have anyone else to blame so they blame the music that their kids are in love with.