Drug
Music is an art form that addresses many social issues, even in popular music otherwise designed for entertainment. I am interested in this topic because drug use is one of those many different issues. Most forms of music will address drug use at some point, and it is important to consider not only how music addresses drugs but how the way in which it has done so has changed, if indeed it has changed at all. For this paper, I wanted to see if I could look at music that is about a number of different drugs, in order to maybe get a sense of whether there were contextual issues at work. The list of songs is found in the table below:
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
The Beatles
LSD
Comfortably Numb
Pink Floyd
1979
Heroin
Because I Got High
Afroman
2001
Marijuana
Snowblind
Black Sabbath
1972
Cocaine
Waterworld
Leak Bros
2004
PCP
These songs span different eras, different drugs and different styles of music. Two are hip hop songs, three are rock songs. The rock songs are older, the hip hop songs are newer. Primack et al. (2008) performed a study that explored the connection between drugs and music. In a study of 279 drug-related songs, the authors found that drugs were referenced in 14% of rock songs and 77% of rap songs. Rock had one of the lowest amounts of drug references -- lower than country or R&B while rap had one of the highest. The authors found that because of this, adolescents are "exposed to approximately 84 references to explicit substance use daily in popular songs" -- and indeed four of the five I chose were major hits (no pun intended).
Despite deliberately choosing a diverse group of songs, there were nevertheless some similarities. All songs except Snowblind were slow in tempo, for example, which might well mirror the effects of the drug -- in which case we would expect Snowblind to be the fastest. In terms of message, the songs tended to either reflect that...
Drugs, Rock Music and Developing Countries Examining the effects of imported rock music on developing countries and its impact on violence and drug abuse is by no means a simple or straightforward task. One important factor is that this type of music overwhelmingly appeals to young people under age 30, and these are often the majority of the population in many developing nations, especially the Middle East and North Africa. To
The web site gives kids a definition of drugs and then goes on to discuss the difference between legal and illegal drugs. Written in a way that children can understand, this web site makes it easy for children to gain a positive attitude toward taking the legal, prescribed drugs that a doctor has given them while still understanding the danger of taking illegal drugs. Because it is geared toward
Music Analysis The social problem that I am examining in music is drugs, which are a fairly frequent topic in many types of music, but they can be both glorified and vilified. This is an interesting subject specifically because of this dichotomy. Some subjects are treated in a fairly uniform manner -- there are probably a few pro-war songs, but not many. Popular music has an interesting time with drugs, however,
Jazz and Drug Use The music industry has often been associated with drug use, but most people think of rock and roll or rap when they consider musicians who use drugs. It may surprise these people to know that jazz music also has its share of drug use, and that this link has been ongoing since well before the 1960s (Aldridge, 28). This is important to consider, since there are many
Drug Culture Midterm Prior to this course, I had a very narrow interpretation of drug culture in regards to film. The films I was most familiar with were those that focused on marijuana such as Cheech and Chong films, Pineapple Express, Half-Baked, and the Harold and Kumar trilogy among others. Additionally, the only other heroin-centric film I was aware of was Trainspotting, and the only other cocaine-centric film that had made
Drugs Marijuana in Depth THE NEUROSCIENCE OF THE DRUG Cannabis sativa (marijuana) is a plant that contains a chemical compound called delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol. Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol is called THC for short. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (2010), smoking marijuana (which is the most common form of intake) causes the chemical THC to "rapidly pass from the lungs into the bloodstream, which carries the chemical to the brain and other organs throughout the body."
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