by Bo Paul

Created on: April 29, 2008

Throughout history there have been moments where people have been willing to blame the problems in a society on something in that culture's popular entertainment. From comic books to movies to even classic plays these art forms have all, at one time or another, been used as a scapegoat for societal ills. One of the more recurring features of this trend is the tendency of some people and organizations to blame music for the negativity of the society they live in. Proponents of this line of thought feel that a particular style of music and its popularity plays a large role in a society's decline in many ways. They also tend to look back on an era when this musical style was either not around or not as prevalent and view that time (usually in relation to their youth) as a far healthier and more harmonious era. But is it really that simple?

The first thing that must be examined when looking at this school of thought is that, unlike what some people like to believe, it is not a new phenomenon. Throughout the last century musical genres ranging from the blues to heavy metal have been attacked for being allegedly "satanic" and considered a negative influence on young people. In some cases, veiled racism has guided some of the attacks as it did when the blues merged with country to become rock n' roll and today with some rap music. In all these cases there is a tendency to view the unfamiliar with some sort of decline amongst our society's young people. In all these instances there were underlying factors that had nothing to do with music.

For example, the fear of early rock n' roll was rooted in the institutionalized racism in American society that, while still existing, was more prevalent in the 1950s than today. It was also the era that sparked the beginnings of the civil rights movement and the battle against the segregated facilities so common at the time. Early rock n' roll was also considered a factor in the supposed rise in juvenile delinquency of the era, taking the blame previously attributed to comic books. In the late 1960s rock music had been attacked for allegedly encouraging drug use amongst young people (a claim ironically similar to the 1930s claim that listening to jazz was a symptom of marijuana addiction though inverted somewhat). In all of these claims, the music is attacked as the cause of a reported decline amongst our society's young people, leading through to the claims made by Christian fundamentalists that rock music was satanic in the 1970s

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