Music Listening, Problem Behavior and

Claims about the Negative Influences of Pop Music

Young people use pop music to choose their fashion styles, to sharpen their worldview, and to define their identity. For most young people, pop music is an important medium, and many model themselves to some extent on examples provided by pop stars and their ideas. Consequently, it has been suggested that pop and rock music may have negative effects on behavior as well. For instance, in the 1950s, rock and roll's meteoric ascent led conservative white critics to conclude that racial boundaries would be blurred by this “Negro” music reaching a mass white audience. [Page 594]Even though its greatest star of the period, Elvis Presley, was white (and had to be, perhaps, in order to achieve his level of fame during that period), an old fear of the sensual and explicit nature of black music's rock and roll roots surfaced, and Elvis's suggestive pelvic movements were interpreted as provoking a decline in sexual morals. In his third appearance on the nationally broadcast The Ed Sullivan Show on January 6, 1957, Elvis was shown only from the waist up, so as not to offend conservative viewers.

In the 1960s, many pop musicians were the most prominent heralds of a new ideology implying fundamental changes in the ethics of work, leisure, sexuality, substance use, and religion. They were often accused of being a threat to society. To illustrate how fast the times were changing, John Lennon casually mentioned that in 1966, the name Beatles had meaning for more people on this planet than the name Jesus. This led to severe criticism by U.S. religious organizations and to the public burning of Beatles' records in some American cities. Music seemed to be at the heart of a cultural war. Pop stars and other advocates of a liberal youth culture propagating anti-bourgeois, antimaterialist and pro-drug and pro-sex attitudes battled conservative standard bearers who feared the corruption of the young and the end of civilization.

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