In the feverishly rapid evolution of
American culture, the last century has served as perhaps the greatest turning
point in mankind’s ideologies. The
views, beliefs, and opinions of the commonality have altered so greatly from
their 19th century ancestors that one looks upon the lives and
interests of one’s ancestors almost as one might look upon an alien race,
clothing fashions no longer seen, music no longer heard, values and morals no
longer understood. Prime examples of
this alteration is society’s changing views on sexuality, sex-role
stereotyping, and gender associations.
Of the many contributors to these great transformations, perhaps none
have been as influential as music.
In an article titled “Rock and
Sexuality,” author Simon Frith attempts to connect the influences and effects
of rock music to the evolution of society’s sexual ideologies. Although many deny the connection between
music and sexuality, I am in agreement with Frith that music (and possibly rock
music, specifically) has played a central role in defining the way contemporary
culture views sexuality. As an author,
however, Frith did a poor job of convincing me through his article. Though it raised many solid examples of
society’s transforming views, Frith’s article was very unstructured and
difficult to read.
As a high school graduate and
college student, I consider myself a moderately intelligent person in respect
to what constitutes a well-written article, and as a writer myself, I have
become familiar with the necessities of an argumentative piece. As a musician, I have been studying,
playing, and listening to music nearly my entire life. A guitarist, bassist, pianist, and
saxophonist of twelve years and a listener even longer, I have been influenced
and affected to a great extent by the music which I listen to. For these reasons I consider myself a
credible judge in regards to the topic of Frith’s article as well as the
structural merits of the article itself.
In Frith’s article, he begins with a
lengthy summary of society’s transformation from one extreme to the other
which, ultimately, only succeeds to suffocate my interest in the connection
between rock music and sexuality prematurely.
It is not until the fourth page that Frith begins to actually include
music into his argument. One might
argue that Frith, in an attempt to familiarize the reader with what was
occurring before the invasion of rock music, was merely describing the society
to which rock ‘n’ roll would eventually introduce itself. The long-winded introduction, however,
became a direly poor method in retaining my interest and attention, as I am
already aware, to a reasonable extent, that the views and ideologies of society
in the early 1900s were different from modern society’s beliefs and do not need
nine paragraphs of examples.
In addition, Frith’s writing is very
cluttered and dense, creating sentences which may give difficulty to any reader
whose reading ability is not yet at college level. For example, in Frith’s article, he makes a reference to another author’s
book in which he states that the author “argues that the ideology of
sentimental love and “well-tried personal affection” as the basis of marriage
spread from the aristocracy to the bourgeoisie in Europe in the latter part of
the eighteenth century (the move was marked by the rise of the romantic novel)
and moved gradually down the social scale during the nineteenth century” (Frith
267). I was able to comprehend what
Frith was writing but, admittedly, upon my first reading of this specific
sentence, I was forced to backtrack and read the sentence a second time to
fully understand his point. This is not
the result an author is aiming for when creating a sentence, and in many cases,
including this one, detrimental if done.
In Frith’s article, he argues that
rock music, both lyrically and musically, affects society’s ideologies
concerning the female gender and, likewise, the ideologies of the female gender
itself. Some may argue that music may,
in fact, influence its listeners to some extent, but there is still no solid
evidence to affirm this theory.
However, an article by Doris Joyner and Janet St. Lawrence, taken from
the March 1991 issue of Women Quarterly, supports, through tests and
research, the claims of rock music’s effect on society as more than random
guesswork: “Tests [were] done on
undergraduate males to discover whether or not heavy metal music influenced
males either way on topics such as interpersonal violence, sex-role
stereotyping, and sexual arousal. The
results of [these tests] indicated that males with an extrinsic religious
orientation were more accepting of sexist and rape-supportive beliefs. Exposure to heavy metal rock music,
irrespective of lyrical content, increased males’ sex-role stereotyping and
negative attitudes towards women” (Joyner and St. Lawrence). Music’s effect on society’s ideologies,
however, cannot be limited to rock music exclusively. From the same article, in regards to the results of testing on
male subjects, “a very unexpected finding was greater self-reported sexual
arousal in response to classical music!” (Joyner and St. Lawrence)
Still, some may dispute that music,
in general, has any affect whatsoever on its listeners. To this argument, Jeremiah S. Strouse
states, from his article “Gender and Family as Moderators of the Relationship
Between Music Video Exposure and Adolescent Sexual Permissiveness,” that “rock
has always contained rebellious, antisocial, and sexually provocative
messages. It is music by and for young
people; it is their music. However,
when adolescents are struggling to achieve an autonomous adult identity and are
exploring their emerging sexual awakenings, they are undoubtedly more
vulnerable to the …influence of…auditory messages. This may be true especially if their identity has not been firmly
established” (Strouse).
With the claim of music’s influence
on society reasonably justified, it is no great wonder that many of the most
popular songs in our culture are those which exploit society’s curiosity and
interest in sexuality. Indeed, there
are just as many musicians who have been successful without drawing on the
inexplicable lure of sexuality, but as testament to its awesome power, the
music scene of the 1980s (and of today, no less) was bombarded with musicians
who did just that.
Nearly everyone from the age of nine
and older in America can say that they are familiar with the artist known as
Madonna. It is also fairly safe to
assume that virtually no one associates this artist with clean, pristine, or
sexually abstinent. Is it any
coincidence that in The Billboard Book of Top Forty Hits she is listed
as the top female artist of the entire 1980s (341)? These rankings reflect total combined record sales and do not
take into account subsidiary income from T-Shirts, videos, and posters which
display unabashedly Madonna’s purely sexual appeal. It is no greater a surprise to find that, according to this same
source, Madonna, in only twelve years, had garnered twenty-nine Top Ten singles
(surpassing such legendary groups as the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin,) and
was, in 1996, ranked 6th on the list of Top 100 artists from 1955 to
1995 (339 and 341).
Her success in the 1980s was so
great as to put to shame fellow musicians such as Prince, Marvin Gaye, and
George Michael, who, themselves, had seriously escalated their respective
incomes by exploiting sexuality and the influence it has over society. Why is it, then, that a woman, writing and
performing music fairly similar to her male counterparts, was achieving so much
more than they? According to The
Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits, 68 percent of the record buying population
in 1984 through 1988 were males (29).
America is a very easily-persuaded country, and music is a very
influential means of sending messages.
Once one realizes and understands this, there is a lot of money to be
made. From these statistics, one can
assume that not only does rock music promote and exploit sexuality, but its
influence is also intentional, marketed and, without a doubt, felt by not only
the music-listening population, but also, in effect, the entire world.
Simon Frith, in his attempt to aid
his readers in seeing the significance of rock music in respect to the time of
its arrival and its residual success through the spawning of other genres and
forms of music, did very little to prove that what he was stating was more than
his and a few others’ opinions. Even
less successful was his quest to connect rock music and society’s sexuality. Indeed, Frith, himself, might state that he
was simply attempting to address the issue from an entirely historical
perspective, but it would have been beneficial to his article to include solid,
inarguable evidence that it was, indeed, rock music which was bringing about
these changes he so adamantly spoke of.
Regardless, whether one finds
Frith’s article well or poorly written, the fact that rock music (and, indeed,
all forms of music) influence society and actively contribute to its views and
ideologies concerning all things, including sexuality, is hard to dispute. In fact, for those who insist their complete
dissent, I urge the consideration of one question: If music (rock or otherwise) did not influence a person in any
sense; did not persuade, urge, question, stimulate, cause one to think a
certain way or consider something which one may have not considered before, why
would one wish to listen to it at all?
The
Billboard Book of Top Forty Hits. 6th
Ed. New York, NY: Billboard Books,
1996.
Frith, Simon. “Rock and Sexuality”. Common Culture. 2nd Ed.
Ed. Michael Petracca and Madeleine Sorapure.
New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1998.
Joyner, Doris and Janet St. Lawrence. “The Effects of Sexually Violent Rock Music
on Males? Acceptance of Violence
Against Women.” Psychology of Women
Quarterly. 15:1 (Mar. 1991): n. pag. Online. Netscape. 9 Apr. 2000.
Strouse, Jeremiah S.
“Gender and Family as Moderators of the Relationship Between Music Video
Exposure and Adolescent Sexual Permissiveness”. Adolescence. Fall
1995: n. pag. Online. Netscape. 9 Apr. 2000.