Victor Hugo once said. “Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.” In essence, music is the not the cause, but the effect of an individual’s circumstances and culture. Contradictory to this hypothesis, there are skeptics that believe art is the cause and culture is the effect. Is one solely right or do both ideas hold validity?
In the article “Rap Music and Its Violent Progeny: America's Culture of Violence in Context” written by Jeanita W. Richardson and Kim A. Scott, the authors search to see if rap music is causing an increase of violence amongst its listeners. The authors observe music from a more hypothetical angle and the essence of rap music. It is addressed that contents of rap music during the time of the study was largely the honest confessions of the artists; from financial status and police …show more content…
Richardson and Kim A. Scott’s article, Steven Stack and Jim Gundlach search for a link between country music and suicide in their article, “The Effect of Country Music on Suicide.” The authors go about their research by observing forty-nine metropolitan areas and discover the more country music is played, the higher the white suicide rate. It is stated that the, “Data on suicide and mortality and most other variables were provided by the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, the University of Michigan, and Ann Arbor.” The article also states the effect [suicide] was independent of divorce, location, socioeconomic status, and firearm availability. Despite omitting the prior variables, the authors’ claim their models projected by the data estimates that, “51% of the variance of urban white suicides rates.” The article ultimately determines that country music is often associated with suicide because the people listening to it were already at a risk of suicide. In addition, the themes in country music can push individuals already suffering from suicidal tendencies even
In the article “Rap Music and Its Violent Progeny: America's Culture of Violence in Context” written by Jeanita W. Richardson and Kim A. Scott, the authors search to see if rap music is causing an increase of violence amongst its listeners. The authors observe music from a more hypothetical angle and the essence of rap music. It is addressed that contents of rap music during the time of the study was largely the honest confessions of the artists; from financial status and police …show more content…
Richardson and Kim A. Scott’s article, Steven Stack and Jim Gundlach search for a link between country music and suicide in their article, “The Effect of Country Music on Suicide.” The authors go about their research by observing forty-nine metropolitan areas and discover the more country music is played, the higher the white suicide rate. It is stated that the, “Data on suicide and mortality and most other variables were provided by the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, the University of Michigan, and Ann Arbor.” The article also states the effect [suicide] was independent of divorce, location, socioeconomic status, and firearm availability. Despite omitting the prior variables, the authors’ claim their models projected by the data estimates that, “51% of the variance of urban white suicides rates.” The article ultimately determines that country music is often associated with suicide because the people listening to it were already at a risk of suicide. In addition, the themes in country music can push individuals already suffering from suicidal tendencies even