It is hard to choose just one artist from any genre of music that has been portrayed negatively. I think in every genre there is always an artist that is portrayed negatively by the press. Sometimes the press over exaggerates a message an artist is trying to delivery and take is completely out of context. The press can either hurt an artist or help them succeed in an industry that is nearly impossible to succeed in.
Since I cannot choose just one artist or genre, I’m going to pick an artist from a couple of different genres. Let’s start with hip-hop which in my opinion is the style of music that is negatively portrayed the most. A hip hop artist that is portrayed very negatively is Eminem. I actually do not think I have ever heard anything good about Eminem. His lyrics are very crud and in my opinion disturbing. I think the most disturbing song by Eminem is “Stan”. It is about a guy who is obsessed with Eminem who writes him letters telling him how much they are alike and that he is his biggest fan. In his letters he tells him about he wants to be together but his girlfriend is pregnant. He has serious issues and it really scary. The song goes on and Stan keeps writing to Eminem and doesn’t get a response. Finally at the end Stan is recording his voice while he’s driving a car drunk 90 miles an hour in a rain storm with his pregnant girlfriend locked in the trunk. He is blaming Eminem for his problems and telling him all he wanted was a letter. He ends up running off of a bridge into a lake and killing himself and his pregnant girlfriend. People argue that artists’ messages get misinterpreted but I can’t see a way that anybody can listen to this song or watch this video and come up with a way that this would be sending a good message to anyone. I’m not saying that all hip hop or rap songs are like this, there are actually quite a few hip hop artists that only have good messages to spread. But songs like “Stan” are why hip hop has such a bad rep and is instantly frowned upon.
Let’s move on to pop. Pop music is much more accepted by the world than hip hop, but why? Yes, pop music doesn’t have as much violence as hip hop but it is mostly about sex. The messages are just as bad, but when some people hear the word pop music they instantly think oh there is nothing wrong with that it’s just teeny bopper stuff, but it definitely is not. Artist’s like Lady Gaga are horrible influences. I know this blog is supposed to be about music or artists that are portrayed negatively and think pop music is to a certain extent, but not nearly as much as it should be. All Lady Gaga talks about in her songs is sex; she just uses weird metaphors to do so. I think artists and music like that deserve to have just as much negative attention as hip hop does. Society is so contradictive about things like this, they can look at one thing and talk about how negative it is but overlook something that is just as bad because it simply just doesn’t seem like it should be.
I agree with you that the majority of musicians (or celebrities in general) all have been portrayed negatively in one way or another. I have not listened to Eminem enough to judge his music abilities, or the lack there of. I do know, though, by what the media says about him, that his music is not something that has received good reviews. I have been influenced by the media to not necessarily listen to Eminem’s music because of what they are saying about him-and I have turned a blind eye to the whole genre of hip-hop. But reading all the blogs this week have made me realize that I cannot judge musicians by what the media says about them, so I definitely will open up my eyes more to the hip-hop genre from now on, and not have any preconceptions.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with you that pop is the more widely accepted genre in this generation and people usually don’t think negatively about it. But I do disagree with you when you said that Lady Gaga is a horrible influence. I do not think that she is the greatest, but I know that her song “Born This Way” is not about sex, and it is actually really positive and sending out the message to always be yourself and love yourself and it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks of you because you were born for a reason and “God makes no mistakes.”
So I definitely think that we should not be influenced on what the media says, and judge music for what it means to us personally.
I really like the approach you took on this topic. Instead of selecting just one artist or genre you went outside of the box and turned it into a broad idea focusing on music as a whole. I agree that the media does affect mostly all artists in every genre because I feel that they are an easy target to blame things on or to put in the spot light because everyone knows who they are. By making a negative remark against any famous person, that remark will quickly spread throughout giving that person who made the remark some satisfaction. I also agree with the fact that the hip hop and rap genres are affected by negative co0mments the most. Like you said, these two genres deal with touchy topics like pregnancy, drugs, sex, etc. and because they focus on these certain topics it is easy for society and different types of Medias to turn their music against them and make the lyrics seem wrong. I also agree that pop are affective by negative remarks as well but not as much because like you said, pop only deals with sex. It is weird that society accepts the concept of sex more than drugs or teen pregnancy. But I do not agree that Lady Gaga is a bad influence on people. I have always felt that music cannot be directly responsible for people’s bad behavior but that it is the lack of parent responsibility that causes a child to become distrustful.
ReplyDeleteI would like to mention that Eminem’s “Stan”, if viewed with an open mind can be interpreted in a different way. I think it is a prime example, and the music video depicts exactly what the mainstream media accuse it of being; an artist impacting its fans in a negative and extreme way. I think that was Eminem’s way of saying: hey, I am only an artist; you should not take everything I produce negatively and literally. The video depicts a vulgar scenario where a crazy fan blows everything out of proportion. It is actually the fan and not the artist who has loose screws. An artist is about expression, whether it is happy or sad. An artist should have no boundaries. Eminem is clearly saying, relax, this is only my art. There is a humorously scary ending to the video. Eminem is ironically responding to his fan through a letter. He apologizes for taking so long to write….and so on. I think it is all about interpretation and if you are a fairly sane person with a descent up bringing then you will not be extremely impacted by the artist. I also strongly agree that if lyrical content is too explicit it is the parent’s responsibility to monitor and mentor their children. Because children exist in the world does not necessarily mean extreme, sexual and violent artist should be banned. Lady Gaga is a great artist. She actually preaches to the public about the youth being who they are and defends the outcasts of society. She has a positive message when it comes to her entire purpose. If her lyrics are too sexual then, again, children have parents to parent them. I for one enjoy her artistic perspective and bold lyrics. The pop scene was getting a little too bland anyhow.
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