Danielle Hall
FYE 192.02/Professor Benton
Drug and Culture Argumentative paper #1
January 30, 2017
Drugs and Rock and Roll In my Argumentative paper, I will be discussing not only my opinion but also facts and research on whether rock and roll encourages drug use or not. I will be getting three different facts on how drug use effects the rock and roll industry. In my opinion I do think that drug use is one of the main things that people notice when they go to concerts, listen closely to the lyrics of the band’s music, and also just in general. I also think that if drugs were not a part of the rock and roll industry then almost all of the rock and roll music would be significantly different. Some magazine articles have discussed whether
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As stated by Rolling Stones Magazine “” sex, drugs, and rock & roll” can best be used to describe the music scene in the Seventies, an era where all genres were fueled by everything from alcohol and marijuana to cocaine and Quaaludes” (Rolling Stones). Drugs and alcohol were the main factors in what people thought or talked about when it came to rock and roll music and also most of the fans that followed these bands. Many artists used drugs so much that it eventually ended up taking their lives from them. Rolling Stones states in their article that “it didn’t come without a catastrophic cost as artists like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison all passed away from drug use, and New York City’s punk scene on a whole was decimated by heroin” (Rolling Stones). This quote from the article is support that with everything that you do in your life has consequences, sometimes they are good and sometimes they are bad. These artists, among many, suffered the bad consequences of doing these
How Rock and Roll Has Been Affected and Evolved Through the Ages Larry Williams, the blues and rock and roll singer, once said, “Rock and Roll has no beginning and no end for it is the very pulse of life itself.” With this quote, he shows that rock and roll truly is an ever-changing enigma. Its lifespan is similar to that of a human’s life because it has consisted of many phases like rockabilly, doowop, and many others. It has had its ups and its downs with the appearance of young new talent that inspired people around the world, and the death of superstars has ripped fans apart as long as this historical music genre has existed.
Regan’s tactic for the War on Drugs was directed towards the two most popular drugs of the 1980s, cocaine and crack. Crack is cocaine combined with chemicals to create a smokable and more producible drug. Criminalizing crack and cocaine lead to the incarceration of one in every three Black men while imposing minimum sentences, creating longer sentences, and reclassifying various drugs from misdemeanor to felony crimes. Crack use become enough of a serious concern to the public that in 1986 one-third of calls to a drug hotline were about the drug.
Nonetheless, this is far from the truth. What the “War on Drugs” did accomplish, however, was mass incarceration, particularly of those in minority groups. One of the main pillars of the advocacy was the dangers of crack cocaine. Although pharmaceutically almost identical to powder cocaine, penalties against crack were dramatically more severe. “The 1986 bill created minimum sentencing laws with a 100:1 disparity between powder and crack cocaine, supported by untrue claims that crack is more dangerous and addictive…
All Shook Up: How Rock N’ Roll Changed America, by Glenn C. Altschuler, does a great job in discussing all of the conflicts of the time and how rock n’ roll helped or discouraged the conflicts throughout the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s. Altschuler used essential sources such as newspapers and magazines, as well as other books on the issue to argue main points about the conflicts and affects that rock n’ roll had during this time period. By using and analyzing the primary sources through a social history and in a narrative format, he makes a solid reason and argument for how rock n’ roll really affected and changed America. Throughout history, music has played a huge role in changing the lives of people. However, as the time has passed music, itself,
Music has brought humans together for century's. Woodstock was no different, it might not have gone to plan but it brought people together. The event was seen by most as a dirty,drug filled, hippie gathering and others, well the others were the ones who went to Woodstock. Some things wood stock faced such as a struggle to land a solid venue, keep customers from camping out, and even get performers to stage is what made this concert so special.
He points out that many of those who experimented with drugs in the 1960s developed addictions or other problems, which continue to have an impact on American society
The consumption of drugs have always been a part of society, from tobacco used by the native Americans to the coco leaf used by mayans, people exhibit a tendency to use narcotics. While drugs were used for medicinal purposes risks were still associated with them as they are today. As with most things, narcotics can be harmful, and even dangerous, while drugs do not usually cause a society to collapse, it does have a profound effect on how societies function as in the case of the 1900s. While there were positives to the initial inaction of prohibition it was more detrimental than beneficial.
When understanding the drug problems we face today, we have to look at the history of how drugs became popular and what they do. Some historians would say this country was founded by tobacco, the first big cash crop the colonies produced. It was first used for chewing, pipe smoking and snuff. Cigarettes popularity started after World War II but eventually declined after showing the correlations between smoking and cancer. (A Brief History of Tobacco) Marijuana was also a cash crop starting in Jamestown but instead of using it for smoking it was used for making rope, clothing and sails.
1. “But addiction is another one of those words— dismissive, full of judgment, too encompassing—and while that is to some extent on the mark, a cautionary on many levels” (pg. 8). This section directly relates to the taboo recreation idea of addiction and is one of the reason drugs are considered taboo. Unlike other forms of leisure drugs can affect your body in such a way that you need them and without them you will experience withdrawals.
While issues such as sexism, racism, and prejudice still exist, other issues, such as drug abuse and mental illness have also become a topic of adversity as well. That, is not to say that these issues didn’t exist until more recently, but that only in the past few years have they become more ‘acceptable’ to discuss publicly. People like Josh Ramsay (of Canadian rockband Marianas Trench) and Macklemore are high riders to this discussion, Ramsay having battled a heroin addiction before twenty, and Macklemore having had repeated issues surrounding oxycontin. Both famed musicians in their home countries, these men have come out of their addictions stronger, and have both been vocal about the need to deglamorize drug use in the music industry. In Mayra Hornbacher’s
Cultural Impact of Rock and Roll Amidst the 1960’s Jimi Hendrix formerly stated, “Music doesn’t lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.” A generation which was earnestly devoted to peace, protest, and revolution, the counterculture amongst the 1960’s yearned for change. Rock and roll was far beyond just a genre of music; it influenced lifestyles, protests, and attitudes, thus, kindling an awakening in the youth of American culture. The distinction between parental and youth culture was a persistent root of concern, considering that teens throughout the world found a sense of belonging in this style of music.
Parents didn’t like the performers or the sexual nature of the songs and it was nicknamed “the devils music” by its opposers. Rock music has had a long
Over the years rap culture has changed from being motivational to a negative industry. The more time teens spend watching videos put them further at risk as they are more likely to engage in careless or in some cases illegal activities. Once known as a inspirational outlet and a way for people to express their everyday struggles rap has since become extremely controversial and deceptive to the youth. One of the biggest negative effects rap music has is the promotion of drug sells and usage.
In 1968, both Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, leaving the United State in a state of uncertainty. With a nation in need, the Woodstock Music and Art fair arose in 1969, standing against the background of the past year (Evans and Kingbur 20). Max Yasgur, a dairy farmer who leased his farm to the Woodstock promoters, once said to the millions of fans at the festival, “The important thing that you've proven to the world is that... a half a million young people can get together and have three days of fun and music and have nothing but fun and music, and I God Bless You for it!” (Gerdes 4), and that is exactly what the crowd of more than 400,000 fans did.
But this also, in a way, shows that it could come to being accepted by society in the future, and loved. Elvis and the Beatles were considered taboo when they first started out, and now they are cultural icons. Heavy metal is also “often used as a scapegoat to distract from the thoroughly more complicated societal problems” (citation needed 4). Here is an example: if somebody walks into a school and shoots someone, and they were a fan of pop music, nobody would think twice and just assume that the person was a deranged killer. If somebody else walked into another school and shot someone, and they happened to be a metal fan, then society would say that metal music drove that person to kill.