Alan Bloom & C. Delores Tucker were right!

So there goes that theory.

When I listened to hardcord punk, I was an angrier person. When I listened to goth, I was a more depressed person. When I listened to psychedelia and dronerock, I took more drugs. When I listened to the Velvet Underground, I looked at a lot more art.

Did I engage in these activities and feel these emotions, *because* of the music I was listening to? Or did I *choose* the music I was listening to because the emotions that were going on in my head, and activities I was engaging in?

Complicated question, and not very easily addressed. I like to think I have a brain, I like to think that I have free will and the ability to choose. However, common sense and simple observation of the world at large would seem to prove that most people do NOT.

I don't know what I'm saying. I'm going to eat some noodles and take a shower.

There was a case here in the US where a 14 year old shot his teacher on the last day of school. Why? Researchers have determined that brain mass actually declines in the teenage years which leads to an inability to control impulsive behavior. So it ain't ICP. Bitch.

- achieve a catharsis, allowing the music to express these emotions for them - wallow in their own feelings being accentuated by the music

The line between these two poles is quite slim, I'm guessing - I've often used music for both purposes.

Maybe, at a certain age / point in development, music (& other modes of expression) can adversely affect an individual in terms of establishing a pattern of thought or belief. This could probably happen around puberty, going into the 20s.

However, the adverse reaction of an ADULT (implied quotes) to music is based as much on the connotation as on the actual music. That is, it's the publicity as much as the actual words & sounds. And I wouldn't limit this reaction to those more declasse - I know plenty of intelligent people that can't wrap their minds around the thought of a redeemable group of musicians choosing to call themselves, say, the New Pornographers. Ignorance & a general lack of intelligence are things that would naturally promote such ill-conceived notions, but (unfortunately) the smart ones are just as prone to such "leaps of faith".

I don't think that music INSTIGATES ill will or unchecked madness as much as it unknowingly ENABLES. And, really, if there wasn't a Limp Bizkit to give folks an excuse to sow their idiot oats, they'd find something else to use as a crutch. Christ, in Hartford, CT a couple of years ago, riots broke out at a Dave Matthews Band concert!

I might be taking this thread out to the breaking point (& stretching beyond the confines of the original question), but "artists" should simply follow their muse, laying the burden of responsible consumption squarely on the shoulders of the consumer. (This li'l paragraph could spark a thread of its own, couldn't it? Hmm...)

it doesnt bother me, i lack white liberal feelings/attitudes because the world is a much more interesting place when everyone is different and strange and knows your name.

It's all about folks' interpretations of the words. I'm sure that there are people out there that get rankled by knowing of bands named Neutral Milk Hotel or Olivia Tremor Control, just because they're strange & unorthodox. (These same people, however, seem to swallow such "normal" group names like Hootie & the Blowfish, Matchbox 20, or Third Eye Blind without problem. I don't get it.)

(I don't WANT to get it. It might become chronic.)

KRAFTWERK ON YR IN-CAR SYSTEM MAKE YOU DRIVE BETTER, OBVIOUSLY, BUT SWANS — or anyway that live show they did at the T&C in 198X — CAUSED ME TO DRIVE AS BADLY AS I HAVE EVER DRIVEN EVER, DRIVING HOME AFTER. And my ears didn't stop ringing for four or five days.

S.Bellow sez that AB spent all the loot for ClosingAmericanMind on the most expensive stereo seen in this galaxy so far, way cool clothes and holidays all over, where he cruised cute young boys extremely successfully (thanx to his expensive new system and clothes, I guess)

So classic.

My Bloody Valentine make me drive really badly. They tend to make me forget that it is snowing and not notice the car swerving all over the damned road.

2. "They tend to make me forget that it is snowing and not notice the car swerving all over the damned road." - How funny - I read a similar thing about the Sundays' 2nd LP, of all things, last year.

3. Nick D: I'm really surprised at your youthful reading of, let alone agreement with, Allan Bloom.

SWANS — or anyway that live show they did at the T&C in 198X — CAUSED ME TO DRIVE AS BADLY AS I HAVE EVER DRIVEN EVER, DRIVING HOME AFTER. And my ears didn't stop ringing for four or five days.

Hey! My old flatmate keith 23 got pulled fer speeding by the KKKops - he was listening to SWANS "raping a slave" whilst driving!!!

Driving whilst under thee influence ov "SWANS" = DON'T DO IT, KIDS!!!

BTW, when our landlord visited, we used to play "lets lynch the landlord" by Dead Kennedys, but being k-wimps, only after he'd gone.

x0x0