Monday, February 04, 2008
I located a study that was published in the current issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine journal titled the "Content Analysis of Tobacco, Alcohol, and Other Drugs in Popular Music."
You can read the article here:
http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/162/2/169
Their research used 279 songs from the 2005 year end Billboard charts from the Pop, Hot 100, Hot Country, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop, Hot Rap, Mainstream Rock, and Modern Rock charts. They analyzed these songs for tobacco, alcohol, and drug usage.
Their results found, basically this. 41% of the songs referenced the substances in total. Rap had the highest percentage of references at 90%. Country followed with 41%.
Now, this study only researched the references, nothing about it studied what the impact was on teens and children. So, before everyone out there starts to say how bad country music is for our younger generation, they really should take a look at that impact. I have a feeling the references cited in rap music were much more violent and gain negative influence on our children.
For example, the study talks about Joe Nichols' hit "Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off" which is a humorous style party song. I expect Brad Paisley's "Alcohol" was a part of the study too, again same thing. Compared to the lyrics in the rap music I saw in the report, that I can't type here, country music's references, though reference the substances, are in much less violent manner.
I believe that the listener's of country music understand the impact on their children much greater and steer those children in the right direction of understanding the affects of the substances. It would be very interesting to see a report of this type done using this information and compare the impact on those children's thoughts and actions.
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