The music of today is more violent and provocative than in the ’60s and ’70s.

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THE MUSIC OF TODAY IS MORE VIOLENT AND PROVOCATIVE THAN IN THE ’60S AND ’70S.
Today’s music is characterized by violent and provocative lyrics and videos that are sexually explicit. The songs contain hatred message spreading violence speeches. The music has also portrayed anti-social behaviors such as the shooting of rival gang members and police officers as a normal way of life. Numerous types of music genres conform to such characteristics. For example, Rap, Hip Hop, Heavy Metal, Rock, Gangsta Rap, Industrial, Hardcore, and Alternative. This is in contrast to the kind of music that was produced during the ‘60s and the ‘70s which were more of educative and were purely a show of talent (Leech-Wilkinson 2009). Therefore, I support the argument that today’s music is more violent and provocative than the ‘60s and the ‘70s music.
To begin with, there has been a lot of violence brought about by today’s music that contains lyrics that are violent, and the videos that are taken in extreme environments and those exposed to this kind of videos and songs have reacted to it differently with some emulating what they watched and, as a result, causing violence in the community. Examples of this music genres are Hip Hop, Gangsta Rap, Rock, and Hardcore this music, for instance, hip-hop have promoted a lot of violence and antisocial behaviors such as shooting police officers or rival gang members the folk and country music also have some aspects of violence, for example, murder and killing of police.

Notable songs that have lyrics depicting a lot of violence include Kim by Eminem, soundtrack by Cage and Bring Ya Whole Crew by DMX. Studies have shown that individuals were watching such videos get exposed to acts of violence, and ultimately some of them end up engaging in violent activities. This is in contrast to the ‘60s and ‘70s music that were for the purpose of entertainment and which were mostly concerned with addressing social issues in the society the right manner without any violent of provocative lyrics written.
Secondly today’s music led to the emergence of a lot rivalry and violence among artists and music groups as compared to the ‘60s and ‘70s. This competition has caused violence, assassination and has also led to hatred among the fans of the various music groups and artists. As a result of today’s rivalry between the artists and the music group people around the world engage in violence for trying to support their group artist this has led to losing of lives this is in contrast to the ’60s and ‘70s music where people generally enjoyed music from different artist as those days there were no any feuds between artist or music bands though there was normal competition between the artists and the music groups. This rivalry has also been experienced between different producing labels (Boyd 2010). Artists who have suffered the consequences of these rivalries are for example Tupac Shakur a West Coast rapper and the Notorious B.I.G an East Coast rapper were fatally shot as a result of East Coast- West Coast hip hop rivalry.
Finally unlike the ‘60s and ‘70s music that were more melodic and talked about love between woman and man and were not gender biased. For example, “you are my soul and inspiration” by The Righteous Brothers and “I got you Babe by Sonny and Carter,” Dream on by Aerosmith today’s music have portrayed women as inferior to men and always marginalized it is also evident in their videos that women have been taken as sexual commodities that can always be purchased and used by men for their sexual satisfaction these videos are associated with money being thrown to women for various sexual act exchange also their lyrics exhibits extreme hostility and violence towards women, for example, Eminem’s album The Marshall Mathers has shown a lot of hostility to women he has gone to an extent of considering her mother as a bitch in his lyrics. According to Kimball (2001), research has demonstrated that in Rock music majority of women around 57% are perceived as illiterate, sex objects, victims, passive and dependent on men, country music also casts women as subordinates although this is not shown on the videos of the songs. This hostilities and gender inequality, in turn, has led to the promotion of sexual violence among women.
In conclusion today’s artists should change on how they convey their messages; the content of their lyrics should not be violent. They should be educative, and their videos should not BE perceived as a way of creating violence, promoting racism or promoting gender inequality rather it should be seen as a way of passing a message to the community, promoting gender equality by realizing that both women and men are equal in the society. Their music should not be used in developing antisocial behaviors such as drug abuse rather it should be used to sensitize the community on the effects of drug abuse. The artists should emulate the good ways of writing their lyrics with rich and valuable content just as the artists of the ‘70s and ‘60s did; their videos should also be fit for public view with a positive impact on the society.
REFERENCES
Boyd, Joe. White Bicycles: making music in the 1960s. Profile Books, 2010.
Kimball, Roger. The long March: How the cultural revolution of the 1960s changed America.Encounter Books, 2001.
Leech-Wilkinson, Daniel. “Musicology and performance.” Music’s intellectual history (2009):791-804.