Friday, April 25, 2008

Party Like a Rock Star

This article will unfortunately stir up lots of negative emotion in the typical inhabitants of this upside down society. I am going to attack and discredit a thing that you value highly. As a matter of fact this may very well be America's current number one value. Have you guessed it by now? I'm talking about music, or at least what you call music. No, I'm not going to talk about hip-hop or gangster rap in this article. I'm talking about what is considered mainstream in the upside down society that I've been living in for the last 52 years. I'm talking about rock-and-roll.

I remember as a child, tuning to various radio stations randomly, sometimes stopping to listen to the latest rock and roll hit. If someone would come near I would feel embarrassed of what I was listening to and quickly turn it off or change the station. These were by today's standards innocent songs like "Stuck on a Feeling", "Baby come on Light my Fy-er", "I shot the Sheriff,( but I didn't shoot the deputy too"), "Ground Control to Major Tom" and "Muskrat Love" are a few that come to mind. Silly but harmless songs. These "top 40" hits could be found on AM radio stations.

FM radio and hard rock was beginning to become popular. I found it ironic that the very stations that had the most vile, noisy, and angry rock and roll music had the quietest most soft spoken DJs. Looking back on it, this was no accident. This irony was used to legitimize this new media that would hypnotically lead many of our youth on a path of drugs, godlessness and amoral behavior. Sex, drugs and rock and roll was the new motto. These new "hard rock" stations could only be found on the FM band , which up until then was not widely listened to. Most all radios at the time only covered the AM band. Many youngsters bought new-fangled stereophonic FM tuners with external speakers and turntables, just to hear FM radio and play albums. If you were hip to all the latest transistorized stereo equipment, you were known as an "audiofile". Before the invasion of rock and roll music, the FM band was reserved for public radio broadcasts and classical music. Things that the average Joe wasn't interested in. Like I said the, the soft spoken DJ was no accident. Rock and roll was introduced discretely. This was meant to deceive or confuse the occasional FM listener of the time when accidentally came across one of these new vile, angry hostile and noisy rock and roll stations.

A new instrument had to be introduced for this offensive media that disguised itself as music, it was the electric guitar. Have you ever seen the waveform of an electric guitar on an oscilloscope? I have. It's not like any other instrument. Most instruments have a waveform that displays a sine wave with some roughness along the curves. That roughness is what gives each instrument it's individual character, a pure sine wave without this roughness would sound like a whistle or a flute. On an oscilloscope an electric guitar is almost all roughness which practically covers up the sine wave. In other words, the sound that an electric guitar produces is almost pure distortion. In live performances the sound is intentionally turned up so loud that it hurts the ears physically, and in some cases causes permanent damage. Most Rock and roll musicians suffer some form of ear injury.

Now let's look at the musicians. For the most part they are amoral people, many addicted to hard drugs like heroine and cocaine. When they are on the road, most bands have a "roadie" that specializes in of finding and purchasing drugs, usually heroine and cocaine, and bringing it back to the band members. They don't like traveling with drugs because of the fear of getting busted. I learned of this when I lived in L.A. and I had a close friend who was an ex rock and roll musician that traveled on tour with famous bands. They are known to destroy hotel rooms, break furniture and windows, start things on fire, burn and stain the carpets, damage the walls, etc. Although they usually pay for the damages, most hotels don't want these wealthy but reckless, careless, narcissistic, contemptuous human beings. Of course they are most all womanizers, with many groupies to choose from each night. Where is the outrage from the women's rights groups, and the fathers with young daughters? Oh, that's right, ironically they are in the audience themselves applauding these users of women, and narcotics. Yet when you see them on a TV or radio talk show, amazingly, they are usually soft spoken just like the DJs of the early FM days.

A popular term these days is " party like a rock star", the fore mentioned behavior is exactly what that term is referring to. Also some other mainstream terms are: "that rocks", "rock-on", "rockin' the house","let's rock and roll" . These terms have become so mainstream yet they refer the the extremely negative, destructive, and narcissistic behavior that I mentioned above. Am I the only one who sees the truth? I cringe when I hear these terms, and I hear them often. These terms not only condone very negative behavior, they elevate it and celebrate it, some even worship it. How have we gotten to the point where it is commonplace to celebrate bad behavior? These terms are being used by teachers and professional people who are trying to be cool. Why has bad behavior become cool? And why is being cool our number one value? Just look at the names of some of these rock bands, "The Grateful Dead", "Guns and Roses","Cheap Trick"(a trick is what a prostitute does), "AC/DC (this means bi-sexual) just to name a few. The song titles are also offensive like: "Riding my Train, High on Cocaine", Highway to hell. Whenever I see a bumper sticker on a car with a negative slogan I can be sure it is the name of some new band like "Lost" or"Abused".

The number one top hit TV show is American Idle, which is all about glorifying music and the people who sing it. People idolize rock stars and would almost give their lives to become one. That is the premise for this show. Just the word "idol" in the title seems blasphemous to me, it's a negative word, it means false God. And that is exactly what these contestants are so very much hoping to become, an idol, a false God, a celebrity with fans, with people to worship them. Why am I the only one who sees it. THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES!

Another phenomenon that is happening in today's society is the pervasiveness of music into all areas of our lives, day and night, working and playing. Due to modern technology, many people walk down the street with a gadget in their ear, pumping this filth directly into their brain. This type of music is commonplace in grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants, malls and in almost every workplace. It is just about everywhere and impossible to escape from. I was surprised when I saw pillow speakers for sale. These are speakers built directly into pillows so your mind can be polluted twenty four hours a day, even while you are sleeping. I don't even like to call it music, because music should be beautiful, uplifting and soothing, as in the expression "music soothes the savage beast". Today's music(hip-hop, rap) is nothing of the sort. It is angry, it is hateful, it is intentionally racist and promoting of violence, crime and the use of drugs. It is not disguised or subtle, it is in your face.

A very common hand gesture of today's youth is: holding up the forefinger and pinkie, while folding over the other three fingers. This symbol was made popular by heavy metal bands. This is meant to represent the devil. The theme of heavy metal music is Satanism. The main purpose of Satanism is to mock Christianity. Heavy metal is an off-shoot of rock and roll. There are also many rock and roll songs with Satanic themes. The Rolling Stone's "Sympathy for the Devil" being one of the more popular ones.

Of course, rock and roll was just testing the water to see how low popular music could go. Next came heavy metal which popularized Satanism, then punk rock and grunge which was for misfits without a cause, then hip-hop and gangster rap which is the most racist, sexist, violent, music genre to date. Not surprisingly, Hip-Hop and gangster rap are the most popular among today's youth. There is no doubt in my mind, that the rock and roll music of the sixties, paved the way for the rap music of today. There, I did it. I discredited the one thing that today's society holds so dear to its heart, the rock-star and popular music.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Satan"is nothing to be afraid of. He's not real.

You're also a douche. It's just music to most of us, not some kind of "movement." It comes on the cd player or radio or what have you, it occupies my mind for a few minutes, and then it's gone and back to work I go.

Also, An electric guitar's sine wave only looks distorted WHEN it's run through an amp with the distortion turned on. Set it to "clean" and you'll find it looks a lot like a piano.

garyganu said...

Satanism is about attacking and mocking Christianity, not necessarily worshiping Satan. I beleive that condoning Satanism is very dangerous because the Judea-Christian principles, that America was founded upon, has made us the freest, wealthiest, most benevolently powerful nation that this world has ever seen.

The point is that most electric guitar music is intentionally distorted, just as the values of today's popular culture are distorted with condoning Satanism and promoting deceptive moral equivalencies.

"When you celebrate and embrace something that is abnormal and unhealthy, reason and common sense are turned on their heads. As a result, our popular culture has lost the ability to distinguish between, good and bad, right and wrong, normal and abnormal, healthy and unhealthy, constructive and destructive, considerate and rude, brave and cowardly, modest and lewd, vulgar and polite, acceptable and unacceptable, respectful and contemptuous, virtuous and shameful, tolerant and intolerant, open-minded and narrow-minded truth and deception, etc."

In today's popular culture, which rejects many social and spiritual restraints, I see less value given to universal spiritual principles including love, selflessness, honesty, integrity, humility, patience, courage, sacrifice, compassion, forgiveness, acceptance, self-discipline, open-mindedness, perseverance, gratitude and faith in God. At the same time I see more value given to popularity, sexuality, wealth, pride, diversity ( as a virtue, in and of itself), fame, power, thrill seeking and self esteem.

IMHO, there can be no other possible outcome than our society and culture becoming more corrupt, greedy, lawless, poor, ignorant, powerless, and ultimately more restrained by our fears and/or our government. This is clearly witnessed by the current increase in crime, prisons, corruption, illiteracy, poverty, drug use, intolerance and governmental control in today's America.