We know from people like Jaron Lanier about the corrupting influence of the advertising industry on social media; that algorithms that consciously promote addiction and incivility and conflict are employed by Facebook and Twitter and Google to hold young people's attention and keep them glued to their screens. The result, according to lots of research, is that there's a prevalence of sleep deprivation among young people, a dramatic decline in attention spans--people can't read an ENTIRE BOOK and finish it nowadays--and, social isolation; and, I believe, the popularity of intemperate opinions in public. Public, interpersonal racism (with talking points sourced directly from the internet on black inferiority and pathology: IQ statistics, black-on-black crime, etc.) have seen a resurgence in the United States. It's almost cool to recite 19th scientific century racism now, as well to assert biological male superiority over women. Internet trolls, radicalised online, have gone offline and they walk among us ready to debate with their rehearsed talking points.

Now, does the influence of advertising have a corrupting influence on music too, not just in its production, or the choice of equipment among musicians and engineers and producers (individual tools used in isolation from other people), or its distribution, but the actual content of the music. I mean, music videos look like adverts, they employ the same tropes, there's product placement in rap lyrics (often voluntary and unpaid), and the anti-human values of commercialism are just assumed, there's a lot of poverty-shaming, and even the shaming of the ordinary, and the over-promotion of personal consumption as the saviour from shame...

Is this conscious? Or are the victims of propaganda reproducing the propaganda in their art? Is America evil or is art just imitating life?

Let me stop there...for now.

 

Last edited: Dec 1, 2018

Propaganda isn't new, advertising industry either. Well seeing your avatar you probably know to what it's related to and since when it's been going on.
Sorry for the millenials but we've been exposed to the same crap, albeit not since birth, the main difference I see resides in education.
We knew the "world before" FB and co (heck I hear some people have known a world free of internet ! I swear ! there was an vague era without it )), and had no choice but to learn how to read an entire book (wow). Until the end ! (double wow, I mean wtf, an entire book until the end !). Happens to me every week. How do you think you get as smart as I am ? Never stop reading and educating yourself outside of wikipedia and google realm.
Decent parenting is still the best armor against procrastination, you know, sometimes not getting what you want in the second, not always focusing on your own personal needs, getting heads out of individualistic a..holes. Not think that every little idea and thoughts that go through your head are unique and magnificient genius.
Also there was a strong tradition against consumerism, advertising and all this crap still a few years back, so youngsters are kind of an anomaly, with their whole acceptance of it without any kind of reservation.
It'll pass and next generations will be much smarter. We have to go to the bottom right now, and I know it's pretty painfull to watch, but it's life. You have cursed generations every now and then, then their successors learn from their mistakes and move on, forward.

 

B

But is music produced by one person, alone in his bedroom, talking about his personal wants and fantasies, posturing and aggrandizing himself ruining us in subtle ways? The loudness wars, and the streaming wars, etc...are they turning songs into ads? Remember, in TV, shows and programs were called "filler" while the adverts were called "content"...we are most definitely being marketed to and manipulated....we are being turned into an ideal audience!

 

What you say it's true. I really don't go against it, I agree.
I'm saying it's not news. MTV has always been a product placement network, selling a "way of life" that you describe pretty well.
People use to write lyrics against that type of shit specially in hip hop. Not anymore.
So why don't the young ones have any kind of resistance against it ? Again I think education (not just parenting, school system have collapsed all over the countries who had good ones, in France we've copied the american system in the last two decades, it has dramatic consequences on the minds of the youth). I think also the spirit of the time have changed, because of the end of the cold war, the end of perceived threats of alternatives to capitalism (and this part is making a come back).
Short of that (educated minds, and a critical look on the outside, on "reality" as it's presented to us), I don't think anyone can even perceive what you're describing. I mean what used to be art turn into ads and people who never were exposed to art think ads are art. It's like Plato's cave...Short of seeing the outside, you don't even know it exists. You don't know there is light out there.
But there is. It's not going anywhere. People will come out of the cave, eventualy.

 

Most all are influenced by the bombardment of incessant commercialism from cradle to the grave. There are brilliant minds using data to steer the choices of "consumers" (my oh my, how I hate, hate, hate that derogatory definition of humanity) in directions those ignorant of the majick spells foisted upon them buy into hook, line and sinker. I was recruited when 18 by a major ad firm and asked to come up with something that would enchant a segment of the population to blindly buy McDonald's burgers because of their charity work with Ronald McDonald House and so intuitively paired Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds", "Don't worry about a thing, 'Cause every little thing gonna be all right" with that clown picking up a bald child/chemo patient and holding her tight to his chest in embrace as the music played and the golden arches logo faded in to fill the screen. Nobody ever saw it because I quit 2 days afterward and close to suicide for what I almost did, my soul in turmoil, for what to me was an easy six figure money gig that would have superficially satisfied me at a base level. Thing is, there are thousands and thousands that take the money and know that it is evil to fuck with people's minds, and hundreds of thousands that are ignorant to this vile shit and are stupidly proud to do so. Music is the same on some level if you are making money with the primary reason to make money, as you will forgo artistry, rely on craft and write not from your heart but from your gonads. We are monkeys wearing pants, rally behind the alpha and blindly follow for the good of the tribe and the hell with true love, beauty and the common good...otherwise there would be no monetary system, there would already be a cure for cancer and nobody would be buying Coke.

 

Broadly? I hope so. Seems we'd all be Trump-bots if we were all about the mathematics of life (and gain) solely. At least music gives us the idea of dancing to emotional mathematics, which I hope corrupts us to our very souls!

As far as "commercial corruption" goes, well I dunno. I guess we're not sell outs until someone asks us! I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't take the McDime, pretty sure that I can just potter along doing music for my own and its own sake. I don't need or want a Ferrari, who dafug does. As long as I have fresh coffee; I just wanna get better at playing and be able to not fall over stuff so often, pretty modest goals!

 

Last edited: Dec 1, 2018

There is one simple cycle that explains what is stated above quite well. Most people have a huge feeling of dissatisfaction inside themselves. They cease to feel alive. Through this complex they adopt a necessity for products and consumption. They HAVE to buy things to sustain the NUMBNESS of their perceived reality. Cause they feel like they couldn't deal with the real one. But most people are not even aware of that.

There are not aware of how they CONSUME music either. Music can be a tool to numb. But indeed, so it can be a tool to experience life in its most simple and beautiful form. The expression of a musician, who plays without hesitation, never questioning wether what he is doing is "wrong" or should be changed in any way is only one example. And there are many others.

Our society is build upon systems of control. And it undoubtedly appears that some of our music is supporting these systems.

 

it really could! someone use microphones in very creative ways. I suggest an SM58 like mic if you want to try, best to avoid large diaphragm microphones...

 

?

 

HUH?!?

 

Even deeper, your topic reminds me of what happened to Judas Priest in 1985...

WHEN TWO JUDAS PRIEST FANS ATTEMPTED SUICIDE, AND PARENTS BLAMED THE LYRICS

On Dec. 23, 1985, in a series of tragic events that ultimately ended in a pair of deaths and an expensive, sensationalist trial, a pair of Nevada men ended a night of drinking, drugs and listening to music by heading to a local playground and shooting themselves.

Searching for answers in their grief, the families of the boys -- 18-year-old Raymond Belknap, who died at the scene, and 20-year-old James Vance, who maimed himself in the incident and survived for another three years -- filed a lawsuit alleging that Belknap and Vance were driven to their desperate acts by subliminal messages hidden in Judas Priest's Stained Class album. Roughly five years after the incident, the members of the band found themselves in court defending their music in a case that, along with the legal woes suffered by the members of 2 Live Crew the same year, gave voice to the concerns of many parents worried about rock and rap artists' lyrics.


The legal protection of lyrics as free speech had already been tested (perhaps most notably during a roughly concurrent trial accusing Ozzy Osbourne of driving a fan to suicide with his song "Suicide Solution"), but the Priest case proceeded thanks to a legal twist: Without commenting on whether or not the songs in question actually included subliminal messages, the presiding judge ruled that so-called "subliminals" don't constitute actual speech -- and are therefore not protected by the First Amendment.

"I don't know what subliminals are, but I do know there's nothing like that in this music," band manager Bill Curbishley complained before the trial. "If we were going to do that, I'd be saying, 'Buy seven copies,' not telling a couple of screwed-up kids to kill themselves."

That rather compelling argument notwithstanding, the case proceeded to trial, with the plaintiffs' attorney penning an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times that called the alleged messages (which were said to include the phrases "let's be dead" and "do it") an "invasion of privacy" and quoted Jimi Hendrix as saying, "You can hypnotize people with music and when they get at their weakest point, you can preach into their subconscious minds what you want to say."

That Hendrix quote has elsewhere been attributed to Charles Manson's brother Eddy, and the lawyer's apparent misquote seems to reflect an overall loose approach to substantiating its claims. In an article for the Skeptical Inquirer, Dr. Timothy E. Moore -- who served as a witness for the defense -- rather drolly recalled one of the prosecution's experts by suggesting, "It is possible that he undermined his own credibility with the court by opining that subliminal messages could be found on Ritz crackers, the Sistine Chapel, Sears catalogues, and the NBC evening news. He also asserted that 'science is pretty much what you can get away with at any point in time.'"

In fact, the band's management coordinator Jayne Andrews later incredulously noted that the plaintiffs had at first planned to hinge their case on lyrics from the album -- lyrics that didn't exist. "It was originally about the track ‘Heroes End,'" Andrews recalled. "They tried to say the band were saying you could only be a hero if you killed yourself, till I had to give them the correct lyrics which is ‘why do heroes have to die?’… Then they changed their plea to subliminal messages on the album!"

Guitarist Glenn Tipton later conceded, "It’s a fact that if you play speech backwards, some of it will seem to make sense. So, I asked permission to go into a studio and find some perfectly innocent phonetic flukes. The lawyers didn’t want to do it, but I insisted. We bought a copy of the Stained Class album in a local record shop, went into the studio, recorded it to tape, turned it over and played it backwards. Right away we found ‘Hey ma, my chair’s broken’ and ‘Give me a peppermint’ and ‘Help me keep a job.'"

More damning was testimony from Vance himself, who told attorneys that he and Belknap were listening to Judas Priest when "all of a sudden we got a suicide message, and we got tired of life." In a letter to Belknap's mother, he later wrote, "I believe that alcohol and heavy-metal music such as Judas Priest led us to be mesmerized." The Belknaps' attorney argued that "Judas Priest and CBS pander this stuff to alienated teenagers. The members of the chess club, the math and science majors don't listen to this stuff. It's the dropouts, the drug and alcohol abusers. So, our argument is you have a duty to be more cautious when you're dealing with a population susceptible to this stuff."

The label's lawyers didn't try to deny that Vance and Belknap led what they deemed "sad and miserable lives" -- but they pointed the finger at the boys' overall environment, upbringing, and life choices, going over how difficult it had been for both men to hold steady jobs or stay out of trouble with the law. The defense also attacked what White referred to as "junk science" in his article, with attorney Suellen Fulstone arguing, "The courtroom is no place for reveries about the unknown capacity of the human mind."

Despite the apparently flimsy nature of the case, the trial went on for more than a month. "We had to sit in this courtroom in Reno for six weeks," singer Rob Halford would subsequently lament. "It was like Disney World. We had no idea what a subliminal message was – it was just a combination of some weird guitar sounds, and the way I exhaled between lyrics. I had to sing ‘Better by You, Better Than Me’ in court, a cappella. I think that was when the judge thought, ‘What am I doing here? No band goes out of its way to kill its fans.'"

While the case was ultimately dismissed, Judge Whitehead was apparently not quite as charitable in his view as Halford would have liked to believe. Whitehead's final ruling, in fact, determined that there were "subliminals" on the album, noting that the messages the plaintiffs argued had been buried in the mix were "only discernible after their location had been identified and after the sounds were isolated and amplified. The sounds would not be consciously discernible to the ordinary listener under normal listening conditions."

What truly mattered in the judge's view, however, was the question of whether subliminal messages could be used to make a person kill themselves. Noting that both of the deceased had been heightened suicide risks, Whitehead then argued, "The scientific research presented does not establish that subliminal stimuli, even if perceived, may precipitate conduct of this magnitude. ... [T]he strongest evidence presented at the trial showed no behavioral effects other than anxiety, distress or tension."

Ultimately, while Judas Priest and CBS Records avoided legal responsibility for the deaths, nobody really got what they wanted from the case -- not the plaintiffs, who were unable to blame outside influences on a family tragedy, and not the defendants, who left the trial under a cloud of suspicion regarding "subliminals." "It tore us up emotionally hearing someone say to the judge and the cameras that this is a band that creates music that kills young people," Halford later admitted later. "We accept that some people don’t like heavy metal, but we can’t let them convince us that it’s negative and destructive. Heavy metal is a friend that gives people great pleasure and enjoyment and helps them through hard times."

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/judas-priest-suicide/

 

The whole system itself is so corrupt on so many levels that all we can do is improve things locally and wait for the evil empire to crumble.....so dont work for it, give it money or buy into it. The food is corrupted, the clothes are made on slave wages, industry pays fines rather than clean up pollution.
It's a big ask, to drop out of the system as you can't really escape or beat it but you can feed it less by trying to live in a low impact way, stop buying branded shit u dont need...
So yeah, the whole adveristing/product/pop music thing is corrupting, but it's up to us to try and make something from our hearts, share good information and help others to see outside the illusion by the example of our choices.

 

I once read an article about this subject, it was about the spreading of gangsta rap in an economically poor region of a city. The woman described how her neighbourhood transformed from a simple, active community where life was hard but tolerable, into a violent place of drug dealing, pimping and drive-bye shootings in about 10 to 15 years after the prevalence of gangsta rap among the neighbourhood's youth. The problem, as I remember her describing it was that young black people, sensing the economic disparities between whites and blacks, began taking the lyrics as truths. While there really is some truth in the general theme and message of the music, people do still get to decide how hard they are willing to work for improving their lives, but once young people have instilled in themselves a belief it is very hard to get rid of it later in life so they don't even try and just accept that life is unjust and that they will never have it better than white people, which is one of the main subjects of gangsta rap from that era if I understand it correctly. Once a belief spreads, it will gather like minded individuals, which will lead to gangs being formed around that catalyst which was perhaps originally some dude trying to convey his feelings of injustice done to him as a youth or maybe he wrote the lyrics just to get the attention of the focus group consuming it. It's a problem of the chicken or the egg. I however contend that people don't generally get ideas of actions and complex cultural situations on their own and they have to come from outside of themselves, such as music. If a person lives their whole life in a cabin in the woods and it's immediate surroundings with their parents and also dies there, I very much doubt they could develop a need or want for a prettier house or a fancy car like the rich guy on the other side of town. I believe that most of our needs (excluding physiological ones) and wants have been instilled in us from birth and every single day we are blasted with ads, slogans, commercials, music, movies, series, comic books, foods, hygiene products and on and on that reinforce those needs and wants, and the sinister side-effect is the silencing of our inner instincts. There is no doubting that the world is a business, most activities people are engaged in every work day revolves around money and the music industry is no exception. Look at music videos for an hour, there might be 5 or 6 videos with out any sexual content in it, I went to a kid's 2nd birthday a week ago and the TV was on an endless stream of music videos the whole time and I just watched the kid watching the screen when the most revealing parts were on, mesmerized. And I'm pretty sure this is at least a weekly theme, bombarding a 2 year old neural information sponge with content like that will have an effect. Since the mother is my SO's BFF I'm going to see my melancholic prophecy to fruition, I'm sure of that. So to answer your question, yes, yes it can.

 

it was just an ironic speculation about moral and how to corrupt it. I should admit was quite low level

 

I think that you have inverted causality: at the peak of ghetto criminality in the United States--beginning in the 60's and ending in the 70's--you had the sweetest, most melodic, warm and loving soul music about love and solidarity and all that good stuff. Ironically, it was when crime rates were declining in the late 80's and early 90's that there was a surge in gangster rap! Also, the obsession with crime in American entertainment wasn't introduced by gangsta rap--it's an American tradition (think of the Jesse James gang as akin to the Hoover Crips)!

In the 80's, the Reaganites, statist-reactionary Republi-thugs went on an assault against social programs that benefited the public including school lunches and music programs in schools. These were seen as "costs" in the economic model and had to be cut ...famously, tomato sauce was declared a vegetable and dished out to ghetto kids in school as part of their daily caloric intake...a lot of kids who went on to be great musicians had gotten their start in music programs in school which Reagan cut...with no instruments kids resorted to scratching their parents' turntables and beatboxing...and rhyming outdoors...in the parks...and thus rap was born...you know the rest

There's actually a negative correlation between the celebration of outlaws and the glorification of crime in music and actual criminality.

 

Just about the greatest musician, poet activist and kind soul, hopefully to be remembered for centuries far into the future...Curtis Mayfield, RIP.

 

The music that can be used in a negative way as a tool or weapon against others can be either from pre existing material or specially created.
''morality'' is a term I find ambiguous. You could have an obscene person save your life, or someone who doesn't follow the ten commandments. In the end, none of it is my business unless someone makes it my business. A ''moral'' person is someone who knows what boundaries not to cross. That's part of basic survival.

Real ''immorality'' is someone who thinks they have the right to attempt at your life, family or livelihood for no other reason than to plunder, con, profit, attack or kill. These kinds of people are the most ''anti-social'' ones, regardless of their ''supposed'' morals. It can be very misleading. Don't trust what a person says, check what they do. ''immoral'' is also someone willing to kill you because of different beliefs. Remember, what a person belives or says is not supposed to be the determining factor. Same for cultural background. If you impose on others, that's ''immoral''. The most important is how a person behaves in those respects.

Corruption, is not only in politics, it can also be the result of undermining the general population, by breaking down the body, the mind, the values...some of it seems to be the consequences of bad policies, and for other things, it seems to be engineered, who knows, but is it a coincidence that so many things that are ''health eroding'' and lead to diseases and deaths are a source of profit for some?
Despite all the great variety of music that exists, some good, some bad, in the end, it also depends on each person. Since we're all alive talking about it now means we survived a couple of generations of being influenced big time.So I wouldn't worry about it, I'd be more worried about having the ''morals'' to know what's dangerous and the capability to choose what's fine for me. Stay informed.
The term ''corrupt morals'' sounds like propaganda top me.

 

Last edited: Dec 1, 2018

Can music corrupt your morals? Of course. Yes. Ponder for a second the role or job of the artist. Isn't it to make the audience 'think'. The artist wants an emotional reaction to his art. The emotional reaction comes from a thought. We change our minds all the time, sometimes by outside stimulus and sometimes from within. Is having your mind changed necessarily corrupt? If you change or adapt your morals, it can also be for the better. This is not corruption. Some souls incarnated at this time for the horrible experiences of eating unhealthily, poisoning themsleves with drugs and adopting hateful attitudes. These times are perfect for those experiences. Who is anyone to deny them those experiences. You can eat Mcd, drink heavily and develop diseases. It's your choice. Some are easily influenced, but then they chose to incarnate into certain people knowing the liklihood of addiction and so on. Let us experience these dark days, so that we can better appreciate the light when we choose to turn in that direction, as a society, as a world consciousness. It's so clear that we live in times when a majority of people are hapily recruited to the many corruptions on offer. Adddictions orf all sorts are extremely high, and so are the associated diseases. It would be logical to assume that we wanted to experience this. We will eventually reject it. I believe that we will. There has already been a global discussion since the 1960s about how we need to change our ways. Music reflected that desire for peace, an end to all wars and a newly discovered love for the Earth during the first decades of that discussion. We were pulled back again. Music may not be the best vehicle for change. The Youth may not be be the best vehicle for change, since they clearly rule nothing and have no means to effect change. No, change will come from the older generations. Those who have the power and connections. Let's see.

 

I also asked:

"Is this conscious? Or are the victims of propaganda reproducing the propaganda in their art? Is America evil or is art just imitating life?"

Are we being consciously manipulated? Okay, we know that songs are now extremely loud (similar to adverts) and extremely short (for repeated streams) and they all appeal to aspiration...

 

The answer, at least for me, is yes. I am one corrupt mutha...........and enjoying every minute of it !!

Then again, maybe it wasn't the music.........it was just an innocent bystander in the process.