As a hit song once noted, parents just don`t understand.
That idea has become a rallying point for some teenagers as they see several things happening this year: a freak-out over rapper Ice-T`s ”Cop Killer” song; the arrests of fans for dancing too aggressively at a Lollapallooza show in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.; the re-emergence of Tipper Gore (now as a possible second lady); the new Washington-state law making albums with explicit language illegal for purchase by minors; and, as of last week, a resolution in suburban Lake Forest opposing the distribution of offensive or violent music to young adults.
Groups like the Parents Music Resources Center (PMRC), conservative talk- show hosts and some religious groups blame music for all that is wrong with teenagers today.
For example, two books, one by Denver talk show host Bob Larson-”
Satanism: The Seduction of American`s Youth,” and ”Painted Black” by University of Denver religion professor Dr. Carl Raschke-promote the idea that Ozzy Osbourne is an anti-Christ and that music should not only be toned down, it should be used to promote morality. Notes Raschke: ”Why not entertain the thought that lyrics that scream kill, mutilate, maim, torture, obliterate might actually spur someone with a deranged brain to perform precisely those acts.” He goes on to note that those with ”deranged brains” include just about anyone who would listen to heavy metal.
There are good arguments for the warning stickers that accompany some records and even some valid points to be made by groups that wish to eradicate songs like Ice T`s ”Cop Killer.” No matter who is right or wrong, the lines seem to be divided between heavy-duty music fans and those who see rock music simply as an amusement.
Part of what the parents don`t understand, according to experts and musicians, is how much more than mere entertainment rock music has become.
Dr. Donna Gaines, a New York sociologist and youth counselor, says the kids she works with find music to be one of the only redeeming things in life. To Gaines, at least, music represents something good in the lives of kids today.
”Young people have no one to turn to but each other and their scene-whether it`s heavy metal or rap or dance,” she said in a phone interview from her Long Island home.
”There`s a feeling that all adults are out to get them. Teachers, parents, bosses, shrinks are there to control them, not guide them. . . At least in the `60s, your parents sort of understood you, but it`s not like that anymore. Different kids used to be thought of as romantic rebels, now we call them psychologically damaged.”
Gaines, 41, spent several months interacting with a group of New Jersey
”burnouts” as part of her research for her recently released paperback
”Teenage Wasteland: Suburbia`s Dead End Kids.”
In those months, Gaines found that music was the central focus of the kids` lives. ”All you have to do to find out someone`s `religion` is to ask what band they think is the greatest band of all time,” she wrote. ”(That)
religion offered a worldview when nothing else made sense. Parents, the school, the town-they all had their versions of things. But kids could learn most everything they needed to know about the meaning of life from their friends, their scene, and, most important, their bands.”
Especially in hardcore, metal and thrash music, kids feel the songs carry ”The Truth,” Gaines explains, ”a viable philosophical system which they could use to understand life.”
This sort of loyalty to an artist certainly isn`t relegated to fans of hard-rock music or to ”burnouts.”
Even kids who seem to have it all can feel alone without their guiding bands. Alternative artists such as Morrisey and The Cure have legions of fans who literally worship these idols as do the fans of rap acts like Ice Cube, pop stars like Poison and Mariah Carey or songwriters like Elvis Costello and classic rock staples like Pink Floyd and Yes.
The genres of music are different but the connection is the same. The listener feels like the artist understands them-can even read their minds and magically put those feelings down on lyric sheets and attach them to a melody. This wasn`t seen as a problem when kids were listening to songs about love or light topics. But when the themes started becoming much darker, suddenly, devotion to a band could be seen as unhealthy.
In her book, Gaines cites Metallica`s infamous song ”Fade to Black” as an example.
In more than one case of teen suicide, the departed had left, as their final words, the lyrics to the song: ”Growing darkness taking dawn, I was me, but now he`s gone.”
Gaines defends the song, calling it ”hopeful” and a ”triumph over depression” as expressed by the raging guitars that bring the song to life at the end.
Metallica tells of even another side to the debate.
”I get sick of people saying that that song drove kids to suicides,”
Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich noted in a recent interview. ”They (the song`s critics) know of those few cases where people actually died. What they don`t know of are the thousands of letters we get from kids all over the world who say `That song saved my life` or `That song made me feel like I wasn`t alone, that someone understood how I felt.` But they don`t care about that. They`re looking for someone to blame.”
Other bands, even ones that never touch on such sensitive topics, get similar letters.
Members of party-hearty bands like Slaughter and Winger have both attested to the fact that they get letters every day from kids thanking them. One teenage girl wrote to Slaughter about their song, ”Fly to the Angels,” about accepting a friend`s untimely death. ”My grandfather just died,” the girl wrote, ”and hearing that song was the only thing that comforted me.”
Many people would find these emotions extreme. But it`s part of growing up and losing perhaps the one person you feel understands you can be really devastating to some fans.
”I`ll occasionally get a letter from a young kid who says she`s going to kill herself, that she has nothing to live for,” says Kip Winger, leader of Winger. ”I guess they feel safe talking to us because they feel like they know us and that we relate to them, but yet, we are also strangers-we aren`t going to tell the whole town their secret.”
Many rockers, including Winger and Ulrich and Poison`s Bret Michaels, admit to having phoned some fans who write, hoping to give them a feeling of worth and warmth or just a thanks ”for sticking with us.”
It`s this kind of give-and-take between bands and fans that creates a safety valve for kids, giving them a mentor and someone to believe in, according to Gaines.
This devotion to a band is something many parents either didn`t have or have forgotten since their own youth, though. ”Parents turn to people like
(Tipper Gore and Christian groups) to help them understand their kids … and they don`t have a clue about how music works in kids` lives,” Gaines noted in her book. ”Then parents ask their kids questions about the music that are so embarrassing that the kids know never to expect their parents to understand anything.”
When she speaks on talk shows or to reporters now, Gaines always points out the importance of music in youths` lives. ”Some parents want to take all that away and force even more restrictions on kids,” she said. ”They just don`t understand how important it is, and how normal it is, for a kid to have his own scene. At that age and the way the world is for kids now, that`s all you really have.”
