In 1955, the link between juvenile delinquency and rock music was brought to a Senate Subcommittee to see if there even was one. It was never really proven but however, even to this day, many people see that there is a connection but with a weak amount of information.
Jeff Buckley, a musician born in California in 1966 was a healthy and clean man; he led a drug-free life and had to live in his father’s shadow. His dad, Tim Buckley, also a musician, died at only 28 years old from an accidental alcohol and heroin overdose. This led to others believing that Jeff would follow in not only the musical, but drug-abusing footsteps of his father.
A study shows that in rock stars, only 40 out of 321 musicians’ deaths were from drug overdoses.
Aaron Stern, of the band D.R.U.G.S. (Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows), said (about drugs and rock) “It’s gonna be there, I feel they’re synonymous with each other and music is whatever you make it. I think there’s always been a thing about rebellion in rock n’ roll that’s here to stay. If you go back to the Alice Cooper days, he was hated and he had fans because he did what he wanted and said ‘sorry, forget you’ to everybody else. And now he’s gettin’ rewards from all the people who hated him. Rock n’ roll is mostly about not caring about anything and unfortunately the drugs come in on the side because of whatever reason.”
On the same topic, Kasey Smith of Romance on a Rocketship said “I don’t think there has to be one (a correlation). I think it’s silly. If anything, I think it dumbs down the music. It makes it less credible.”
“Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine studied the 279 most popular songs from 2005, based on reports from Billboard magazine, which tracks popular music. Whether a song contained a reference to drugs or alcohol varied by genre. Only 9 percent of pop songs had lyrics relating to drugs or alcohol. The number jumped to 14 percent for rock songs, 20 percent for R&B and hip-hop songs, 36 percent for country songs and 77 percent for rap songs.”
Casey Calvert of the band Hawthorne Heights died in the middle of the night from an asthma attack. However, the majority of those who heard about his death automatically assumed that it was from drug abuse simply because he was in a rock band.
We chose this topic of drug abuse correlating to rock music because we listen to mostly rock music, or offshoots of it, and it interested us that people would find a link between the two. Never once had we felt as though rock music that is so influential and inspiring could lead someone to take drugs. We conducted our research by not only going on the Internet, but asking musicians themselves. One of us being a writer for a music blog, we took the advantage of having the opportunity to ask a musician how they feel about the correlation and use it towards this project as a unique primary source. We created our project on a trifold board and selected the presentation category as we saw it as our strong suit. Instead of a performance or any other category, we thought that we could best express our ideas visually and on a board.
Editors Comment: “Please see above, Mary Magpie’s school project upon the correaltion between drugs and rock and roll. No mention of ian dury but then she is still young!