Popular music affects today’s society as in part due to musicians rising up to speak out for the events happening across the world. Some popular songs have resounded the agenda that numerous people have adopted and further developed new opinions that have revitalize people’s perspective on reality. The view of the general public is that chaotic and terrible things and events are happening across the world and notable and famous artists/musicians have taken up the opportunities to speak and voice them out for the world to hear and try to make a change about them. Popular culture came to be popular because of things going viral and people talking and reacting to said things like the mass shootings across America, homophobia among countries, celebrities saying anything about themselves or others due to the freedom of speech and press, etc.; this kind of culture is expressed and heard around the world, music shines a light into the new perspectives that can be adopted for others to follow. 

Popular music has influenced today’s society and even in the past, which has led to more and more people listening and understanding the messages that are being conveyed by these musicians. Current popular songs, as of this year, are relating to the brutality of reality and discrimination among many minorities; examples being “Alright” by Kendrick Lamar and “1-800-273-8255” song by Logic, Alessia Cara, and Khalid which respectively addressed the discrimination of African-Americans within the United States and suicide awareness. This kind of culture has a majority, if not everyone, wondering the how and why these issues and events are happening in this world; questions such as how did the American voting process chose Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton? Why is police brutality happening? and why is there not enough attention towards mental health? Awareness for the events around the world are being centered in America due to the rise of outrage and explosion of looking for the causes and the future effects of these events. 

Social media was a catalyst for the current situations and empowering positive and negative effects of society. That kind of media is being overused and mishandled by numerous amounts of people who will either use it positively, negatively, or both. Award show and concert performances such as the Super Bowl 50 halftime show and the Grammy’s for the past few years show and express controversy and a voice for some movements and awareness because social media and the platforms that spreads it outward to others. This platform expresses the widespread idea that anybody has a voice, even if it is negative, makes a person’s idea easier to be seen by others. Popular music is spread throughout popular platforms in order to get their message across. 

Countering my argument is not “why music does not affect society?” but it is more towards “does society affect music?” where the former question does not have evidence to back it unlike the latter. Society could have influenced music but in reality, it is the other way around as society keeps going on which lets music continue as well as the musicians. Musicians start with their craft and maybe their life experiences to take hold of what feels good to bring to the words of their songs.  

Music’s impact on Society; music impacts society where the people want to be heard by their nations and other people to bring issues into the eyes of the public. Society is currently having the issue or issues of having their secret or now not so secret issues that are being explored by music and the musicians that have wrote or sang them. Music brings out the emotions in people whether you are an extrovert or introvert, it becomes a part of our lives as it has been for most of human history. When society gets a new popular song to enjoy, we as people take in that song and analyze that as a god-send.

The effect of music and its lyrics and videos to figure out what ticks off children and what happens when they are exposed to these types of platforms. Music videos have the ability to persuade and/or illusion what is portrayed to children and youth because of their explicit or unreal expectations of people in America and across the world.

Discussing that music has affected the mind and brains of people who have listened to it as music affects humans in a different way than it does with animals among their native languages as it is descried here “no other species has yet shown the subtleties of syntax that give human languages their power.” The next clarification by the article is this quote “there is, however, another sonic medium that might be thought uniquely human, and that is music,” where music is a different skill or language than what animals do to communicate with each other of the same species. The article does not explain why music is affecting the brain as even the authors and whoever were conducting the cited studies as they concluded in this article with “so, while evolution should certainly build a fine, discriminating faculty for musical criticism into people, it is still unclear why particular combinations of noise should affect the emotions so profoundly.” The body and the mind has expressed emotions when listening to different songs but they were not able to tell about the different pitches in those songs. 

African-American music has had an effect on American literature and the way Americans have interacted with African-Americans since the 1920s especially white Americans who were intrigued by their musical skills but at the same time were thinking that they are primitive. Due to the racist views that were still prevalent back in those days, white elitists would hire African American jazz musicians to be inspired and fascinated with their skills despite being the inferior race, in the eyes of discrimination. The newly found jazz music age comes in the time of the Roaring Twenties where the U.S.’s economy was booming, new musical talents were rising in the market, and peace coming out of WWI’s outcome. Tracy’s book explains that African-American music during the Roaring Twenties seeped into the American culture along with their music and literature in those times. By the way that people were looking at them in a different light, they still took a few steps back by persecuting African-Americans along with their “exotic” music. Their music came at a time where everything was positive except for some for the music, that music expressing their “blues” about their situations and their lifestyles that are being discriminated.

Loud music can influence a person because of the abilities to go to concerts, sometimes with big and loud speakers, and having headphones and headsets that have the volume control. With loud music, people will act more aggressive and bolder which can lead to situations such as political rallies with various types of music such as loud leading to boldness and calming songs relaxing the crowd. Society today has an all-access view of music whether it is loud or quiet as headphones are becoming more and more popular with more and more songs coming out to keep up the demand for music and its listeners.

There are algorithms which has correlated the similarities and the differences between songs that reached the billboards top 100 for the past few decades and trying to figure out what makes popular songs popular. Math is involved in the process such that math is involved with ratings of tv, video games, etc., their algorithms have shown that many songs throughout the years have similar pitches and tones to be able to have copyright problems.

How American music has changed European society; many instances or theories where Americans have changed European society. These theories could be that after the American revolution, Europeans were creating songs about freedoms and overcoming tyranny; when the roaring twenties happened, many nations were booming and the lure of jazz music which has made some of the musicians in the European music society make some adjustments to their playing styles to complement what they have learned from the rising American artists.

American culture and awe about japan being seeped into the Japanese interwar music which was in the 1920s; America’s exoticism of Japan and its culture brought the Japanese musicians to take that inspiration to make an image of them and about their country, or nation. Outside views from other places could affect what you, yourself as a nation, can affect your society which this idea is basically the same as a person being self-conscious about their image. When some of these songs were recorded and released to the public, they were meant to be aspiring about the Japanese environment where it has a sense of awe and beauty that needs to be heard and looked at by others. Japan is the total opposite of the United States back in these times where they are in the Roaring Twenties: Japan was completely isolated for a long period of time before WWI and the United States was somewhat isolationist in their policies; Japan was more like a tourist destination than the states; Japan was more involved in the last war than the United States; and the United States was actually involved in the Treaty of Versailles to get the spoils of war from the losers unlike Japan who were not even considered despite losing more lives and supplies than the United States.

Society is influenced by music in ways more ways than one, as the agenda of the public change depending on the situations within that year or decade; with each generation having their own stamp, it also comes with their type of music as the 1980s had rock & roll plus the musical geniuses of Michael Jackson and Prince, in the United States which became so popular that other countries from around the world wanted to hear them and become fans. Music has been with humans for all of life but it is not able to be comprehended like it is in today’s time, once humans were actually creating that would-be music which would led to more and more things happening that became music for everyone to try to listen to. Music 

Popular music has influenced today’s society, especially in the United States. Music is being televised throughout many platforms to showcase what viewers want as well as what the musicians want to do. What lies ahead for today’s society depends on us and the people to make the best of what we can do and must do in order for messages, events, and issues to be affected. Society is affected by music in more ways than previously back before the 2000s due to the rise of the internet and social media. Popular culture has led music to new heights as more and more information is being sent throughout the world. For what feels like ages, is actually only decades as people have innovated and designed up more ideas for the future and to make our current situations even better than previously thought of. In conclusion, popular music has affected today’s society in the way for which no one knew where it was going to go but there is one thing that is certain, music has a way with words and especially with people because people are still going to listen to popular songs whether they are good or not due to medias and the medias on which we listen and/or watch on.
