Michael Woodworth
Equinox Staff
The drug and alcohol scene exploded in the music industry during and after the Woodstock music festival in 1969. From Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” in 1967 to Kanye West’s “Mercy” in 2012, drugs have seemingly become more and more prominent in lyric writing.
Musicians today such as West, Wiz Khalifa, Lil’ Wayne and many others have jumped to stardom with their most popular songs referencing drugs and alcohol.
The term “Yolo – You Only Live Once” was coined in Drake’s song “The Motto,” featuring Lil’ Wayne, and we all saw how much that term resonated with teenagers and young adults in the country.
Emma Contic / Graphics Editor
In the song, Drake references smoking weed and drinking heavily. With more and more of these references popping up in rap and R&B songs today, the youth of the country may be taking in the wrong message.
With “Yolo,” teenagers are using it as an excuse to party and get wasted. ‘You only live once, so why not live it up in the moment’ they would say.
I’m not in the minds of the artists who are writing these lyrics, so I may be wrong, but what it looks like is that they are giving off the greatest impressions to the demographic that are meant to listen to it.
There could be a deeper meaning behind all of the drinking and drug use references, but on the surface, it is basically saying to go out and party and have a good time like the artists are.
So, the question becomes, is the younger generation taking these songs too literally and using them as inspiration to live life to the “fullest?”
“Those guys are perceived as cool in a lot of cultures,” said Alex Conway, a performance major at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. “If they are talking about doing a lot of drugs, you are going to want to do drugs.”
Underage drinking and teenage drug use has been somewhat of a problem in the United States. Whether it’s sixteen or seventeen-year-olds looking to have a good Friday night, or college students doing it to “be cool,” music today is pushing them in the wrong direction.
At Keene State, we see the ambulance all too often rushing onto campus to pick up a student with alcohol poisoning. You can look at the Campus Safety log here in the Equinox and see a good amount of marijuana use violations every single week.
The main listenership of these artists are at the age where they rely on role models and influential people in their lives to steer their them in the right direction, and artists and musicians are usually sitting at the top of the list.
I admit, I have relied on a band to help me get through rough times in my life, but sometimes they may the wrong person to listen to.
Middle and high schoolers are at the age where they are all about finding identity, and these kids are looking to people such as Lil’ Wayne and Wiz Khalifa to spark who they think they should be.
“I think that drugs and alcohol have become a gimmick for the typical mainstream artist to abuse in order to hit a familiar chord with their fans,” said sophomore and communications major Dan Aune.
“It’s detrimental not only to the state of modern music, but to the youth that look up to these people too.”
Some artists out there, though, utilize their own personal struggles with drugs and alcohol to send a positive message to their fans.
Bands such as Sleeping with Sirens and Memphis May Fire use their personal hardships with these substances in a way to tell their fans to stay away.
Granted, these bands are seen in the punk or hardcore area of music, but the fans of those genres take those lyrics to heart as inspiration.
So, in the end, half of the struggle with drugs and alcohol being referenced in today’s music is about the message that these artists are trying to convey.
To reiterate, the other half is how the fans and the listeners take away the message.
It is ultimately up to us to decide what we want to do with our lives and maybe taking some of the songs of these artists as inspirational is not the right idea.
Michael Woothworth can be contacted at
mwoodworth@keene-equinox.com