Rock Music Essay

Rock and Roll and the Rocks and Rollers

Everyone has a favorite type of music. Many people follow music closely and have unique tastes. Some people find genres and mixes of genres that they like. People find other people who share these musical interests. People who immerse themselves in a genre or performer find the live performance particularly meaningful and seek out those artists in concert. Music concerts are some of the biggest and most attended events in our modern culture. These are venues where people come together and express themselves through movement and sound. Individuals transcend their everyday experience, connecting to the performers and each other. The experience of the performance and the energy around you is addictive. It’s almost religious. The desire to return to that “mountain top” is powerful. And for how powerful it is to the crowd, it is so much more invigorating for the performers up on stage doing what they love. What if the high just isn’t there the next time? What if a tolerance starts to build up? That’s when many begin to add narcotics into the experience, to rebirth that feeling. Music has been a vital part of culture, and drugs have always been involved in and around both music and culture, effecting the music and the youth listening to it.
In the modern era, one of the first big movements in music was jazz. Jazz was an evolution of music that brought together traditional European harmonies with blue notes and improvisation which are usually associated with traditional African music. This music, in its earliest and most basic form, was played and began to become personalized all over the world. However, there are places in the United States that are generally considered the ...

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...re. The positive and negative effects are so drastic and large that it is hard to comprehend just how much we owe to the habits of musicians past. Some argue that that part is a positive thing and that drugs are a good thing for creativity and therefore music, many argue that the part it plays takes a toll. Many famous performers have fallen victim to drugs and died premature deaths from related accidents. Amy Winehouse, a famous solo recording artist, who was famous for making music while under the influence, found dead of overdose. She was perhaps most famous for the honesty she had about her addictions in her songs. Another great musician, Jim Morrissey, also was found dead of overdose. As were many icons of music; Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Moon, John Bonham. All these were a direct result of the drug and music culture that they were a part of.