The Effect of Drugs on the Rock and Roll Culture free essay sample

While drugs may have helped great works of art to be enjoyed by many, drugs are ultimately responsible for many untimely deaths of many great artists, who died before we could truly see their potential. The sass were an era unlike any other in American history both culturally and politically. Many new changes were being made at this time in our government, and with several tragic events occurring in what seemed to be a series of events (the assassination of JEFF, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jar. And Vietnam), the styles of music during this time often reflected the motions of people. The lyrics of the music of the time were changing from simple love songs, to harsh songs about topics such as rebellion, protest, sex, and more increasingly, drugs. As psychedelic drugs became more and more popular in America, bands such as the Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead saw an immense increase in their number of fans, due to large amounts of people who had an affinity for this new, jam rock style of music which was very popular with the psychedelic drug scene (American Culture: 1960-1969). Many artists at the time were coming out with albums dedicated o drugs, or albums whose content was about drugs. One such album was The Beetles SST. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, which, in addition to including drug-oriented songs, presented a body of interrelated pieces that constituted an organic whole. This is considered the first concept album. In a concept album, all songs contribute to a single effect or unified story.The Beetles album was often considered to have been the first concept album, primarily because the title song occurring in two versions, wraps around the rest of the album like bookends; however, most of the songs on that album re actually unrelated to one another (Rock Music: The late 1 sass and sasss: rocks golden age). These new concept albums would come to dominate music over the next 10-15 years, as many new artists came to surface with music that mixed with drugs, and often provided fatal results.During the sass and sass, the influence of drugs in musical culture was at its peak. Woodstock; a three-day public concert that became notorious worldwide as a concert protesting the Vietnam War, was heavily saturated with drug usage. During this time period, some of the most gifted musicians f the last 50 years died to drug related problems. Those who were not dead by drug overdose, such as David Bowie and Alice Cooper became more popular due to their increasingly bizarre and drug fueled stage antics. Artists at the time had been in tune to the restlessness of American college students, their primary audience, and had used their audiences willingness to accept new ideas and new things as a way of promoting the rock and roll lifestyle of free love, new music, and of course, drugs. Many great musical masterpieces were produced during this time, as concept albums, such as The Whos Tommy, and Pink Floods The Dark Side of the Moon.Both of these albums proved to be wildly popular to both the bands fan following as well as the mainstream public, as rock music and drug usage seemed to blend together, and were becoming more accepted by the public as the norm (Tomorrow Never Knows: Rock Music Psychedelics in the 1 sass). Although everything so far seems alright; things take a turn for the worse. It unfortunately took a few tragic deaths to derail the change in public opinion that was happening at this time.The deaths of superstars such as Janis Joplin (a famous and aliened singer who was a star at Woodstock, died of a heroin overdose), Jim Morrison (lead singer Of The Doors, died after a heart attack brought On by drug abuse), and Jim Hendrix (considered to be one of, if not, the greatest guitarist of all time, death by choking after barbiturate abuse), brought a shock to the music culture, as seemingly more and more musicians were dying due to the abuse of drugs, day after day.It seemed as if the music and drug cultures were slowly drifting away from each other and out of the mainstream spotlight, until the 1 sass when several ewe deaths involving musicians and drugs came into the limelight. Kurt Cabin considered by many to be the most talented musician of the last 15 years, committed suicide by shotgun, after using extremely high amounts of heroin. This event came as a shock to almost everyone not only in the music and drug worlds, but everywhere because Nirvana (Cabins band) was becoming internationally known, partially the reason for Cabins suicide.Heroin was an inspiration for Cabin, and while it may have helped him to produce his music, it ultimately lead him into the pitfalls of depression and caused the death of a great musician, and the breakup of an excellent, growing, young band with limitless possibilities. Another death that occurred in the 1 adds due to drug overdose was Bradley Newell, the lead singer of popular southern California band Sublime, who died of a heroin overdose.Sublime was another band with great possibilities to become a lasting force in the music industry, however, Newell decided to destroy himself and his family by forming a deadly habit. Many of the deaths that occurred in the sass concerning drugs and rock and roll were mostly in the sass, a result of oppression and heroin abuse, as heroin usage became increasingly popular with the mid-ass grunge movement, and more and more musicians starting to do it. The 1 sass and 1 sass were both eras of change and protest, just in a different light. The sass were an era of psychedelic drug usage, where musicians were outgoing, and held jam fests and large outdoor festival concerts, where the usage of drugs was permitted and most often encouraged. In the sass, music fans and musicians were using drugs as a way of protest and inspiration; however, the sass were a different case. In he sass, musicians often kept to themselves, as most deaths were due to a lethal mix of depression and previous mental problems and the addiction to dangerous street drugs such as heroin and cocaine (Sex, Drugs N Rock Roll? Nah).While the sass were an era of freedom, where individuals were encouraged to express themselves and live freely, the 1 sass and following were an era of oppression, where everyone was put together as one big piece, and in order for people to break free from this piece and establish themselves, they must do something groundbreaking or different than what is typically expected. Music and drugs have always been intertwined; however , this relationship has differed over time due to changes in the cultural and political atmosphere Of the area during the time where sad music was created.