Re: [bomp] Neil Young Admits Music Can't Change World

["Blair B" <blairb@xxxxxxx>]

> Permit me to disagree with Mr. Young.  As an art form, music certainly can
> have the potential to change the world, but only in combination with other
> forces and only in an indirect, organic way that may take years, if not
> decades.  In addition, the change is often not what the composers and
> musicians themselves intended.

I agree with you.   I wonder, however, if what Neil Young is really getting 
at is that music isn't as all-important to the listeners as it was, say, 40 
years ago.  At a certain point, music was such a huge focus for so many kids 
that it had a huge amount of power to influence their thinking.  Now, other 
forms of entertainment vie for people's attention.  Example:  Cell phones, 
IMing, texting, YouTube, Facebook (trust me, most of my high school students 
no longer bother with MySpace), and games, to name a few.  These things did 
not exist at that point in time.  So while music is still all-important to a 
few kids, it's only part of what influences them.

It could also be argued that popular music is still a force in changing the 
world, through what the artists portray in song and in their lives.  It can 
also be argued that those haven't all been positive contributions. 

===> To unsubscribe, send "unsubscribe bomp" to majordomo@xnet2.com <===