Not everyone who listens to music with a lot of negative lyrics will kill themselves or kill others. There will be some people who will, however. It would be the same with a song about a person who gave away all of his money and belongings and moved to Calcutta, India to help people who lived in the slums (an overcrowded house). Not everyone who listened to that song would follow the example in the song. However, there might be a number of people who listened to the song who could be "touched", even slightly, by the message in the song.

My belief is that you are growing up in a time where much of the music that you hear around you is more negative than it is positive. That would explain why so many of the lyrics in the songs in your collection are negative. I cannot in the least blame you. This is the music you are growing up with. This is what other people have to offer you.

How can music effect a teenager's life?

Music can help a person experience any number of different feelings: sadness, joy, anger, frustration, love, and hatred. A person might listen to an angry song, and it could possibly put in them an anger that was not noticed by them before. Depending on who you are, this could be a good thing or not so good. Perhaps the person needed to uncover that anger, could understand it. Then again, another person could just become more and more angry. People strongly believe that this is why we have seen so many stories on the news where teenagers are killing teenagers at their schools. You can't just blame the music, because not every teenager would do the same thing. This is the extreme situation. But if the music these unfortunate teenage killers are listening to has a strong emotion and message of violence and hatred, and these people allow themselves to fully experience that message and emotion, then whatever violence and hatred they have developed already in their lives, perhaps because they have been mistreated, will be increased.

All I can say is that for whatever reason, there are many teenagers who are involved with music that is slightly, or even heavily, negative in nature, both the lyrics and the vibration of the music itself. The music does have an effect, and there is a reason why there is so much negative music now. People don't believe this is a good thing. But nevertheless, it is the way that it is. What older people would like to accomplish is to help teenagers; 1) realize that a lot of the music today is negative in nature.

Perhaps you could help me out here. What effect have you become aware of that the music, that you listen to, has on you? I would appreciate your comments. What kinds of feelings do you get from it and do you get certain feelings from one kind and other feelings from another? By "feelings" I mean, when you listen to particular songs, or particular types of music do you notice that you feel a certain way? And what kind of feelings are these? You can contact us on; teenagemusic151@hotmail.com Here is one email from a particular person who wants to keep herself anonymous;

Hello! I'm doing an Research paper. I've been listening to music since I was 9 years old. Throughout my preteen age and teen age, my music style changed. I was into Rap first, then to pop, techno, and now I'm into a lot of Heavy Metal, Jazz, and Punk. People said that most of my CD collections have a lot of negative lyrics. I know they do but I'm a not a crazy teen who will suicide herself because the song said it. That's crazy. I mean I go to church, and people think I'm an atheist (someone who believes that there is no god) because I listen to loud music, but I don't worship the devil or those stupid things. But there is a question that I have always asked myself:

How can music effect a teenager's life?