I wasn't talking about me Jeff. I've been digging through crates of discarded promo cassettes and sending off for photocopied catalogs from the back pages of Maximum Rock N' Roll since I was a kid. For me, it's an established fact that if you want good music, you're going to have to look for it. The point I was making is that it's not 'music' that's causing these problems because teenagers rarely buy music - they buy lifestyle accessories, and a lifestyle accessory has to have a definable and highly visible meaning to function as such. The CDs they buy and the videos they watch are lifestyle accessories. The music is secondary (or worse) to what the consumption of the product says about their identity (based on the signs associated with it in popular media). And if the products seem base and unsophisticated it's because the market developed to cater to base and unsophisticated - teenage - tastes. There is a great deal more expendable income among teenagers now, and most of that income goes toward lifestyle/identity accessories. (an obvious example: suburban kids buying rap albums, spending wads of money on expensive clothing endorsed by rappers. Or teenage girls The 'music' is not as important as the lifestyle/identity it conveys to others - and the music is just a small component of a complete package of consumer items that all provide the purchaser with an instantly recognizable image/identity). It's not the fault of 'music' - because there's no music involved except as a background soundtrack to the imaginary lifestyle a teenager can afford to buy the signs and symbols of. These kids aren't being influenced by listening to music, they're being influenced by consuming products in the hope of purchasing an instantly recognizable identity. Most are satisfied by simply decorating themselves with the signs of a particular lifestyle, but others pursue the identity beyond the exchange of signs and into actions. Sexual music has been around a very long time. But the complete consumer package of a lifestyle - where the sounds, the sights, the clothing all signify a particular identity and are all instantly recognizable and ready to be purchased at will - is relatively new.
