The Power of Music (page 4)

Although most of Public Enemy's fan base has chosen the music because of their ability to relate with its violent calls for change, there are also numerous counter-examples. One of which is my roommate, who is by nature inclined to a more highbrow type of music. He is by every definition a conservative, and is in no way concerned with political or social change. He is a white kid from an upper-middle class neighborhood, and thus cannot truly identify with Chuck D's vicious calls for racial equality. My roommate, who by no means fits the Public Enemy stereotype, nonetheless owns several albums. His interest in the band had absolutely nothing to do with political agendas, but was instead spurred by curiosity. On the track, He Got Game, Chuck D sampled Buffalo Springfield's For What Its Worth, released back in 1967. This is a perfect counter-example to the notion that people choose a music that falls in line with their already established political beliefs. He chose Public Enemy, a band whose political views were the exact opposite of his own.
Let us now examine the perception that people choose a type of music that is accessible to them at the time, and that music then shapes their political ideas. In order to prove this point of view, we need look no further than the lowbrow heavy metal music of Ozzy Osbourne. In October 1984, a nineteen-year-old teenager shot himself in the head while listening to Osbourne's Suicide Solution. When the coroner entered the room, the boy was dead on the floor still listening to the song on repeat. After two more teenage boys committed suicide, three lawsuits were filed against Ozzy claiming that his lyric has directly led their suicides. Although Ozzy Osbourne was acquitted on three accounts citing the first amendment, it showed how much a song could affect a teen. All three of the teens had chosen the lowbrow music simply because it was popular at the time.

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