Does music have a purpose?
How does one recognize good music?
Here's the truth about rock 'n' roll.
OH, BABY, pleeeeeeese be friendly," pleads the whining, effeminate voice of the radio singer, "I don't wanna let'cha go."
A flick of the dial and a female vocalist is heard. She has a raucous voice with a hard-bitten twang and is accompanied by a loud, confused din that sounds like bad static.
"H-E-L-P!" she bellows in a husky voice, "I need your "H-E-E-E-L-P!"
Another flick of the dial and — "Oh, I'm agonna LOOOOZZE MYYYYYY M-I-N-D" wails a voice to the beat of a nerve-wracking pandemonium that seems designed to drive the listener insane, too.
This is a sample of today's music! Something is terribly WRONG with it! Yet millions the world over listen to it by the hour!
Why?
The Universal Craze
"Many cannot take rock 'n' roll," reports TIME magazine after lengthy study. "But no one can leave it. The big beat is everywhere. It resounds over TV and radio, in saloons and soda shops, fraternity houses and dance halls. It has become, in fact, the international anthem of a new and restless generation . . ." (May 21, 1965, p. 84, emphasis ours).
From Japan to Germany and from Brazil to Boston — EVERYWHERE — this primitive noise we call "rock 'n' roll" can be heard.
Not even the Iron Curtain countries are immune! Scores of rock 'n' roll groups continue to spring up like weeds all over Eastern Europe and Russia — even though the Communist Government in these countries is firmly opposed to these displays of "capitalistic degeneracy."
There never was a sound quite like this before in the history of music. Kids screaming the big beat, electric guitars said to crack glass with their loud wail. The sound is everywhere. Radio stations that rock around the dock are on top in every big city. Teenagers scream and weep in concert halls. Jukeboxes shriek. And record sales soar.
But is it just empty-headed kids and restless teenagers who are swept off their feet by the "big beat"? The answer to this question will be a surprise!
Adults Worse Than Teenagers
"The big boost for big-beat music has come, amazingly enough, from the adult world" — from people who ought to know better! So says TIME magazine.
Surveys show that more than 40 percent of the "teen beat" records sold in the United States are bought by persons over 21!
"When a Manhattan rock 'n' roll disc jockey solicited votes for a 'rate the record' feature one recent school-day morning, the station was deluged with 18,000 phone calls, all but a few from housewives. The same feature, aired during prime teenage listening times, never drew more than 12,000 calls"! (TIME)
Many individuals in responsible positions in industry, business and government — including prominent U.S. Senators — are rock 'n' roll enthusiasts. Even various religious groups are getting in on the act and using rock 'n' roll to win new converts!
What is there about rock 'n' roll that is so appealing? How is it able to hold millions in its spell?
To answer these questions we need first to understand the tremendous effect music has on the human body, mind and emotions.
The POWER of Music
It is a scientific FACT that music directly affects the nervous system, the circulatory system, the digestive system, the muscles, the glands — virtually every part of the human body!
There is an outstanding book on this subject. It is Doctor Prescribes Music, by Podolsky. The author states that because the roots of the auditory nerves — the nerves of the ear — are "more widely distributed and have more extensive connections than those of any other nerves in the body . . . there is SCARCELY A FUNCTION OF THE HUMAN BODY WHICH MAY NOT BE AFFECTED BY MUSICAL TONES" (p. 18).
That is a strong statement! But Podolsky backs it up with an entire book of solid proof. Music can temporarily CHANGE the pulse rate and blood pressure. It can increase the secretions of the adrenals and other energy-producing and pain-fighting glands. It can affect the outpouring of gastric juice, thereby having a bearing on digestion. It can reduce and delay muscular fatigue and increase muscular strength.
Emotions and moods have a biological basis. Music, by its tremendous effect on the body processes, becomes an important factor in determining these moods. If certain feelings and emotions are present — either good or bad — music can give them strength and direction. It can cause them to crystallize into a mood.
Dr. Schoen in The Psychology of Music makes this remarkable statement: "Music is made of a stuff which is in and of itself the most powerful stimulant known among the perceptual processes . . . Music operates on our emotional faculty with greater intensiveness and rapidity than the product of any other act" (p. 39).
Music is POWERFUL! And like all power, it can be put to a good use or to a bad and wrong use. Music can either leave an uplifting, wholesome emotional impact, or a restless, UN-wholesome impact.
Now let's look at rock 'n' roll and see which kind of an impact it leaves.
Hypnotic Effect of the "Big Beat"
Have you ever had an irresistible urge to tap your foot or your fingers while listening to music? Sure you have! But have you ever wondered WHY you had this urge? There is a good scientific reason for it.
The reason is this: "Sound vibrations acting upon and through the nervous system give shocks in rhythmical sequence to the muscles, which cause them to contract and set our arms and hands, legs and feet in motion. On account of this automatic muscular reaction, many people make some movement when hearing music; for them to remain motionless would require conscious muscular restraint" (Music in Hospitals, Van de Wall, p. 106).
In rock 'n' roll this process is greatly intensified. The relentless "big beat" packs a tremendous emotional punch to those who allow themselves to be caught up in its sway.
Again quoting from the TIME article on rock 'n' roll: "Where rock 'n' roll is heard, the sound is often so loud that conversation is impossible. The hypnotic beat works a strange kind of magic. Many dancers become oblivious to the around. They drift away from their partners. Inhibitions flake away, eyes glaze over, until suddenly they are seemingly swimming alone in a sea of sound."
One girl, in TIME'S report, said: "I give everything that is in me. And when I get going, I'm gone."
What's wrong with this? Plenty!
The giving over of the mind and body to such an influence in a hypnotic trance can lead to catastrophe — mental and emotional. When control of the mind is weakened or lost, evil influences can freely take possession of the mind. Loss of self-control is DANGEROUS! It IS SIN!
But this is by no means the only dangerous emotional impact of rock 'n' roll.
Sick Sex
"Among the many characteristic effects of music, we find the promotion of a free wandering of the mind," states Dr. Weld in An Experimental Study of Musical Enjoyment (p. 586).
He then goes on to explain that whenever such imagination is induced by music, it always involves movements and sensations located in various parts of the body. If given free reign, these imaginations can dominate the entire content of consciousness.
Now what type of imaginations and bodily sensations do you think rock 'n' roll inspires??
The TIME article answers: "The highly sexual implications of big-beat dancing have some psychiatrists worried. Says one: 'It's sick sex turned into a spectator sport' " (p. 88).
Another said rock 'n' roll dances are outlets for restlessness and for unexpressed sex desires. The author, of course, erroneously called it "quite healthy."
Many rock 'n' roll enthusiasts candidly admit that rock 'n' roll's appeal for them personally is sex! And the immoral conduct of many of the best-known performers is no secret!
Such a wrong use of sex — whether committed literally or only in the mind — is SIN. See Matthew 5:28. And any activity that leads to and promotes such sinful thoughts and actions — as rock 'n' roll definitely does — also becomes a sin.
Rock 'n' Roll — the New Idolatry
What's WRONG with us — and with our music? How can this generation — a supposedly enlightened people — feed our minds and emotions on such musical garbage? It is plainly because we don't know the difference between music and noise!
It is a historical fact that music always reflects the society which has produced it. Today our degenerate society is fast becoming a jungle society — and our music shows it. The similarity between the primitive beat of the jungle drum and the big beat of rock 'n' roll is all too apparent!
That rock 'n' roll is degenerate cannot be denied. Even its participants readily admit this fact.
"People ridiculed Jackson Pollock when he dripped paint on canvas," stated a girl performer. "Well, we're dripping notes" (Look, June 15, 1965, p. 81).
Another performer candidly admitted: "Whenever I go out to play a rock engagement, I think 'you have to play ugly tonight.' It's decadent. I can't even talk about it as music, only as noise. I blame the whole thing on adults. To get rich, they're pandering to base tastes of immature kids."
Another observed: "Groups who can't sing need screamers" (p. 82).
"The names, the gestures, are meaningless press-agentry," says TIME about rock 'n' roll dancing. "All you really have to do is shake your hips a little and then, as Sybil Burton puts it, 'dance to suit yourself' " (p. 88).
STUPID! Yet millions the world over literally worship the sound of the big beat. And the human idols who produce it. This is outright IDOLATRY. It breaks the first and second of the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:1-5). It is SIN!
To worship and obey the true God the world calls "fanatical," "insane" and "crazy." But to stand for hours in the cold, heat or rain just to see and hear mop-headed juveniles, wearing undersized clothes, make a degenerate NOISE, somehow makes a lot of sense!
How CONFUSED can our sense of values get?
Any way you want to look at it, rock 'n' roll is DEGENERATE! The fruits prove it. They are undeniably CORRUPT!
If you want to know what God thinks of rock 'n' roll, read the entire 32nd chapter of Exodus very Carefully. The idolatrous, sex-arousing singing and dancing described in this chapter is a striking parallel to our modern rock 'n' roll.
But rock 'n' roll isn't the only kind of modern music which is berserk!