Music is a main factor that alienates one generation from the next. Young people view their parent’s music as staid and lifeless, while an adult listening to modern music only hears screaming and dissonance. Music has been a tool inciting young revolutionaries to action, from the underground swing of the 30's to the radical folk of the 60's. Ministers rail from the pulpit about the corrupting effects of music on the young mind, sometimes going so far as to ban dancing altogether. Politicians censor "sinful" musicians from performing in their constituencies, citing artists from the Beatles to Black Sabbath as a threat to the public good. Police blotters are strewn with complaints of "disturbance of the peace" and the breakup of loud parties. Parents turn aghast at the lyrics pouring out from behind their children's doors. Loud music has been reviled, censored, and dismissed as "just a phase".
Behind all the public fear and confusion however, few people have speculated as to the truth behind their terror. Why do young people enjoy beat driven music full of distortion? For what reason are they attracted to "offensive" lyrics, dark themes and aggressive dancing, from swing to moshing?
There are reasons deep in the human psyche why aggressive music is a necessary and natural part of youth, and should be embraced as a needed rite of passage instead of reviled and forbidden. Looking back toward earlier cultures, the relation between youth and loud musical expression is nearly universal. On Bealtaine, or the solstice, Celtic youths gathered for a "growth dance" that would initiate them into warriorhood. They would dance around an enormous bonfire all night, and were considered men and women afterward. Hopi girls at the time of menarche were "transformed" into the goddess White Painted Woman and danced continuously and took mesquite until they had a vision of their guardian spirit.*
These events are hailed as rites of passage in these cultures, necessary parts of the growth into adulthood, the expression of the inner wildness that lies within all of us. Through the mysticism and psychedelics involved, they experienced the deeper, darker aspects of life that they were forbidden to express in normal society.
Another common aspect of these coming of age rituals was unusual adornment. Ritual body painting, scarification and tattooing were common. They symbolized the creation of a new person, like the Phoenix immolating itself on a fire to be reborn. They also served to distinguish and bond the adolescent community during this time of vision seeking and growth. The elders would remember how at this time they had needed to express themselves in the same way, and accept the behavior the youth as a natural part of the cycle of life, like changing seasons.
This wasn't "just a phase", something to be derided and dismissed. It was a natural movement in the ebb and flow of growing up; a way to express the intense emotion of bodies wracked by hormones and newfound sexual feelings. It was a time when adolescents were expected to remain with other youths and form their own community, to discuss mysteries only they could understand. The societies of this time also understood that darkness needed to be expressed.
Many coming of age rituals featured a death archetype, or underworld creatures. This in no way showed that the participants were evil or sinful. It was understood that it was better to act out forbidden emotions as artistic expression than in reality. How were they to understand goodness and light if they had not yet delved into darkness? Cut to a death metal concert in 1999. Hundreds of youths flail wildly in a mosh pit throwing their bodies at each other, climbing on top of each other to crowd surf. People are occasionally injured, but the vigor of the moshers only increases. On the stage the band pumps out evil-sounding rhythms accompanied by grunting, screaming, and guitars on full distortion. Painted around the stage are inverted pentagrams and the audience flashes the two-fingered sign of the Devil. The crowd is covered with piercing, tattoos, and self-inflicted scars, dressed all in black and bizarre makeup. A religious Right group protests outside attempting to "save the souls" of the "heathen and satanic" children. Police arrive to break it up.
To anyone above thirty the attraction of this scene is incomprehensible.
To the youth there however, it is like a blessed relief, a chance to express the dark, mystical, violent aspects of themselves that they cannot show in our whitewashed, conservative society. Notice the common themes between the metal concert and the tribal coming of age rituals. The aggressiveness, the wild dancing, the mystic and occult themes, the bizarre adornment. The youth are vainly trying to express an aspect of themselves that is natural, irremovable, and should be embraced, but the forces of Society and Authority can do nothing more than to attempt to stop a part of growth as necessary as chicken pox.
Perhaps the authorities regret that they did not get to experience similar emotions when they were young and society was even more repressive.
The reason youth crave loud music is that it feels those natural instincts and wild emotions that are repressed by society. Instead of fearing their children’s music and repressing it the older generation should understand that loud, aggressive musical expression is a needed part of youth, something that should be encouraged instead of repressed.
*
As quoted from chapter 7, The Teenage Liberation Handbook by Grace Llewelynn