Tuesday, May 16, 2006

this is my answer to both of the critical research questions so far. i have spent quite a bit of time doing this draft but am still open to hearing any improvements that anyone thinks would make it better


Give an account of the methods you used to investigate whether young people use music as a source of escapism.

As I have an interest in music and I myself use music as a form of escapism I had looked on the internet before I had even picked the question for articles or information about music as escapism. As I was unsuccessful with this I was wary about wasting more time looking for information on the internet but tried a few detailed advanced searches. Most of the results were also unsuccessful and I was sat at my computer for a long time clicking a link on one website to go to another website which wanted me to go to another website, which wanted me to go to another website and so on. Some results from the Google search were about things such as an artist that had called one of their releases Escapism and some music download websites.

The first of these sites that I found useful was an interview with the band HIM’s lead singer Ville Valo[1]. This was a helpful interview as it gave me some ideas about escapism and how bands might think of music and prompted me to write down some questions about how people might use music for escapism that I would eventually ask in a questionnaire.

The second result is a story that appeared in the newspaper, the Bangor Daily News[2]. This article gave me some more examples of situations that young people might want to escape from and included references to several bands, types of music and different social groups of people that are influenced by music in this way.

The third result is an essay[3] that has been written by someone else about music which brings up the point of escapism and made me think of some extra things that may come from using music as escapism.

These three sites were relevant to what I was looking for but most of the websites I visited were a waste of my time as they were irrelevant and didn’t help me.

After I had looked at websites I researched escapism in music using some media textbooks. The books I looked in are Form, Meaning and Representation[4], Media and Meaning[5] and AS Media Studies for OCR[6].

The “Media and Meaning” and “AS Media Studies for OCR” books had information about music in films but nothing about music as its own media. Tim Walls book, however, did have a useful section on pages 128 to 131 which gave me the names of some theorists that have analysed music and what they have said about it. This was a useful source as it was relevant to what I was researching.

I then watched an interview with Marilyn Manson from the DVD Bowling for Columbine[7] which did help as it gave me some more ideas about how music could be used as escapism and showed a different side to it being influenced by music.

After having looked at all of these different things, I decided to make a questionnaire that included questions about things that I had read or watched. As I have an interest in music as a form of escapism I had talked to people I know before I knew I had to research this question to see if they were similar to me in why they listened to certain music. As I had done this, I knew of certain people that would be happy to take part in filling out my questionnaire and would be good sources of data.

I handed out a questionnaire to the people I knew used music for escapism and to a lot of other people that I knew. The questionnaire had basic questions that enabled me to look at the results and from them, choose who I wanted to be a part of the focus group that I planned to hold. I got mixed answers from these questionnaires and chose the people I wanted to include in the focus group. This included people who showed quite strongly that they used music as escapism, people who said that they sometimes did and people who said that they didn’t.

I chose to include people who said that they didn’t as I thought it would be interesting to see the points that they would bring up in the focus group to argue against those that did and I thought it would be useful to know the arguments against music as escapism.

I held the focus group in my house which I felt helped with the results I got as the atmosphere was relaxed. Several songs were listened to and I wrote down the key things that the focus group were saying. I had printed off the song lyrics to the songs and handed them out as well when the songs were being played so if they couldn’t hear the words they could read them on paper. After having listened to all the songs and then listened to what they all had to say, I asked them some more questions to do with extra things that may come from music as escapism, such as seeing bands live, different styles of clothes, different attitudes, different ways of living and social events with friends. These extra questions were some more ideas that I had got from research on the internet and from books.

This was the most effective form of research I feel as a lot of data was gathered which helps me in answering my question.

After having had this completed for a few weeks I was reading an article in Kerrang magazine which had an article about the new band Angels and Airwaves[8]. This article gave me some ideas for more questions to ask the people that were part of the focus group about different things that I had not thought of before like whether bands construct their songs in a particular way to provide escapism for the fans and whether they make a real effort to have an impressive live show to provide escapism for the people in the audience.

Remembering something I had heard in a short interview video with the band Angels and Airwaves, which can be found on their website[9], I logged into my account on MySpace[10] account and left a message for the band asking them whether they constructed their songs in a specific way in the hope that they could provide escapism or whether escapism couldn’t be planned when writing songs. However I soon found out that this was not helpful as most of the people who send messages to the band write things like “I’m your biggest fan”, “Please come and play a live show in my area” or post irrelevant comments trying to get a chat going on between the fans. As there are a lot of people that do this I didn’t get a reply from the band, which is annoying because I would have liked to have a serious conversation with them that could help me answer my question.

However after I didn’t get a reply, I thought of another way music can be used as escapism. People might use internet forums, band websites, blog websites and websites similar to MySpace to try and lose themselves in information about the artists that they like.

I then talked to several friends and members of the focus group about whether they thought that resources on the internet could be used in connection with music as escapism on the instant message software MSN. This was quite a help, even though they did not use the internet that much themselves they new of people who were quite regular visitors to band forums which provided them with escapism as they could talk about the music with other fans, could quote song lyrics, tell each other about specific things that they may have felt when listening to the music and completely loose themselves in that.

I also asked these people on MSN what they thought about music providing people with different styles of clothes and whether that could be used as a way to escape from real life. I got mixed answers but felt that this was quite a good way to do research as I could get a reply from the people I was talking to quite quickly, without having to go anywhere or organise a meeting and then I could save what they said into a text document for use at a later time if necessary.

My next step was to upload a draft of the two questions into my blog[11]. I thought that this would have been a helpful method as it is quite easy to search blogs for specific things and leave comments however I received no comments regarding my work.

I also read someone else’s blog[12] that he had posted which included the same article that I had read about Angels and Airwaves. I took this opportunity to reply to this person’s blog and found this to be a valuable source as he sent me back quite a long detailed reply on his thoughts of music as a form of escapism.












Do young people use popular music as a form of escapism and is there a particular type of music which encourages escapism via its lyrics?

Escapism means the tendency to escape from daily reality or routine by indulging in daydreaming, fantasy or entertainment[13].

From all of the secondary research that I did I found many different ways in which music could be used for escapism.

The Tim Walls article4 mentioned several different theorists and their ideas about music. Such as John Peatman, H. Mooney and Simon Frith. Peatman and Mooney both thought the lyrics were the most important part of the song. Peatman also said that “the vast majority of songs were simply variations on the topics of love and sex” and Mooney’s analysis “proposed that the themes in lyrics reflect the psychological state of the people as they respond to changing economic and social conditions”.

From the same article there is a section about Theodor Adorno’s view of music. He argues that “popular music is a product of a social system that aims to encourage conformity in people’s thinking so that they will continue to accept the inequalities of society”. He says more about the way the songs are actually written and that the listeners mentally place specific songs into specific genres. This would mean that as he thinks all songs are placed in similar groups, they all must be escapist for the same reasons, in the same ways. Following from Adorno’s argument, Tim Walls says that “our pleasures in listening, dancing and collecting are just hedonistic and predetermined reactions to stop us facing up to the realities of the world we live in”.

Reading an interview with band members1 made me think about what the artists might think of escapism. This suggested that music can be used to make us think about what the world is really about.

A website about a music festival in America2 introduced the topic of the live music aspect of escapism. This news report talked about the escapism used by university students as it was organized by the students and offered them the chance “to put away their textbooks, forget about the upcoming finals and express freedom from a long winter and year of classes”.

The third website I used3 said that “because of the connection on a personal level, music can provide friendship and act as a reliable companion to people as a comforter and sympathizer. It can also stimulate the mind and inspire creativity, or offer relief, escapism and a change of environment. In addition, music can be fun, adventurous and exciting. Such to the point where it can be used to improve morale and health of individuals”.

The interview with Marilyn Manson7 was quite a good source of information as he talked about how “music was the escape, the only thing that had no judgements. You could put on a record and it’s not going to yell at you for dressing the way you do, it’s going to make you feel better about it”. This made me think of music having an effect on what people wear. Also the whole point of the interview with Marilyn Manson was to discuss about him being blamed for the Columbine school shootings. Manson’s reply was that he didn’t believe that it was his fault just for singing some rock and roll songs. So he doesn’t see how music can be escapist in the sense that it drives you to want to kill someone but it can be used as escapism on other ways such as being judged and what clothes you wear.

The interview with Tom DeLonge from Angels and Airwaves8 brought up the point of how seeing bands perform live could be used as escapism if the show was impressive. This was a new point that I had not thought of before but made me think about what bands might think of escapism and how they might use it.

Using a video that also showed an interview from Angels and Airwaves9, they showed that the bands might specifically want to provide escapism for the fans and this may influence the way that the band construct their songs which as they know what the fans might want, this would give the fans a really strong feeling of escapism when they listen to the songs.

The results from the focus group I held showed that most of the people in the group did use music for escapism. I used many different songs in this and found that the ones that got the strongest arguments for and against being used as escapism were My Plague[14], Nothing Else Matters[15] and Don’t Look Back Into The Sun[16].

My Plague was said to make people feel angry due to the fast pace of the song and the inclusion of lyrics such as “You f****n’ touch me and I’ll rip you apart”. The focus group all remembered this line and all agreed that this song made them feel angry and was the type of thing that should be listened to when angry to offer and escape from whatever is making them angry. When asked why some of them said that the song got them “pumped up” whereas the others said that it made them calmer as just from listening to it and getting lost in it, some of their anger was released through the loudness, angry sounding vocals and what they described as heavy sound of the song. Some of them said that they could use this song as escapism as it made them think of a time when they had been angry and had feel that the lyric “You f****n touch me and I’ll rip you apart” was true for the mood that they were in.

The focus group also agreed that Nothing Else Matters was mostly an obviously depressing song but one of the group mentioned that it was a good song because of the fast angry bit towards the end of the song which he could relate to, as his depression often turned into anger. He said that this song reminded him of a time when he was depressed and it turned into anger so he could use this song as escapism as it reminded him what it felt like and he forgot what had happened since then and where he was as he was daydreaming.

Only some of the group saw Don’t Look Back Into The Sun as escapism. The ones that said the song didn’t do anything for them said the title of the song made them happy. Those who said it was escapist said it made them feel ecstatically happy and made them imagine a time when they had been really happy. Many imagined being on good holidays that they had experienced and things that had happened to them that had made them really happy.

After having played all the songs and hearing the responses, I asked the group questions about whether music influenced the way they dressed, whether they went to see bands live and forgot about everything else that was happening to them when they did, whether their attitude and way of living was altered by music.

Most of the group said that they weren’t really influenced by the way the musicians dressed but they did wear band t-shirts of bands that they liked which made them feel different from other people and forget about what they used to wear.

They all agreed that seeing a band perform live made them forget about everything else that was happening as they got completely engrossed in the performance and some said that if the performance was good it would give them some natural adrenaline which would make them want to jump around and sing along.

Many of the group said that their way of living was altered by music as they would arrange everything around going to see bands live and would always be listening to music wherever they were, whatever they were doing.

This was also proven by one person who had written a blog about escapism12 who I emailed. Even though he was older than the people that had been in the focus group it was useful to hear his perspective as he said that he used music to help him escape when at work and uses it to escape away from his work when he is on his journey home.

Counter arguments against music being used as escapism could be that people are only listen to specific music to fit in with friends and don’t actually like what they listen to, therefore can’t use it for escapism. They could also be musicians themselves and may listen to other songs to analyse the way that those songs are played rather than listening to them from a fans point of view

In answer to the question, a lot of people I have spoken to and information I have found on the internet shows that not only young people use music as a source of escapism but adults and bands do as well.

Personally I do use music as a form of escapism for a number of reasons. Similarly to Peatman’s view of songs being about love or sex, I think that songs can be categorized into 3 different groups – songs that make you happy, songs that make you feel angry and songs that make you sad. I also agree with Mooney’s theory that songs reflect the psychological state of the listener but I think that this can vary from person to person as everyone has been through different things.



[1] www.modernfix.com/features/37/him.htm

[2] www.bangorinfo.com/RRR/Bumstock99.html

[3] www.rockwisdom.com/commentaries/essay2.htm

[4] Form, Meaning and Representation, Tim Walls, Chapter 8, Page 128, 129, 130, 131

[5] Media and Meaning an introduction, Colin Stewart, Marc Lavelle, Adam Kowaltzke, BFI Publishing, 2003

[6] AS Media Studies for OCR, Tanya Jones, Julian McDougall, Jacqueline Bennett, Julian Bowker, Hodder & Stoughton, 2004

[7] Bowling for Columbine, Michael Moore, 2002, 42minutes – 46 minutes

[8] Kerrang, Issue 1105, April 29th 2006, page 28

[9] www.angelsandairwaves.com – enter website – story – the “first contact video”

[10] www.myspace.com

[11] www.nickhodg.blogspot.com

[12] http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=67197800&blogID=119923143&MyToken=cfe80b1d-56af-4a3a-b0f7-b664826dca3e

[13] http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=escapism

[14] My Plague, Slipknot, Iowa, 2001, Roadrunner Records

[15] Nothing Else Matters, Metallica, Metallica, 1991, Vertigo

[16] Don’t Look Back Into The Sun, The Libertines, I Get Along EP, 2003, Rough Trade

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Your are Excellent. And so is your site! Keep up the good work. Bookmarked.
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5:59 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What an interesting and well written piece. Thank you for this because I also had a hard time to find stuff related to escapism through music. It was very informative.
Ann.

12:49 am  
Blogger Unknown said...

I'm currently trying to write an update of this

11:04 am  

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