Traditional, non‐traditional, emotionally/behaviorally disturbed students and popular musical lyrics

Adolescents and Media Music

“…Denisoffand Levin (1971) concluded that the majority of young radio listeners did not understand the meaning of Top 40 songs and that radio music, for them, served as background noise. Schlattman (1989) reported of his high school students: &dquo;Even when the message is fairly clear, two out of three had difficulty interpreting it&dquo; (p. 32). These cited studies are, in fact, rather early studies, and it is possible that the audio quality of media and the general sophistication of adolescents have increased significantly in recent years.…”

“…Rosenbaum and Prinsky (1987) found &dquo;relaxing and taking my mind off troubles&dquo; to be the primary reason for listening to popular music among their sample of adolescents. Schlattman (1989) found that his sample of adolescents selected their music &dquo;because it was good to dance to.&dquo; & d q u o ; Ongoing concern abcut the relationship between the implied and literal content of popular song lyrics . and the thinking and behavior of adolescents has provided the impetus for a number of research studies.…”

A Musical Chronology and the Emerging Life Song

“…According to Larson and Kubey (1983), music reflects the range of emotional experiences that adolescents encounter in their daily lives. Music also has some degree of influence on how teens deal with problems (Schlattmann, 1989). It has been found that secondary and college students use music to relieve boredom, manipulate mood, ease tension, and fight loneliness (Gantz, Gartenberg, Pearson, & Schiller, 1978).…”