# Non-mainstream music and crime



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Do your kids seem to listen to Boulez and Stockhausen all the time? A new study finds "evidence that an early preference for different types of noisy, rebellious, non-mainstream music genres is a strong predictor of concurrent and later minor delinquency."

http://tinyurl.com/bahkhfh


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

I absolutely concur. I had to sit through half a Stockhausen concert once and I wanted to hit someone on the way out...


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Interesting, and it says they control for other factors, such as academic achievement. But of course, they are not talking about classical. And it doesn't seem to affect teenagers, only pre-teens. And the music itself may not be the driving force:



> The researchers believe such youngsters tend to congregate with peers who have similar musical tastes, creating cliques that are cut off from mainstream influences and behavioral norms. "In peer groups characterized by their deviant music taste, norm-breaking youth may 'infect' their friends with their behaviors," they speculate.
> 
> If they're right, it isn't the music per se that leads kids into delinquency (although anti-social lyrics could conceivably play a role). It's more the fact that kids who gravitate to other nonconformists at a young age miss out on the benefits of being part of mainstream society-including the positive influences of popular peers.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

First of all, Boulez, Stockhausen and other (ex-)avant-garde composers from the last 50 years are quite mainstream now. Second, that "study" only talked about hip-hop and other non-classical genres. Third, that kind of purely empirical studies are not conclusive about nothing. It's on the border of the pseudoscientific.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

I'm pretty sure the OP was joking about Boulez and Stockhausen. They aren't mainstream in the sense of the study, i.e., music that most of their peers are listening to.


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## Mephistopheles (Sep 3, 2012)

I think that article's framing of mainstream culture and popularity is precisely why nonconformists feel marginalised - people in the mainstream are blind to their own inadequacy and intolerance of variety.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

aleazk said:


> Third, that kind of purely empirical studies are not conclusive about nothing. It's on the border of the pseudoscientific.


---correcting errors---- I will be back.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Re "non-mainstream music genres": Somebody said that Boulez and Stockhausen are mainstream now. I seriously doubt that, given any reasonable interpretation of the word "mainstream". In fact, the entire corpus of classical music makes up about three percent of recorded music sales. What percent do you think the rap genre, alone, is? Tune your radio across that FM band...

Rap or classical? Which is "mainstream" and which is not?


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

It seems, rap is much more mainstream than classical music. So it is us, the classical fans, who are potential "gangstas" :lol:

And seriously, I think, if a kid has good parents who are authority figures for him, and don't let him be "parented" by TV and the streets, he will hardly become a criminal, no matter what music he listens to. Just my opinion.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I understand the general results of the study, but I thought one statement from the article was rather odd:

"Those who preferred rock, R&B, punk and techno at age 12 were not more likely to be delinquents at that age, but were more likely to engage in such behavior by age 16." 

I'm not sure why that statement was included. I'm not really sure what to infer from it. If those who prefer rock and R&B are "more likely to engage in such behavior", I wonder, "More likely then who?" How many kids don't like rock at age 16? Or am I too far removed from the present popular music world that I don't know what rock refers to?

The researchers specifically did mention classical music: “Preferences for classical music related negatively to delinquency at age 12.” Now the number of teenagers in the 309 person sample who liked classical music must have been rather small so I don't know how predictive that sample was. The number who had ever heard of Boulez and Stockhausen probably was zero.


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## farmerjohn (Jan 24, 2013)

I believe that when young people question society's conventions and think for themselves and show curiosity in things outside the norm rather than just following the herd that this is very healthy.

Oscar Wilde said that "in the eyes of the person who knows history disobedience is man's original virtue".

It is worth remembering that, not very long ago, the suffragettes were castigated as "rebellious delinquents" and "subversive" and the like and were jailed etc. because they dared to think outside of the mainstream and starting asking why shouldn't women have equal rights to men. Nowadays we look upon the suffragettes as heroes, but at the time many, including members of their own sex, denounced the suffragettes as lunatics etc.

What do we want? Young people who think for themselves or an army of little robots?

The irony is I bet the person who did this study acted like a rebel when they were a teenager and went to anti war demos and Rock against Racism concerts with long hair and a T Shirt with The Clash on it before they sold out and became respectable academics. They're probably just jealous of young people and are frustrated because seeing young people reminds them that they're getting old.


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## Guest (Jan 25, 2013)

You don't have to see a young person to be reminded you're getting old.


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## palJacky (Nov 27, 2010)

"Those who preferred rock, R&B, punk and techno at age 12 were not more likely to be delinquents at that age, but were more likely to engage in such behavior by age 16." 

this leaves out the very important fact that the vast majority of 12 year olds who listen to this stuff DO NOT become delinquents.

and honestly, what other types of genres are left if these were excluded?
(i know "classical" but really how far were any of us in our understanding of classical at the age of 12?)

"ah youth, Ah statute of limitations" John Waters.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

You might be interested in "crime jazz."


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

farmerjohn said:


> What do we want? Young people who think for themselves or an army of little robots?


That depends. Are we talking about your kids or mine?


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## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)

i'm forever telling those little scumbags to turn down their mozart.

just last week i was mugged by someone reciting shakespeare.


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