Thursday, April 28, 2016

ROCK MUSIC'S GRAVEYARD

      "Rock has always been the devil's music, you can't convince me that it isn't.  I honestly believe everything I've said---I believe rock and roll is dangerous...I feel we're only heralding something even darker than ourselves."
                                     (DAVID BOWIE, Rolling Stone, February 12, 1976, p. 83)


   Rock music is a trapdoor to a world of darkness, and those that enter therein do not always come out healthy, or even alive.
   Rock music's graveyard is not a lovely place to visit.
   Over the past 50 years, the majority of deaths among rock music's recording artists have perished before the age of 50, taking even the biggest names in the industry:
       Brian Epstein, Janis Joplin, Mama Cass, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson---all gone before the age of 50.
       Whitney Houston was 48.
       Michael Jackson died at 50.
       Prince survived until age 57.
   Yes, there are exceptions.  Yes, some live to be 60, others 70, and some even live to see 80.  But the majority of deaths of recording artists have died before 50.
   Rock music is attractive, alluring, and even an addiction of itself.  Once in it, however, people are most likely to experience sex without responsibility, alcohol without limits, addictive drugs, addictions to prescribed painkillers, and early death.
   Upon dying, rock music's artists are eulogized as stars, luminaries, heroes, role models, geniuses, and even visionaries. 
   The cause of death among rockers is often recorded as "accidental drownings","accidental hangings", "accidental overdoses", "accidental strangulations", and even "accidental suicides".  
   Some die while suffocating in their own vomit while others die with cocaine powder still in their nostrils or heroin needles still in their arms. Because their deaths are listed as "accidents", does this imply that they are innocent of any wrong doing, even in their own self-destruction?
   Yes, they attain great wealth and international recognition.
   But what hope do they leave behind for young people to follow?
   Is to live like them to die like them?
   For more than fifty years, rock music has lured people into its world of darkness, usually beginning when they are young children or even as toddlers---long before they understand language or know how to read.
   Look at the tree of rock music, examine its dead fruit that falls to the ground, and perhaps you will agree with David Bowie: 
"Rock has always been the devil's music."
   Jesus said,
       "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy:  I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly."  (John 10: 10)
   In closing, consider the deaths in rock music's graveyard and how the biggest names in rock music died.  Is this the future people want for themselves and for their children?

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