“Does music have an impact on society?

” This question is answered in various articles

through different sides of society. Most sources tell how music can move society to follow a

trend or use it to impact on movements of change. Such as how music has changed different

moments of history like how music was used as a form of protest on segregation and slavery

(Vox, 1). They talk about how music can create awareness of society’s pain points in different

songs and through the artist’s thoughts on society today (Freethinking, 1). Music used as protest

music and how it can spread awareness on touchy topics is one of the few agreements on many

various sources across the board.

There are more agreements like how various sources tell how it helps change emotion for

example, how music sounds provided a means of sharing each other’s experiences (Marquand-

Brown, 1) and how it helps throughout time through human evolution. There are also agreements

on how it affects us psychologically and physiologically (Freethinking, 1). They all share

common ground on these topics of how music impacts society.

However, there are a few disagreements on this topic. Some say different genres such as

Rock are more prone to touch on different societies points than others (The New American, 1)

while others say how some genres like hip-hop have a negative effect on society spreading bad

words and actions to the youth (Academic Dictionaries and Encyclopedias, 1). They talk about

how music is only used as a form of entertainment and harm while others disagree, saying that

some are used to raise awareness on social problems. They both do talk about how it does change

society but one says it for the better while others say it for the worse. These are some of the

many disagreements there are on the topic of how music impacts society.

There are many answers on this topic of how music impacts society through human

evolution, politics, culture and more. There are also many disagreements to these many answers
on these topics. However, there is much more to research such as how does different genres of

music affect us in different ways? Are there any scientific studies on how it helps us? Why does

music evolve over the years? Is that due to social change or is it because music changes and

impact social change? There are many questions that can spring up on this topic.

Through these agreements, disagreements, and more questions that arise from this topic

of how music affects society, there is now a huge pile of information to answer this topic. By

looking through every single one, every sentence and thought, we can get closer to answering

this question on how music affects society seeing how many different topics there are on just one

question and how many more questions can branch out of that question. It’s fascinating how

something we always listen to and love can have such a deep background that we never really

knew about until now. So this is how I will get closer to answering my question, “how does

music affect society?”

Works Cited:

“6 Effects of Music on Society.” Freethinking | Thoughts Rule The World, 17 Nov. 2018,

https://www.fthinking.org/society/6-effects-of-music-on-society/.
Henwood, Bridgett. “The History of American Protest Music, from ‘Yankee Doodle’ to

Kendrick Lamar.” Vox, Vox, 22 May 2017,

https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/4/12/14462948/protest-music-history-america-trump-

beyonce-dylan-misty.

“Influential Beats: The Cultural Impact of Music.” The New American,

https://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/item/17311-influential-beats-the-cultural-

impact-of-music.

Marquand-Brown, Abigail Le, et al. “Music and Human Evolution.” OUPblog, 5 July

2019, https://blog.oup.com/2017/07/music-human-evolution/.

“ Music and Politics.” Academic Dictionaries and Encyclopedias,

https://enacademic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/304072.