Alcohol in Country Music
Could These Songs Be Encouraging Young People to Drink even More?
An article on The Guardian website details the alcoholic content of recent country music songs. Sure, country music has always tended to have a pretty high proof. Singers like George Jones, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard and Hank Williams, Jr. serenaded us about their lives, their problems, and their drinking.
The difference today seems to be the proportion of songs that feature drinking. As The Guardian documents, just recently, we have seen these popular country songs:
• Jerrod Neimann, Drink to That All Night
• Little Big Town, Day Drinking
• Dierks Bentley, Drunk On A Plane
• Toby Keith, Drunk Americans
• Lee Brice, Drinking Class
• Brantley Gilbert, Bottoms Up
• Frankie Ballard, Sunshine and Whiskey
• Cole Swindell, Ain’t Worth The Whiskey
• Lady Antebellum, Bartender
• Florida Georgia Line, Sun Daze
• Blake Shelton, Neon Light
• Jason Aldean, Burnin’ It Down
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/dec/02/does-country-have-a-drinking-problem
Can this be good for our young people who live in the country or who like that lifestyle? Is it even vaguely possible that this music could fail to encourage more drinking?
Even more ominous is that it’s pretty common for some of these alcohol-themed songs to include product placements, which means a company pays for the singer to include their brand name in the song. I won’t name names, but here are two articles that comment on songs where the beer named was bought and paid for by the manufacturer.
http://www.popmatters.com/review/185089-brad-paisley-moonshine-in-the-trunk/
Binge Drinking is Already a Serious Problem Among the Young
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reports on where the highest rate of binge drinking is taking place and the ages of those doing the drinking. In the following chart, you can see where underage binge drinking is heaviest. Eastern Washington, Western Montana, the Dakotas, the Panhandle of Texas, nearly all of Minnesota, every bit of Iowa, much of Wisconsin, Western Kentucky, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, parts of Wyoming – all decidedly rural areas.
We’re risking losing these young people to traffic accidents, injury or even alcohol overdose. And how many of these young people will become so accustomed to binge drinking that it will turn into a way of life and a lifelong alcoholism?
One might hope that these successful recording stars would take responsibility for these young lives and back off on the alcoholic content of their songs.
If they sang about sobriety as much as they now do alcohol, it might not be as “fun” and exciting. Maybe they would sell fewer recordings. But maybe this chart would gradually turn white, then blue (the lowest level of underage binge drinking). Maybe more young people would not run off the road on New Year’s Eve or the night of the prom. Maybe some lives and some marriages would be saved.
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