How Can an Individual’s Sense of Identity be Communicated Through Their Choice of Music?

In todays society individuality can be expressed in many contrastive ways. The use of physical adornments such as clothes and makeup are the first things that spring to mind when discussing ways and methods of identification. However, with the mass media having such a broad influence on the young spate of today, it is becoming very well to teach ones identity through the music they enjoy listening to. This essay seeks to determine how an individual identity can be clearly communicated through choices of music.To a certain extent, music has had an interesting effect on the way individuals express their genius of identity. The 1960s Mods and Rockers are a good example of this. Two different types of community existing in the same society, who were easily distinguished to the type of clothes they wore and their social activities- it could be argued that this has certain relevance to tastes in music. The Mods were, of course, happy to settle for the newly released music of the ti me. Whereas the Rockers werent satisfied with the new renditions and so preferred to bunk with classic rock music. This eventuated in the two groups leading wholly different ways of life, and the appearances and attitudes of both groups became a likeness of the particular identities which are recognizable in society today.Today, there is a greater variety of music available to the mass public, and this has inevitably resulted in many different identities being formed. The 1980s trance purview along with the new input of R n B and Hip Hop (Black rap style music) has influenced a number of new music acts to recreate versions of the biggest hits. This has helped in creating a new identity that many nightclubs cater for. What is known as the Kev, Townie or Shaz has been formed These short names are used to describe people of a certain identity. Usually people of these youth subgroups are fans of hard dance music which they listen to on a regular basis on their personal CD players in p ublic places and are also well known for their up to date flashy mobile phones, sports clothing and tacky jewellery, as well as the occasional baseball cap. There is a rather large congregation of Kevs/Townies on Saturday nights when they drive their flashy cars around the town centre.Moshers, Goths, Metallers or Grungers all form another subgroup which relies almost completely on music taste which is quite the opposite to the group discussed in the stand firm paragraph. Grungers are people who usually prefer to listen to music such as Nirvana and Red Hot Chili Peppers, and just generally most forms of rock and admixture music. Their sense of dress is relatively easy to identify, as a certain identity has been created by the huge mass of youngsters turning to the Grunger image in the last few years. The hoodie has become a highly symbolic item of clothing, which many of the group members will wear when congregating. This can be teamed with baggy jeans and trousers, multiple pierc ings, dye hair, visible tattoos and other common objects such as various bracelets and jewellery, although hardly ever gold or silver.The two groups previously discussed are the two huge societies in which the members behaviour is almost completely influenced by popular music. As it is possible to see from the descriptions above, an individuals sense of identity can be relatively easy to configure when using popular music as the determining factor. Due to this, increasing amounts of youth subgroups are being formed purely by melodic taste.