Overview Music can be such a great way to reflect upon your life and think about your
Question:
Overview
Music can be such a great way to reflect upon your life and think about your identity journey. Think about what music you were listening to in middle school and how that aligned with your identity. Now think back to the music you listen to each year of high school and your identity transformation. Does music represent your identity journey in adolescence?
My middle school years were stuffed with classic 90's bands (Nirvana, Jimmie's Chicken Shack, Alice in Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, Bush, etc., punk (Rancid , Pennywise, Social Distortion, Decedents, Alkaline Trio, etc., and ska music (Big D and the Kids Table, Less Than Jake, The Toasters, Streetlight Manifesto, Skankin' Pickle, MU330, etc.. In high school, I spent my freshman year listening to hardcore and alternative music and then moved into funk and soul music. It was not until I was introduced to Kid Cudi in college that I started listening to hip hop.
(This is a high school picture of one clique I was a part. This could be considered the "rocker" crowd. They purposefully always wore black shirts and all had long hair as part of their identity--I always purposefully did not as part of my identity journey. I was also an athlete, a member of the poetry slam team and a part of the Latinx crowd, so I surfed between all these groups. However, these guys in the picture were some of my closest friends and huge musical inspirations to me)
My personal musical journey represented well my identity journey. My young, rebellious, anti-authority middle school years were well watered by the punk and grunge music I loved. My early high school years were full of emotions and identity crises, well represented by the anger in hardcore music and the other emotions in emo music (yes, I listened to Taking Back Sunday and Atreyu when they first came out with music...). By the end of high school, my musical preferences completely changed to the back-in-the-day music of funk and soul--a change that aligned with my more mature slightly more confident identity.
As explained in this week's chapter reading, James Marcia's theory of identity development presents four statuses:
- Identity-Diffusion status
- Identity-Foreclosure status
- Identity-Moratorium status
- Identity-Achievement status
The goal of this discussion is to become more familiar with Marcia's theory using the identity journeys represented by music.
Initial Reply
Starting on Monday, please post your initial reply by Sunday, 11:59pm.
To encourage originality in thinking and hopefully diversify song selection, for this discussion, you are required to make your first post before you can see what other students have posted.
- Select two songs from the list below (It can be any two. Some may be easier to do than others--some may be more familiar than others)
- Listen to/watch the video for each song.
- Analyze the lyrics for each song (the lyrics are all from Geniuslyrics.com, a great website because they provide some insightful lyrical analysis)
- In your post include this information:
- Provide the song's name and band's name for the two songs you selected. (1 point)
- Decide which of Marcia's identity states the first song represents, then write a brief explanation explaining which identity state you picked for the song and why you think the song represents that identity state (3 points)
- Decide which of Marcia's identity states the second song represents, then write a brief explanation explaining which identity state you picked for the song and why you think the song represents that identity state (3 points)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QCXr79Rkcw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPPSu0vaNWA