Is Music a Gateway Drug?

Oh, please.

Here's a hysterical (in both senses of the word) USA Today article warning parents against the dangers of audio "drugs" -- to be precise, digital recordings of rhythmic beats channeled into the listener's left and right headphones in a staggered pattern -- available on the Internet. It sounds a lot like the worries of white oldsters, when R&B swept the nation in the 1950s, that the music's "jungle rhythms" would drive all who heard it to rampant promiscuity and ruin. We seem to have survived that aural assault on our brainwaves with civilization intact.

Much as I may trumpet the measurable effects of music on the body and brain, and wax on about how to use them, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that no amount of sound-induced brainwave activity is going to match the effect of ingesting lysergic acid, or cause an otherwise teetotalling listener to suddenly hit the streets searching for the man.

I recommend that the article's author calm down and relax to, say, some mellow Norah Jones. Though it might just turn her into a pothead.