All very interesting so far as a direction of scientific exploration, but I'm waiting for the tests mapping the regions of the brain that are stimulated by "different genre's" of music.

Ofcourse I'm posing this based upon earlier published results that " Classical Symphonies" tend to produce the healthiest stimulation for awakening the more advanced lobes of the brain in developing infants to children.

Some will here will also immediately see where else I'm taking this. I would also like to see the mapping of the centers of the brain when listening to "Punk" , "Heavy Metal","Rap/Hip-Hop" ,and "WhiteThrashRap".
Somehow I can imagine the areas stimulated to be much further down the brainstem ,like deep doewn into the reptilian quadrant of the that brainstem.
Ofcourse the media companies whose bread & butter it is to promote the "repitilan-brainstem" music will not want that kind of research to even be explored, let alone the results to be published.

I bring this up because I stirred up quite feather-ruffler on a
3D animation messageboard of working professionals & stidents that I frequent . Most of the contributors are all video game addicts and some actual computer game producers.

The video gaming industry dwarfs the feature film industry's global revenue by many $billion$ ( $18b/U.S. in 2001) and most of the aggregious ultra-viloence , along with the above genres of music as accopmanying soundtracks, seem to dominate the market-hooks of these products.
The latest poster child of how low they can go ,so far as computer game subject matter ,is the newest hot selling title "Gand Theft Auto3: Vice City". The entire point of the gameplay is to work your way up from common street thug to Mafia or Drug Kingpin with every kind of "Clockwork Orange-style" acts of brutality as par for the course. You start out with your fists then ,as you take "jobs" earn your way to baseball bats ,automatic pistols, shotguns, uzi's,etc ( with full graphic results of their use ). all the time your mode of trnsportation is whatever vehicle you can "Car-jack" sand whatever pedestrians get in the way are collateral damage. This is designed as pure bloodsport.

Well I decided to offer the alternative opinion in daring to suggest that there be a new rating for such games; namely "LL" for "Low-life" material as the behavior encouraged in this game can "only" be judged as stimulating only the appettite for "low-life" cheap thrills.

Well the tidal wave of protest responses was , I must admit ,"delicious" to say the least because all of the "situatiational ethics" arguments came sludging out accusing me of being the agent of "anti-free speech" and "Orwellian censorship" and "cultural fascism" . Carefully "quoting" what i had "actually" said which had "nothing" to do with censorship, only "truth in labeling" , not a one was able to step up to the plate of the debate and defend why games such as "Grand Theft Auto" should *not* deserve "LL" rating proposed. Still haven't but some healthy , I think , reexamination by some of just what centers of the brain these games "feed upon" has atlast begun to bubble to the surface. Kind of like the "brutally honest "anti-smoking adverts directed at kids not to start shown on MTV.
The pithy label of it as being "The Soprano's" wihtout the bulls**t soap opera at best and pure computer generated "Snuf-porn".
Well obviuosly "that" triggered the , shall we say ,"spirited debate" for real.
( Mother Jones would be amused ;-)

The point being : Calling things as they truly are as the antidote to the arguments denouncing the critiquing of , and I know this is "the" loaded phrase here , what I choose to call "brainstem culture".
This includes the truly harrowingly violent aftermath of sporting events , Euro-soccer take notice as well. I undersand the rather prosaic "euphemistic" term "hooliganism" has found rather newly energized coinage as a direct result.

Anyway , with the potential of these magnetic resonnance brainscans being applied to discovering which music has what affects upon the brain , I'm curious to discover the spectrum of opinion on this messageboard.

So ,have at it ;-)