Music is Bad for You

Much as I dislike the generation of tragically hip yabbos associated with VICE, I give the magazine credit for consistently producing cutting-edge, irreverent, and thought-provoking content. (Though it must be noted that my little sis works for them and, in terms of compensation, they're a bunch of cheap bastards).

Here's an excerpt from The Misuse of Music by none other than Ian "the Spiv" Svevonius, which asks: should "music’s paradigmatic status... be reconsidered and even overturned"?

Music has an intoxicating effect on people. Is there any intoxicant that hasn’t been proved to have adverse qualities? For all of methamphetamine’s amorous inducements, for example, crank leads to bags under the eyes and bad breath. Cocaine is considered a wonderful high, but it results in tedious monologues and poor decision-making. Marijuana was extolled by none other than bathrobed sex guru Hugh Hefner himself, but it ends up inducing grumpiness and underarm odor.

Meanwhile, music apparently leads to DEATH. And not a lush, orgasmic death as with a morphine overdose, but a horrible death like drowning in a swimming pool, choking on vomit, or turning blue while bent around a bedpost or a toilet in a fleabag motel.

The rest here.