(one big mass suicide waiting to go down)

….and every musical subgenre you can think of. From the Sydney Morning Herald’s Kate Benson :

A study, published in today’s Australasian Psychiatry Journal, found that teens who listen to pop music are more likely to be struggling with their sexuality, those tuning in to rap or heavy metal could be having unprotected sex and drink-driving, and those who favour jazz are usually misfits and loners, prompting a call for doctors to include musical tastes as a diagnostic indicator in mental health assessments.

“There is no evidence to suggest that the type of music you listen to will cause you to commit suicide, but those who are vulnerable and at risk of committing suicide may be listening to certain types of music,” the author of the study, Felicity Baker, said yesterday.

She said an Australian study of year 10 students had shown significant associations between heavy metal music and suicide ideation, depression, delinquency and drug-taking, while an American study had also shown that young adults who regularly listened to heavy metal had a higher preoccupation with suicide and higher levels of depression than their peers.

Deliberate self-harm and attempted suicide was also associated with teenagers who listened to trance, techno, heavy metal and medieval music as part of the goth subculture, while those who attended dance parties were much more likely than their peers to be taking drugs.

Some genres of rap music, such as French rap, were linked to more deviant behaviours including theft, violence and drug use, while teens listening to hip-hop were usually less troublesome, Dr Baker said.

The AJP’s study has no specific findings that relate to followers of the band Godsmack, though from our own considered research, they’re a bunch of nitwits.

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