The Columbine High School shootings made many Americans question the morals and values represented in the music that so many teens listen to today. Marilyn Manson was blamed for the death of more than 5 students, that day, when two young men began shooting and killing their peers.

But does music really affect peoples' emotions? Can a song drive a person to insanity? Or even murder?

While pop is known to deliver the message of teen love, romance, and dancing, heavy metal has been given the face of an adversary. Bands such as Limp Bizkit are blamed for riots. Eminem is blamed for murders.

In this report, I will be discussing the results of a test I gave to many of my own peers to see how music affects them.

It is a proven fact that music can affect one's moods. At funerals, sad music is played to give one the sense of loss and emptiness, intensifying the crying that you hear. At parties, fast techno and pop music is played to encourage the guests to dance and have fun. In elevators, "musak" is played, mostly causing boredom. These genres of music effect your moods. But it is my belief that music cannot cause someone to commit transgression upon another.

In the test, my peers expressed that while music can affect one's moods, it most likely cannot drive a person to murder. However, everyone should be mindful of the things to which they listen, and keep it in the context that it is just music, and the ideas expressed aren't necessarily to be taken literally.

Certain genres of music are thought to send subliminal messages to it's listeners. If this reasoning were correct, then why are so many listeners of bands such as ICP not off on ecstatic killing sprees of pigs?

My view is that, if it is believed that heavy metal can send subliminal messages through songs discussing facts of life, then, why isn't country and pop critiqued for divorces and pregnancies?

Music does indeed affect one's moods-of that there is no doubt. However, through much research, I have concluded that music can in no way drive a person to commit insane acts of hatred and violence. Music is that itself - MUSIC. The lyrics are just the artists way of letting out their own emotions. Bands such as Slayer, self-proclaimed atheists, are only citing their views. They do not wish for young men to go out and murder a young girl and rape her dead corpse because it was a 'sacrifice to Satan.'

In conclusion, I would like to reiterate that, while music can be a source of extreme happiness or immense pain, it can in no possible, logical way, affect a single person's actions.