Adrian C. North and David J. Hargreaves (2003). Is music important? The Psychologist, 16, 410-416.

This essay briefly reviews two lines of research. The first shows that music plays a prevalent role in everyday life, and counters the argument that music is unimportant (which in turn justifies attacks on funding of live music and the role of music in the school curriculum). The second line of research is in response to the contradictory claim that music is important to the extent that pop music should be censored due to the deleterious effect it can have on young listeners. However, the existing research does not justify censorship or other de facto attempts to limit young people's access to pop music styles such as rap and heavy rock. N.B. This manuscript does not feature a formal abstract.

Back to Adrian North's Home Page