Who needs drugs when you've got music?

Is the answer to the OP, probably the people who made the music?

Drugs/booze and music are linked. Both in the creation and observation of it. It is about finding boundaries and removing them. Finding new ground or a new interpretation or a new language or even courage. Removing boundaries is sometimes about removing ones self. Hense drug use in music.

Obviously you do not need them, but isn't it odd that so many great pieces of music or creative movements were created under the influence of the fashionable drugs of the time?

Wolf_garcia,

Probably best not to mention the lame parody. The parody is a parody because that image became over used and filtered down to the average. Lame is lame of course.

But musicians with vision and skills are a very different thing. The guys that learned their chops and put life experience into their performance is what I suspect left their mark on us. Not the navel gazers...

Sure the word "drugs" covers too many things. Acid, speed, coke, pot, ecstasy, and so on all effected the various specific musical movements of their time. It's a paradigm shift from what went before.

We could probably draw a simplistic table or flow chart. I.e

Ecstasy = Dance music

Speed = Punk etc etc.

Wolf_garcia, lol. Obviously you forgot to mention short and medium term memory loss too!

As with all things in life it's about balance. Too much of anything is bad. But its easy to fool yourself.

One needs a good trusty compass to steer through life. Some people get dealt a tough hand. But you can't let it be your excuse disintegrate. Drugs dull the senses on alsorts of levels, sometimes for good, but eventually mainly for bad.