5 rock albums on psychological disorders
The artistic manifestations have, in general, a communicative function towards a receiving audience. Normally, the content to communicate are emotions, ideas, thoughts ... that is, aspects of human behavior related to psychology.
But by curling the curl, there are several films, theatrical performances or novels that not only transmit this content, but its narrative is based purely on some psychological disorder or phenomenon. Examples would be the movie "Best impossible" (obsessive-compulsive personality disorder) or the classic "Don Quixote de la Mancha", in which a delusional disorder symbolized idealism.
However, other artistic disciplines have also used this resource, perhaps in a more subtle and less popular way, such as painting or music. Next we review several great musical works of the twentieth century whose main narrative is focused on psychological aspects .
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Classics of Rock 'n' Roll on Psychology and mental disorders
These are several rock albums characterized by talking about different dimensions of mental disorders.
1. The Kinks - Soap Opera
The Kinks was a group already well versed in conceptual discs when it published the Soap Opera, whose main theme would be the everyday, expressed through the experiment perpetrated by the protagonist of the story, the fictional rock star Starmaker, who , looking for inspiration for a record, he changed his life with Norman, a citizen, a priori, completely normal.
The album narrates an everyday day in Norman's life, and how Starmaker has to adapt to this new situation. However, in his penultimate subject we discovered that both were the same person, having been a delirium of Norman caused by disenchantment with his routine and boring life, being Starmaker an alternative personality created by himself .
2. Lou Reed - Berlin
The dark album of a promising Lou Reed focused on the relationship of Jim and Caroline, two junkies who "tried" to develop a relationship. The consumption of drugs and the relationship of violence between them led Caroline to to sink into a deep depression and to feel a strong learned helplessness , which would eventually lead to suicide. In a premise that is as extreme as that presented by Reed, it is easy to detect other alterations in mental health such as borderline disorder, intermittent explosive disorder ...
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3. The Who - Tommy
The classic album of The Who, which has its adaptation to the cinema, tells the story of its homonymous protagonist: Tommy, a boy who, after witnessing by accident the murder of his mother's lover at the hands of his father, who miraculously returned alive of the war, he was deaf, blind and mute, because his parents insisted that he had not seen anything, had not heard anything, and would never say anything. A poetic and interesting reading of post-traumatic stress , as well as the power of suggestion, especially in children.
Speaking of The Who, it is inevitable in this regard to comment on his other famous Opera Rock, Quadrophenia, in which it is established that the protagonist has four personalities. However, this does not stop being a figure to represent the different behavioral tendencies of the protagonist in different contexts, and not a mental disorder per se.
4. Pink Floyd - The Wall
One of the most memorable works of Pink Floyd and Roger Waters, also called "the wall" in Spanish. It is the biography of a fictitious rock star, who loses his father in war, suffers from overprotection of his mother, harassment of his teachers, disappointments ... each of these stressful events is a brick in a wall metaphorical, which rises between him and the rest of the people, leading him to isolation, drug addiction and what we could classify as an example of schizotypal personality disorder .
5. Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
Although the album is not structured so that all songs build a single story, the masterpiece of the ill-fated Amy Winehouse continually resorts to the same themes in most of its tracks. As a visibly autobiographical contribution, Winehouse portrays us the sensations of a convinced addict, with occasional attacks of anger and passive aggressiveness (As in Rehab or Addicted) or the toxic relationships and the wake-up calls of borderline personality disorder (Back to Black, You Know That I'm Not Good, Me and Mr. Jones).
