The music industry glorifies mental illness

illustration by I ERICA SHI

TARIQ LASHLEY a&e staff

IIf you had me pick one of the worst qualities in the music industry today, it would be the gross glorification and romanticization of mental illness within the art.

I’ve heard the story of

Vincent Van Gogh eating yellow paint a hundred different times, and each time another variation of the same basic premise.

In one version, Van Gogh eats the paint because he thought doing so would inspire himself to paint better as some sort of alchemical stepping stone for the mind. Afterwards he painted his magnum opus, “The Starry

Night.”

In another version of the story, Van

Gogh apparently ate the yellow paint as a statement — an abstract showcase of how the monarchs of Renaissance Europe made artists sacrifice their own health for the sake of art. These stories are always recounted with something along the lines of “Every genius is a little bit crazy!” or

“Everyone has their yellow paint!” Placing this parable on some sort of pedestal almost gives the impression that everyone should eat yellow paint, as if that would give them the talent needed to make art.

This romanticization of mental illness is reflected in the modern music industry; Kanye West fans exclaim, “No sane man could have made ‘The College Dropout!’” every time

Kanye stops taking his medicine and people showed a great disdain to Mary J. Blige’s music after her recovery from substance abuse and abusive relationships.

GILDED

Artists like Eminem are blasted online by people saying that the rapper should break his sobriety so he can write better music like he used to. In a culture that has become so accepting of speaking about mental health issues, mental recovery is almost seen as a negative when the fans can’t get the same music they are used to. On his fourth rap album “Some Rap Songs,” Earl Sweatshirt went through a mental journey of his psyche and ending on the betterment of himself, but some fans still felt the album was mediocre just because it didn’t reflect the same emotions from Earl Sweatshirt that they were used to. Since music is ever-present, teens see this behavior and repeat it. People grow up truly thinking they need to be broken, or they need to be mentally ill to make good art, and this dangerous mindset has not changed since the days of Van Gogh.

Van Gogh didn’t eat paint because of some abstract purpose or in search for inspiring visions. He didn’t eat it because of his bizzare love for the color, either; Van Gogh was bipolar and depressive. He ate yellow paint as a suicide attempt, and glamorizing behavior like this is one of the most dangerous narratives that the music industry has pushed in the last few decades. p

YELLOW YELLOW