Functions of popular music in the lives of adolescents

This study determines that a specified group of adolescents' favorite songs fulfill Frith's functions of popular music; (a) to create a type of self-definition; (b) to provide a way of managing the relationship between one's private and public emotional lives; (c) to shape popular memory, organize one's sense of time, and intensify a given experience; and (d) to provide a sense of musical ownership, according to those same adolescents' own writings and a survey on that topic. Sophomores from a high school in the Salt Lake Valley were given an assignment that included a one-page essay describing what functions their favorite song performs in their life, and a survey based on Frith's "Functions of Popular Music." The data collected from that assignment were analyzed using a deductive approach described by Mark Abrahamson to determine whether the functions that the students ascribed to their songs matched Frith's functions.