THE INFLUENCE OF ALTERNATIVE MUSIC ON THE LIFESTYLE OF UNIVERSITY UNDERGRADUATES

Abstract

Music is a lot like literature that can be pleasing, enlightening, and changing the inner sense 
of life and is a compass helping us identify valuables categories in a wide area. Alternative 
rock that includes elements of punk, folk music, and heavy metal is a broad category of music 
that is usually thought of as somewhat out of the mainstream. In Sri Lanka, we can recognize 
a set of disciples that are interested in alternative music. Among them, university 
undergraduates are one of the most important sets of disciples because they have a different 
reading about Arts compared to others. So the current study aims to explore the influence of 
Alternative music on the lifestyle of university undergraduates. Five participants were
selected by using a purposive sample technique from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. 
Semi-structured interviews wereconducted for data collection and analyses of the data were
conducted through thematic analysis. The result suggests that alternative music causes a 
change in the different perspectives on the lifestyle of university undergraduates like 
increased drug usage; different ideas and attitudes about sexual behavior, married life and 
love; political views about current society; and cultural acceptance. The current research will 
help open new research areas for Sri Lankan researchers who are interested in this field. More 
research is needed to get a complete understanding of this topic in the Sri Lankan context