Rap is the devil's music! It objectifies women and promotes violence! So, why do we still listen to it? Why do we start swaying to the beat when we hear these catchy tunes in the club, on our radio, or even on our very own iPod?
I'm guilty of complaining about rap and the way it talks about women, money, sex and drugs. But guess what? You can go to my iPod and find all the songs I complain about. My parents do the same thing. "Jaymye, what the heck is this? Turn it off." Hmm. Funny. Because "My Humps" came on the radio and my mom was singing along.
We rarely listen to what the song actually says, unless the background music actually forces you to stop and think about it. I'm more likely to listen to and understand the lyrics of a song with a soft acoustic guitar than a song with a peppy upbeat tempo. Right now, I'm listening to Santogold's "Unstoppable." I have no idea what the song means, but I'm dancing and singing along with it. Why? The beat is catchy, and it makes me feel good. It could be talking about punting puppies for all I care...but it makes me feel good! And even if it was talking about punting puppies and I was aware of that, I would still listen to the song and dance.
We don't care about the message of the song, we care about how it makes us feel. Most people don't care to sit down and analyze every detail of a song. That's why Soulja Boy, and other brianless artists can manage to sell songs with 3 words for the entirety of the song. It's all about the beat and how it makes you feel, and if you can dance to it. The songs below have shallow lyrics, but I think the beat makes you want to dance or feel good. I'm guilty of having them on my iPod and dancing to them.
6 comments:
Hooray, it is! Success! =)
I definitely agree with you on this! I know that I listen to a few songs that could have lyrics dealing with anything and I wouldn't care because I'm too busy being infatuated with the beat. There are songs, however, where the lyrics take a backseat to the beat. John Mayer's "Waiting on the World to Change" comes to mind.
I agree with this, too, but not entirely. The music of today is definitely filled with loud beats that drown out the lyrics that cause the loss in meaning, but the songs that the audience will connect with and last longest are songs with meaning. The meaning of the song and how we felt while listening to it drive us back to the songs so that we can feel those nostalgic feelings again. For instance The Beatles and Michael Jackson are timeless artists who sung about world events.
All in all though, for a song to have meaning we have to listen to a few times, but the fun hits of today we love after just a few seconds. I'm guilty of meaningless music listening, too, without even realizing it sometimes.
You know I 100% agree! Many of the songs I listen to on my ipod I don't know what the hell they are saying and don't care because the beat is so hott. Take Yelle's music for instance. I don't speak or understand anything in French but yet I still jam to her tunes. The beat is the main way to get to one's feelings. As long as the beat is right, you can saying about anything.
I always found the dance "Soulja Boy" dance really funny, I never understood the lyrics to the song and figured there was never that much to them, but I was even guilty of singing the song just to mock it... but was I still a product of what the masterminds behind Soulja Boy wanted? I don't know who I am anymore...
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