Today has been a great day because I luckily found a $25 gift card to itunes that I thought I lost! With haste, I checked up on the itunes top a hundred list, and previewed some of the latest hits. Yet, I was really surprised with the songs I found on the list. For example, the list consisted of songs titled: F**k You, I Just Had Sex, What the Hell, F**kin Perfect, Tonight (I'm F**kin You), U Got it Bad, Lie to Me, Porn Star Dancing, and Party and Bulls**t. I wouldn't help but think that these are the most listened to songs in America today. What does that say about us!?
My dad always tells me that using profane language and searing displays a poor vocabulary. My dad and I started talking on the subject, and he brought up some song titles from when he was a kid. For example: Brown Eyed Girl, I Got You (I Feel Good), Blue Suede Shoes, You Make Me Feel So Young, Satisfaction. NONE of these contain ONE swear word! Nor do they express anything negative.
Is it fair to say that Americans have become more "down" over the years and have turned to abhorrent music? Have we lost a magnitude of positivity? Happiness?
Sarah-
ReplyDeleteI find this very interesting. Why is this so important to us? I am not sure that we can say that it brings a loss of happiness, but I agree that the media can be heard through our vocabulary. The media has a huge impact on how we go about our lives. It is how we see a portion of the world outside of our own, and I think that we then associate this type of behavior with all of the outside world.
In addition to the profane and vulgar language of pop music, I think the music itself reveals a lot about our culture. Majority of these songs use autotune and an overkill of technology to produce an electrical, "party" sound. This is compared to the songs you mentioned earlier, which were written and oftentimes performed with the artist both singing and playing musical instruments, devoid of any technological help. It simply shows America doesn't value real talent anymore. They value artists that are nice to look at, "singing"(if you can call it that) about things that are fun to do.
ReplyDeleteSarah, Interesting post. The top ten list is pretty funny (and sad) put into this new context! And you cover a wide range of topics this term.
ReplyDeleteThe hits from your father's age (and the Carl Perkins and Sinatra songs are 50's songs, right? Others seem like 60's. 10 years is a generation with pop music) do not have any swear words, but those songs may have interesting histories of their own. Brown Eyed Girl (from my fellow Irishman, Van M.) was censored by the Old Town School of Folk Music when they were afraid the lyrics "making love in the long grass behind the stadium" were objected to. I forget what they changed the words to). Neither is Satisfaction devoid of sexual content. Does anyone know any of the lyrics aside from "satisfaction"? Worth checking that out. The Stones song Brown Sugar is often mis-read as well.
My point here is that the earlier songs may have dealt with "objectionable" material in subtler ways. This may suggest a future blog post.