The Student News Site of Shawnee Mission Northwest

SMNW

The Student News Site of Shawnee Mission Northwest

SMNW

The Student News Site of Shawnee Mission Northwest

SMNW

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I want that old time rock ‘n roll

Music today seems to have gone overboard with raunchy and heartless lyrics.

Jeremy Allen
Jeremy Allen

Often I find myself laying in bed in complete awe. It amazes me, this phenomena that is the current musical culture. The lyrics run through my mind, begging questions that will never be answered.

Let’s have some fun, this beat is sick. I wanna take a ride on your disco stick.

Why, Lady Gaga, why? These lyrics honestly sound like the script for a soft-core HBO porno. Instead, they are the lyrics for a Top 40 single. Ridiculous.

And yet, women often complain about being exploited and misrepresented in today’s world, in music particularly. In all honesty, they have every right to. I will admit it is becoming increasingly excessive and downright disrespectful. Listen to songs by Lil’ Wayne or any other rapper who feels the need to place a Lil’ before his or her name. Or if you are in the mood, watch one of their music videos. It will be three minutes straight of exploitation of women. Heck, even song titles nowadays are filled with sexual innuendo

It might be a shock, but Lil’ Wayne’s “Lollipop” is not actually about a lollipop.

So why would Lady Gaga, who tries to define herself as classy with a side of raunchy, do this? She is promoting the disrespect of her own gender. She is showing young and aspiring pop stars that it is fine to write crass lyrics about sex.

Lady Gaga and many other musicians today are taking away from the romanticism of lyrics. Lyrics should come from your heart, not your lower body regions.

Why can’t music go back to the way it was? With artists like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan or The Beatles. Artists who gave each song all their talent. Artist who didn’t sell out because they felt like the needed to have a Top 40 hit by shocking fans with sexual lyrics. They played because they loved it. You can hear it in their music.

Don’t believe me? Jimi Hendrix is a perfect example. He is one of the most influential guitarist and was declared the greatest guitarists ever by Rolling Stone. Yet, in the years Hendrix was active he only had one Top 10 single, which was a cover of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower”. Technically this made Jimi Hendrix a one-hit wonder.

There are plenty of artists out there who remain unknown even though their talent is far greater than that of the Top 40 artist. It gives me hope for music when I hear it from musical story tellers like Joe Bonamassa, The Mountain Goats and The Decemberists. I’ll even admit that listening to Owl City makes me appreciate modern music slightly.

Yet, I’m still convinced that if another musician had the greatness of the musicians of the ‘60s and ‘70s existed today, he or she would go relatively unnoticed.

Music today doesn’t offer much to me, not because I am a huge music critic but because I just want my music to offer me an experience emotionally. I want to feel something. I want to hear lyrics as art and poetry.

I guess it isn’t so bad, though. I mean, now all I have to do to become famous is go into our school bathrooms, put some of the colorful words written on the wall to a catchy beat and I’m on the Top 40 charts.

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    GeoffryJan 4, 2010 at 12:08 pm

    I don’t think it’s the artists that have changed so much but the times. “The times they are a changin”. The modern consumer has a different demand than the consumer of 40-60 years ago. So of course the supply has to change to meet the demand.

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