In her recent post at helium.com, Jamiee Martindale argues that there are two sides to the music of today: you either love it, or your hate it. She says that people who hate the modern era of music it, hate it for its lyrical content, and that 20 or 30 years ago, the lyrics reflected the changing beliefs in society.
So I decided to look at the top 40 chart from today November 15, 2010 and then look back 30 years to see the top 40 chart in November 1980. Would there be a difference in lyrical content? Let's find out.
The number one single in America right now is....Rhianna and Drake's "What's my Name." Lyrically, I guess I'd have to say it's exactly how I thought it would be. There's no depth to these lyrics but it's a good track.
In November of 1980, the number one track in the country was "The Tide is High" by Blondie. Personally, this is one of my favorite tracks of all-time. This track is a cover of a song. It was originally written in 1967 by John Holt. Lyrically, "The Tide is High" isn't a masterpiece of any kind. It has good lyrics, but not far superior lyrics to that of the Rhianna song.
What I'm really trying to get at with this post is that for Martindale to say that today's music has less lyrical content is a completely subjective statement. There are plenty of musicians today that speak of important social issues, and just because that's not reflected on the charts, doesn't mean our musical acts are any less socially aware then artists of the past. For her to say you either love today's music or you hate it is a pretty big conclusion. Besides, not all music has to make a social statement to be of importance. Sometimes, all we want to do is dance!!!
Your right Mart. What Martindale said is generalizing, but I can give you a good reason to why he made this statement. The problem isn't that we don't have lyrical content, the problems that it isn't as appreciated. I for one love lyrically inclined songs, and if you can make the song with a great beat thats an even bigger plus. The fact is often content driven artist are over looked because of what the music world thinks the consumer wants. That's why you hear Usher rather than Musiq Soulchild. That's why you hear Beyonce rather than Jill Scott. That's why you hear Soilja Boy over Common. That's why slam poetry has yet to make its mark in America. If we, as a people, changed form mainly wanting to hear "Rack Daddy," "Dougie," and etc, trust and believe we'd hear different music on the radio.
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