The mainstream music industry never fails to disappoint me. I feel like I’ve heard most of the songs before, just sung by some other person and with a slightly different chord arrangement. If it is poppy-pop music that will be played on the sweaty dance floors at bars, they all sound the same to me.
Every week the Billboard Hot 100 chart is a running list of mostly generic and poorly produced albums that will be forgotten about or be made fun of somewhere down the road.
I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but Nick Lachey’s latest song, “What’s Left of Me,” sits at number six this week. I have no doubt that his very detailed interview with “Rolling Stone” magazine helped him get to this position, considering that his previous album, the beautiful play-on-words “SoulO,” sold an embarrassingly low number of copies. In his “Rolling Stone” interview he reportedly broke down several times about his ex-wife, the bubbly blonde, Jessica Simpson, and admitted that he still loved her. That’s deep Nick. Someone get this guy a tissue.
British heartthrob James Blunt is at number 10, with his song “You’re Beautiful.” I liked this song the first time I heard it but now I find myself cringing at it’s simplicity and his squeaky, high voice. “You’re beautiful, you’re beautiful…” It’s John Mayer with a sexy accent. It’s a guy with a guitar singing sweet, sweet love songs. Nope, nothing original there.
Then there are those extremely popular songs that are constantly played on the radio over and over again. Some songs make me feel nauseous, especially if they sound like they are sung by fourth-graders.
One song I cannot stand is “My Humps” by the Black Eyed Peas. The first time I heard this song I had NO IDEA it was sung by them. Surely this somewhat talented group would not succumb to the raunchy songs that have sprung up on the high-school-aimed MTV. But sure enough, there goes Fergie taunting “I mix your milk with my coca puff/Milky, milky cocoa…”
The lyrics alone make me want to punch something. Cocoa puffs? She’s talking about Cocoa Puffs to express something much more sexual. Why not just say it; why a use children’s cereal? It’s not clever, it’s gross. My lovely lady lumps? My humps, my humps, humps? What the hell does that mean? She’s singing about how guys buy her all sorts of yummy cocktails and expensive material possessions because she’s got those lady lumps and humps they just GOT to have. It sounds like she’s a stripper. She’s not in a position of power as the song attempts to portray. It is a position where a woman will never get respect from the man who pays for her services.
Another song that makes me want to punch a baby (Dane Cook!) is “Don’t Cha” by the Pussycat Dolls. Not only do the PCDs think they are the hottest things around, (I see hotter girls walking around campus every day) but this song is just goddamn annoying. If you wish your girlfriend was hot like someone else, you’re probably not with the right girl. And what if your girlfriend is actually hotter than one of the PCDs (I bet she is)? Then what? This is one of those songs that is insulting to me because it’s so silly, and I’m amazed that people actually buy the album, thinking, “now THESE girls are real artists.”
I’m not a music connoisseur. I have my guilty pleasures that no matter what people say I will always love (Jewel, German techno and David Gray). But some of today’s music insults me because I know we are better than that. We don’t need to be bombarded with cheesy, generic beats and lyrics that sound like they were written by a child (although the actual meaning is not suitable for children). The problem,
naturally, is that some people love it.
The other day I heard a young girl, maybe 17, say, “I can’t read that book. That’s for SMART people.” I don’t know what book she was talking about, but does it even matter?
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