Recently, I was listening to top 40 radio and I noticed an interesting trend. Apart from Adele, the majority of music that you will here will consist of partying, sex, lyrics about how "fly" someone is and how amazing they are, avoiding problems in life and just enjoying the moment, or just complete nonsense (*cough cough* Nikki Minaj cough*).
It seems that having depth or meaning to a song is no longer necessary for it to be good. So long as it has a good beat and one can escape their own reality for a moment, then it's all good. I'm amazed at the crudeness of some songs like "Whistle" by Flo Rida, which totally shows disrespect for women and degrades the value of sex...but who surprised? America devalued sex roughly four decades ago. Whet really boggles my mind is that there are people that actually listen to this junk. Don't get me wrong, there are songs that I hear on top 40 radio that I quite enjoy listening to, and actually brings benefit to my life. Like Adele who expresses depth and true emotion, or the song "Titanium" that is full of emotion and strength.
The thing is that people have turned to music to escape, to feel numb to the pain they are experiencing and to gain hope for the future. I fear that this is having a very profound affect on the minds of Americans, as well as others in the world who listen to them. Hope, true hope that brings about an end worth having is only found in Christ, but it isn't wrong to have a little boost from music either...so long as that "hope" isn't rooted in pride and false conception of one's self.
Music is a gift, can we please stop abusing it by putting "artists" on the stage who can't do anything more than talk about themselves and all the people they have slept with? Perhaps we can even get singers who sound good without the aid of a computer! Ok ok...you're right...one miracle at a time...
Yeah, I only like about one in ten songs I hear on pop radio, which is why I mostly listen to alternative stuff. Even with that though, I can be tempted to use it as a kind of escapism, which I know is probably not good.
ReplyDeleteYeah. I think that music should enhance our lives, but not cause us to escape. Our minds do have a defense mechanism in that when things become to overwhelming we might revert to a happier time in our lives (like childhood), but I don't think that God designed us to live lives of escaping. It's one thing to get one's mind off of something for the sake of rest and being able to come back and process with energy and clarity though. I have a feeling that that is what you do mostly, based off of what I know about you lol.
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