If you are easily offended by such things, are in the vicinity of anyone who is (like your racist grandma), or are currently at any place that is not your own home, I highly recommend postponing any link-clicking that the following musings may inspire until a time at which the offense will be negligible. Thank you. You may now proceed to my rant.
I just got back from dropping off some movies at Blockbuster, which is exactly 14 blocks from my house . But that's not important, just a little frame of reference. In that time, I was able to hear two songs on the radio. (94.9 Jams of course! ...or is it Jamz?) I didn't know who either of the artists were, but I would describe one song as a Lady Gaga-esque pseudo house/pop infusion dance number, and the other as what I lovingly refer to as Shit-Rap.
Let me start with the Shit-Rap. Again, no idea who the particular rapper was, but he made Gucci Mane sound like fucking Hemingway. The hook consisted of little more than a list of women's names (there may have been a guttural grunt or two thrown in for good measure - my memory is hazy). It was all delivered in a gravelly, monotone voice (think Lil' Jon after puberty), and of course, the beat sucked. I mean it is on the radio after all.
Turns out this song is the 2004 classic "Freek-a-Leek" by Petey Pablo, which is Spanish for Petey Paul. And it was, in fact, produced by none other than Lil' Jon himself.
Obviously this is the type of derivative crap that hip hop fans have had to deal with for decades, but I feel like every year it gets a little worse. I mean, when people are actually affirming Lil' Wayne's assertions that he is the best rapper alive, you know there's a problem. Does he make good songs? Most certainly. Is he even a good rapper? No. Not so much. Certainly nowhere close to the best alive. Not while Big Willy is breathing.
Don't get me wrong, Lil' Weezy makes interesting, infrequently great, music, and occasionally stumbles upon a good pun; but when you're putting out thousands (literally) of songs each year, and you get a few good verses in, that does not make you a good rapper. At all. Not even close.
Damn. I went off on a tangent while going off on a tangent.
Getting back on track. So this mystery rapper, whoever he may be, is clearly just some shill, a point emphasized when he stops "rapping" to talk over the track. Verbatim: "I gotta give a shout out to Seagram's Gin, because I drink it. And they paid me." YES. YES. YES. YES. YES. But that's a completely different rant.
Let that bubble in the boiling pot while I move on to the next song.
The Lady Gaga-esque dance number, which I am about 96% sure was in fact Lady Gaga, actually attempted a narrative arc! Horray! +1 for pop music right? Wrong. The story consisted of a girl at a club (shocker!) who was getting "blown up" by some skeezy dude who she wasn't feeling. Na I saying? I mean, we've all been there, right?
Good lord though. This song has to be a joke. A parody of Sambergian proportions. If that is the case, my waning faith in humanity will be temporarily restored. But I don't think it is, not with lyrics to the effect of, "I get no reception in this club" and a guest rap verse featuring a ditty like, "blowing me up more won't get me out of the club faster." We're in Lonely Island territory now.
In the case of both songs, the blunt anti-lyricism is pushing banality to the extreme, and is doubtlessly a contributing factor to the dystopia that Mike Judge predicted.
Damn, that last sentence sounds like something out of a Pitchfork review.
The point is, shit like this is dumbing people down. Quality, message-driven music being completely ignored by pop culture is nothing new. People don't want to be intellectually stimulated by a club track, and I understand that (the club is for other kinds of stimulationHEYO!).
The problem is, people will listen to this ALL THE TIME. The number one song on iTunes right now is called Blah Blah Blah for godsakes. (I'm amazed they couldn't work a hip misspelling in there somewhere. Oh wait. There it is. The artist's name is Ke$ha. Of course. U! S! A!)
Pop music has gone beyond simply recycling archetypes and ripping off the last hit. Innovation now stands somewhere in between basing songs around a function of technology and MAKING SHIT UP. Buddha help the people that have to grown up with this stuff ingrained in their psyche.
Geez that was a long rant. And to what end? Well. Here we go.
Those people that have to grow up being inculcated by this music? Those are the people we are expecting to save the world. We've gotten to a point with the environment where nothing but radical action is going to be able to do anything. And who do we have to call saviors? A generation of people made so lazy by the wonders of technology, and so thoroughly dumbed-down by pop culture's hysterical decline into self-parody that they won't have the drive, much less the means to do anything to help us.
What I'm saying is that we won't be able to do what every generation before ours has done; we won't be able to put off the problem until future generations can fix it. Because future generations are going to be a scary ones. (Wall-E spoilers)
My drive back from Blockbuster was brought to a poignant end when an empty Doritos bag floated across the street, adrift in a gust of wind. "If only that was a Sun Chips bag..." I lamented to myself.
Epilogue:
My paranoia may lead you to believe that I am off that chronic. I am not.
My anger may lead you to believe that I am off that drank. I am not.
If only I could blame it on the al... you know where this is going:
RON HOWARD REPRESENT!
Holy shit. It IS 94.9 Jamz.
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