2/17/08
Wake up call! Caught you in the morning with another one in my bed
Because I am sick beyond all belief. I think that my posts will be quite short (and maybe a little sweet) this week. My first post will be influenced by one of my top five movies of all time: High Fidelity. Not only is it a great romantic comedy with the best soundtrack in the history of the world but there is also so much witty banter that it even boggles my mind. Yesterday I watched this movie again for the millionth time and I going in to it I was really stumped about what to write about (I am not very good with choices, as I have said before). The second I heard the first line I knew right then and there that this movie was going to be one of my topics this week. The line was: "What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?" I find this question perplexing. I have never met a teen that listened to music that didn't describe their general emotional state. I know people rant about swearing, homophobic undertones, or sexist statements in music but what about everything else? What about all of the subliminal messages? I'll use a Maroon 5 song as an exapmle. It is being played on the radio and if you look at its lyrics you will see that it is pretty graphic. When I was younger I used to think that it was just rap that was guilty of this but now I see that even up-beat and seemingly innocent music can be just as dastardly. The lyrics may seem bad enough to you but the music video is even worse. In the matter of three minutes and fifty-six seconds the lead singer, his girlfriend, and the rest of the band manage to kill someone, gamble, speed, kidnap women, deal drugs, hire prostitutes, resist arrest and blow up a car. My problem with this is not the cussing or the violence (boy do I love explosions!). My problem is the heartbreak. When songs focus around sadness it may be the worst thing for us to hear. It may teach that being lonely is inevitable or unavoidable. The fact that Adam Levine (the lead singer) ended up in jail at the end is really symbolic to me. It says that no matter what you for her she won't love you and you will probably end up some place you don't want to be. I hope that this isn't true in real life because if it is, we are all doomed to lives of empty sadness. So much for not having a long post. Sorry.
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4 comments:
"Dastardly"? haha, nice description.
I don't think it's necesarily true that people's attitudes and philosophys are echoed in the music that they listen to or vise versa. It doesn't always match up.
But regardless of whether I can back that last part up, I do think that there's a reason why so much music is depressing. A lot of the time it's when you feel terrible that you feel the greatest need to write/create something. (or, a lot of the time what [b]I[/b] feel terrible that's what [b]I[/b] feel a need to do) somehow, expressing that makes it less. And unless you're bursting that way, the writing often isn't as effective. It turns out pretentious.
I'm not saying that no one is ever bursting in that same way with happiness, but I personally tend to do differant things then. So you might not see it in my poetry or doodles or whatever else.
Of course I'm also assuming that most of the music out there was actually made in response to some kind of emotion, instead of "oh crap I need to write another song". But there are other issues in that all together.
aw darn, wrong codes. bleh, I fail.
So I just watched High Fidelity last night... thought of this post haha Seriously, I'd forgotten you'd written about it and then I heard the first line and was like... whoaa deja vu
music is what you make it, like life
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