In Defence of 21st Century Mainstream Music

I will start in the year 2003, with the release of Black Eyed Peas’ ‘Elephunk’. With the introduction of ‘Fergie’, (a female vocalist who was once rumoured to be a stripper), her sexuality ignited the band’s rise into true superstardom. True fans of theirs recognise ‘Bridging the Gap’ (2000) as their last ‘real’ Hip Hop album. By any means, Where is the Love was the instigator for the major rise for ‘Elephunk’. I remember I would hear it on one pop station, change to another, and guess what it was on that one as well. It was number 1 in the charts for months, a true hit! It wasn’t a catchy sound that made the song blow up, but rather the lyrics. Lyrics so true about world of today, with the third verse exemplifying this: “Most of us only care about money makin; Selfishness got us followin the wrong direction; Wrong information always shown by the media; Negative images is the main criteria; Infecting their young minds faster than bacteria; Kids wanna act like what the see in the cinema; Whatever happened to the values of humanity; Whatever happened to the fairness and equality; Instead of spreading love, we’re spreading animosity”. On the contrary though, most Rap songs in the charts of today have rancid lyrics. Look at Get Low by Lil John; he says, “To the window, to the wall, To the sweat drop down my ball, to all these bitches crawl, To all skeet skeet motherfucker”. Or 50 Cent’s song Magic Stick, where he raps “I got the magic stick, I know if I can hit once, I can hit twice, I hit the baddest chicks”. These are sadly bad examples of Hip Hop of today as being consciously driven, but real catchy tunes that go great in a club (even chicks sing along to them – it boggles the brain). Nonetheless, despite The Black Eyed Peas’ album was categorised with tracks such as Let’s Get Retarded and My Humps, their first ground-breaking single had an emotive voice.

Yet there are other rap songs that make the charts that are socially aware. Despite the antics of Kanye West, I feel a portion of what he preaches is actually admirable. Jesus Walks was the first solo song of his ever released, in the year 2004. I’m not religious or spiritual, but this song has a true message. He says he aint “here to convert atheists into believers”, if one talks about “guns, sex, lies, video tape” and “if I talk about God my record won’t get played Huh?” This I feel is the whole problem with rap culture of today as I’ve shown above, with this rhetorical question he brings that aspect of Rap to our attention. 2004 was a year filled with popular songs that were of social significance. Another song is by R&B sensation Alicia Keys, with her love song If I aint got you. Keys is one extremely talented ‘soul sister’, who plays the piano expertly to accompany her powerful voice. With this song, one of many great ones, she is talking about the “superficial”, that people live for “fortune”, “fame”, “some people want diamond rings”, but as she rightly sings “everything means nothing If I ain’t got you.” That’s how it should be. This song explains what it really is to love, that material things shouldn’t matter, though they often do. One sees trophy wives with rich husbands, true love, I think not. Keys knows this with the line which is true to form: “Some people think that the physical things, define what’s within”.

The next year was filled less with music that was of similar significance, yet one comes to mind, the track Where’d you go? from the debut hip-hop album ‘The Rising Tied’, headed by Mike Shinoda. Shinoda’s experiment in rap was different to the predominantly rock music his other band, Linkin Park, normally plays. Yet the group he formed, Fort Minor, as a side project was quite successful. The song won an MTV Video Music Award in 2006. The video puts the song into context, as it is made up of true stories. We see real life people telling their heart-wrenching story of the affects of the Iraq war. Except it isn’t political, it is about the absence of family due to war. It isn’t a condemnation of the Iraq War. Nevertheless it is heartening. It shows the downfall for each individual family member, the wife, the child, and the parents. First the African-American parents are interviewed on what they feel about the deployment of their son. The mother says, “It was like a ripping, I tried not to cry but my heart, you know my inner . . . It was just like that’s my baby”. The Hispanic child who is interviewed, looks no older than 13, but he says he’s the man of the house. It’s a kid, who has had to mature and take up responsibility of helping to look after his young siblings. He says: he wishes he could have a twin, so it would make the cleaning easier. The deepest part is when the wife is interviewed, she says something that truly exemplifies love: “when he’s lying next to me, it’s like we’re the exact same person; we do a lot together and I just miss that so much.” To her “even holding hands” is something she misses; “it’s hard to explain” she claims, but when you see her talk, you understand completely what she is saying (about this simplistic act). In all, this music video is very powerful, from a song that was popular. It’s framed like a ‘doco’, with the theme being “it’s hard” when your loved one isn’t there.

2006 also had a particular pop song in the charts which tackled an issue relating to us as human beings, most notably Americans. Except, this struggle was completely different in nature, coming from the formidable Pink, in the single ‘Stupid Girls’ from ‘I’m not Dead’. This last album was not as successful as some of her earlier stuff that propelled her to one of the most sought after female pop artists. Although it still had singles that made the charts, because it’s Pink for ‘pete’-sake. She is far more edgy than some of her contemporaries, and far more talented than both Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson (put together). These are two archetypal American blonde girls, who came to superstardom from image rather than ability. Pink though, always refused to associate her style with these adversaries, and rather rebelled against the pop princess type icon. And the music video for Stupid Girls exemplified Pink’s uniqueness.
    Stupid Girls shows Pink parodying famous women in society. She plays, society girl Nicole Richie dressed in all her materialistic glory at a pet shop; mimics Paris Hilton’s famous sex video in night-vision; washes a car in a bikini, like when Jessica Simpson performed “these boots are made for walking”; and is a random clichéd dancer in a made up clip with a 50 Cent look-alike. All these characters are representations according to Pink of a ‘Stupid Girl’. This song shows she is sick of female stars doing these degrading things to be famous, rather she prefers the idea of more empowering characters – what she wishes more woman would thrive to be. She alludes to a Hilary Clinton type-character (once a favourite for the Democratic nomination), by saying “what happened to the next female president, she’s dancing in a music video next to 50 Cent”. In short Pink has always been a character who has voiced her thoughts, making her material very interesting to listen to, due to her raw truthfulness.

Like 2004, 2007 has a few pop songs that are worth praise. Linkin Park’s What I’ve Done and Matchbox Twenty’s How Far We’ve Come, are two popular rock bands with songs that broke into the charts both sharing a common theme. Both are talking about our vulnerability on this planet, by chronicling our progression thus far. There has been a lot of talk about ‘global warming’ dooming us to destruction. Rob Thomas believes so; the chorus line for his song is “I believe the world is coming to an end, Let’s see how far we’ve come”! Linkin Park give evidence for this, with their lyrics: “In this farewell, there’s no blood, there’s no alibi. Cause I’ve drawn regret, From the truth, Of a thousand lies”. This is implying that the world is in a worse-off state than we understand because we’ve been deceived in terms of our existence on earth. “So let mercy come, and wash away” . . . what we’ve all done! To paraphrase onwards: One must face themselves, to cross out what has become, by erasing ourselves, and let go of what we’ve done! This is to say, the only way to move on is to move backwards, (that makes no sense so I will elaborate)! In order for the world to exist, we need a complete new evolution, meaning for a new construction we need destruction. It’s quite a depressing way of looking at the world’s current climate, the fact that radical change is needed, and we’re even deserving of it due to our apathy. Yet it is philosophical, and another apolitical song that voices an alternative truth at the same time!

All these acts I’ve spoken about may not resemble the authenticity or even the talent of the ones Gil mentioned (you cannot compare Tool to Matchbox 20, one is utter crap the other brilliant, I don’t need to say which), but these other bands do have material that is socially significant. Even though it may be hard to come by in the pop scene, there are still a couple of songs each year that make it into the charts that are of some value to us as human beings. What will be this year’s pop song? It won’t come from Kanye, his latest album is completely self-indulgent, but as I’ve shown each year there is always one song of note that is both popular and of important significance.