Reflections in Popular Culture in Music

Can you imagine your life without music?  Society today relies heavily on music to take away stress, go to sleep, relax, and much, much more.  But what do the songs we listen the most to today say about this generation?  Using the Billboards list of the top one hundred songs in America I will decipher the meanings of today’s near-and-dear songs to find out how they reflect on us all as a whole.  Some music today has arguably become meaningless, but yet some are emotional.  Do we enjoy listening to songs with a catchy beat, or ones that we can relate to and feel the same emotions as the singer?  In the following paragraphs I hope to figure this all out. 

            Scrolling through the first page of hit songs, I see Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite”.  This song is currently number six on the Billboard.  When one examines the lyrics of this song, the meaning is quite obvious.  Taio Cruz is simply trying to express how he just wants to live and celebrate the fact that he is alive.  The line “we gon’ light it up like its dynamite” simply means we’re going to rock the club and just have a good time.  Another line repeated throughout the entire song was, “I throw my hands up in the air sometimes, saying Ayo gotta let go”.  This line shows how Taio simply lets go and relaxes every once in a while and enjoys his life instead of constantly being stressed out, etc.  One final line I found useful in this song was “I wanna celebrate and live my life”.  This line shows how we all just want to celebrate things and be ourselves.  In my opinion, this song has become so popular (and been so popular for a long time) because of its care-free tone and catchy beat (not to mention lyrics!)  This song reminds us all that success means nothing if you can’t enjoy life, and be yourself which is what people today love to do!  Taio Cruz’s song “Dynamite” shows that people today just want to celebrate with friends and family and be themselves without having to worry about anything.

            Yet another song on the Billboard is number twenty-five, “The Only Exception” by Paramore.  The song is about a boy that a girl changes all her “rules or promises” to herself for.  This song is considered by many to be epic since today everyone in society secretly dreams about meeting a person who will be their “only exception” (though some would never admit it).  Today’s world is one that sees happiness as not only being successful in your profession, but also having a special someone to share it with.  Though this song doesn’t have much as far as lyrics are concerned, the lyrics it does have are very relatable.  One line says “I promised to never sing of love, if it does not exist. But darling you are the only exception” Many people would agree that we all just want to fall in love someday which is part of the reason why this song made it big-time.  Another line, “I had sworn to myself that I’m content with loneliness because none of it was ever worth the risk” expresses how many people today keep their heart locked because they are afraid someone may steal it and break it.  This line directly shows how some people act towards finding love.  This song is easy to relate to if you are someone who has always dreamed of finding that “special someone” or if you have always been hesitant towards new relationships; and many will agree that everyone in this society falls into one of these categories.  This song goes to show that people today all seek someone who they can just be open to.  For all of the above reasons “the Only Exception” by Paramore is a huge success. 

            A song that doesn’t reflect positively on the other hand, is “Hot Tottie” by Usher featuring Jay Z (number twenty-two.)  There are several examples of how this song exemplifies a negative reflection of the people who listen to this song.  One example includes the line, “Your body is my hobby.  We’re freakin’; this ain’t cheatin’ as long as we don’t tell nobody”.  This line is clearly inappropriate and discusses how a particular girl’s body is very appealing, and also how you it’s not called cheating on someone if nobody finds out, and some people would find this lyric completely inappropriate and against many morals.  This line in particular shows how some people today will do things they shouldn’t do with others, and not think of the people they are hurting in the process.  Unfortunately, many people in today’s society do this.  Anyway, another line that is also improper is “I was born a God. I made myself a king”.  For most, this line is very rude since many worshippers of any god would think it is rude for someone to call themselves a god since most of these worshippers are taught that it is unacceptable to compare yourself to God or a king because that means that you are stating that you’re more important than others which clearly isn’t the case here since neither Usher or Jay Z are Gods or kings.  However, many people today do tend to think that for some strange reason they are more important than others and that people should bow down to them.  I don’t know where they got that idea.  Finally, the last line shows how some people don’t want real love in a relationship; instead they care more about physical appearances, etc.  The line that really demonstrates this was, “It’s your body, wanna blow it off”.  Unfortunately, today who you are on the outside sometimes covers over who you are on the inside.  Many relationships today are based largely on physical attraction which in my mind anyway, reflects poorly on the majority of society that judges like this.  This song doesn’t really have a good meaning to go with it, so its popularity is largely based upon the fact that the song is catchy.  This meaningless song shows the shallowness and ignorance of parts of our society. 

            By looking at the Billboards top one hundred songs, one can learn several things about society.  Mainly I learned that the majority of us really just want someone to love and be ourselves with.  People also love listening to songs that are care-free and that have a good beat.  However, some songs were just based off of inappropriate things and physical attraction which only goes to show what some of society wants in life.  Music has such a vital part in all of our lives, and we sometimes don’t realize how it reflects on us as a whole.  Every day we listen to music, thus it must describe our personalities in some way, shape, or form.  These songs we purchase really show that we like buying songs with a good beat or with lyrics we can relate to.  These songs I have discussed above mainly describe the younger generation seeing as how we are the main purchasers of these songs.  Overall by looking at, and listening to these songs, I have learned that success is measured by how happy you are, and whether or not you have someone to share your success with.  Many rappers in my opinion tend to think of girl’s as property and not people, but this is obviously not true of all rappers.  I think that while some songs reflect positively on society, many also reflect negatively on society.