KARISHMA D'MELLO
Lyrical analysis
THE EXPLOITATIVE WORKS OF
POPULAR MUSIC
What defines the top 40s? Is it incomparable musical
genius? Or incomparable musical marketing? Well,
my guess tends towards the latter. Marketing within
the music industry used to have a certain subtlety to
it; it existed for sure, but never quite as explicitly as
it does today. While it is prevalent within most genres
of music, to varying extents, popular music seems
to have taken it to a whole new level altogether!
Pop has grown to become even more exclusive in its focus on
themes within its lyrical content. You’ve got the relatable,
the we-are-cool-we-like-parties, the I-am-so-rich-look-at-
me and the utterly braindead (Shawty is an Eenie Meenie
Minie mo lover). Of course, sometimes you also have the
exceptionally rare and
arguably non-existent -
heartfelt narrative
of human
experience.
While not
a lot of
people
pay much
attention
to lyrics
of a song,
this is
changing.
And this
brings us to
the highlight
focus of this
article - the
exploitation
of human
insecurity.
Now in general,
lyrics have
largely seemed
to alternate
between being
extremely
relatable
or absurdly
unrelatable,
ie. the i am
so rich,
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variety. From the former you have some truly baffling
hits of recent times, like the oddly specific “Little
Things” by the former boyband One Direction. This
is perhaps, one of the most obvious examples of
exploiting teenage insecurity that I have ever seen,
and incidentally what inspired me to write about it.
In my attempt to paraphrase these lyrics - you are really
insecure a lot of things, but I love your greasy hair,
your oddly shaped nose, that weird spot on your chin
and your misshapen thighs, ANYWAY. The new age
epitome of romance. Of course, I’ve exaggerated just a
tiny bit, but in a nutshell - that’s how the song goes.
Now most songs are usually not as in your face as this
one. On the other end of the spectrum you have songs
that pride themselves on being painfully vague. “You’re
beautiful. I have never seen you and you may be a mass
murderer for all I know, but you are beautiful from within,
don’t let the cops tell you otherwise”. Yes, I paraphrased
again, but you get the gist. Now, if someone can genuinely
draw confidence or develop a healthy self-esteem from
hearing something like this - that’s great! Good for you.
However, I genuinely question if its lack of authenticity
and the sheer vagueness is going to speak to anyone!
You’ve probably heard it all before, but allow me to reiterate.
People used to look for artists to bare their soul to them and
that’s what made songs stand out. It was the combination
of heartfelt, poetic verses with music that made you feel
things the words couldn’t. It allowed you to escape into the
uniqueness of individual perception. You could relate to the
sheer authenticity of it all; it felt like a personal experience.
Now you’ve got algorithms designed to put together
popular “beats” and not so subliminal verses in a
feeble attempt to trick your brain into liking a song.
Lyrics are mere fillers if anything, set to a catchy tune
that should last you a few hundred listens or until the
next single comes out - whatever comes sooner.
And that folks, is the essence of content marketing, or in this
case - lyrical content marketing. That is exactly what pop
and hip hop have become. Every element of every song that
has worked for a particular audience is recycled over and
over again till everything sounds incredibly similar, but not
the same, leaving you with the vague sense of familiarity and
in some unfortunate cases, the most annoying earworms.