I lied (smarty pants)
Real humans listen to popular music.
hear me out.
Well, let me rephrase. True humans enjoy top 40/pop and abolish their guilt about their feelings.* Enjoying top 40 is one of the most animalistic urges one can indulge in. There's no thought, no analysis, you love what you love because you love it. You dance if you are so inclined. By and large, the people who criticize top 40 as "mindless" tend to care more about the tangible aspects of music, and if the feeling happens, it happens. These people do not know the joy that takes place when you dance in public. They probably also listen to cats having sex playing over car crashes on vinyl. They want to be intellectually stimulated at all times, and the more I think about it (oh the irony), the more of a drag it becomes. Some of the best things in life don't require thinking and actually start sucking when you analyze them. Thinking about them later is fine, but thinking in the moment fucks things up sometimes. A lot of times. I'm guilty of it just as much as the next person, and there are times when thinking in the moment has saved my ass. By no means am I advocating not thinking, but I feel that if we told our brains to cut that shit out every once in awhile, we would sleep better whenever we want to sleep.
Now there are those exceptions within the realm of independent music, subgenres like the now passe electroclash or even nerdcore hip hop. People and robots are realeasing things that defy genres and convince the most intellectual of music listeners to shake a tailfeather or two. Best of both worlds, and I love it. Like in "Paper Planes" by M.I.A., when she goes "I got more records than the KGB", it makes me think while getting my grind on.
But at the same time, consider "Hands in the Ayer" by Flo Rida, where it doesn't take a degree to understand what the song is about or how Mr. Rida and Will. I . Am feel: "Oh hot damn, this my jam, keep it partyin' til the a.m. ya'll don't understand, makes me throw my hands in the ayer a-a-ayer" It looks a lot stupider than it feels, I promise. Chuck Klosterman, who is one of my great literary heroes, said the following about sex, but the same could apply to pop music: "What part of sex is ‘intellectual'? Certainly none of the good parts" (Klosterman, 83)
I'm not saying there is no fun in intellectual pursuits. In fact, some of the best memories I have of college involve being drunk and discussing Vonnegut's redundancies. I'm just saying getting "retarded" isn't as bad as the intellegensia would have us believe.
Represent.
*my hero's take on the topic of "guilty pleasures"
hear me out.
Well, let me rephrase. True humans enjoy top 40/pop and abolish their guilt about their feelings.* Enjoying top 40 is one of the most animalistic urges one can indulge in. There's no thought, no analysis, you love what you love because you love it. You dance if you are so inclined. By and large, the people who criticize top 40 as "mindless" tend to care more about the tangible aspects of music, and if the feeling happens, it happens. These people do not know the joy that takes place when you dance in public. They probably also listen to cats having sex playing over car crashes on vinyl. They want to be intellectually stimulated at all times, and the more I think about it (oh the irony), the more of a drag it becomes. Some of the best things in life don't require thinking and actually start sucking when you analyze them. Thinking about them later is fine, but thinking in the moment fucks things up sometimes. A lot of times. I'm guilty of it just as much as the next person, and there are times when thinking in the moment has saved my ass. By no means am I advocating not thinking, but I feel that if we told our brains to cut that shit out every once in awhile, we would sleep better whenever we want to sleep.
Now there are those exceptions within the realm of independent music, subgenres like the now passe electroclash or even nerdcore hip hop. People and robots are realeasing things that defy genres and convince the most intellectual of music listeners to shake a tailfeather or two. Best of both worlds, and I love it. Like in "Paper Planes" by M.I.A., when she goes "I got more records than the KGB", it makes me think while getting my grind on.
But at the same time, consider "Hands in the Ayer" by Flo Rida, where it doesn't take a degree to understand what the song is about or how Mr. Rida and Will. I . Am feel: "Oh hot damn, this my jam, keep it partyin' til the a.m. ya'll don't understand, makes me throw my hands in the ayer a-a-ayer" It looks a lot stupider than it feels, I promise. Chuck Klosterman, who is one of my great literary heroes, said the following about sex, but the same could apply to pop music: "What part of sex is ‘intellectual'? Certainly none of the good parts" (Klosterman, 83)
I'm not saying there is no fun in intellectual pursuits. In fact, some of the best memories I have of college involve being drunk and discussing Vonnegut's redundancies. I'm just saying getting "retarded" isn't as bad as the intellegensia would have us believe.
Represent.
*my hero's take on the topic of "guilty pleasures"
posted by Xlynn at 11:34 AM
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