Is there truly depth in today’s music?
Music originated as a form of art, a way to express emotion. Music is supposed to be a timeless documentation of emotion that all are able to relate to, regardless of social circumstances at the time. Styles may come and go, but the core element of music, the emotion, is intended to remain.
But does it?
The top music today tends to be primarily catchy, with a “fun”, poppy beat. With often provocative lyrics, cliché rhythms and a severe lack in variety concerning types of instruments, each song heard on the radio today is merely a copy of the song before it.
Some say this is just the style of today.
I strongly disagree.
How can these sounds being produced convey any emotion among their audiences when they are all the same? Each person’s emotions vary with his or her personality. Unless the world has become overrun by mindless drones, this type of self-expression cannot be honest.
Today’s music is being made for money and only money.
It infiltrates the mind and cons the listener into believing that the sound in their ears is, in fact, quality music, when its only merit is the “pop” factor.
Just the other day, a friend and I were talking about a piece of music the radio had played far too often. I made a comment about how the lyrics had no meaning whatsoever, other than the degradation of women, and her response? “well, yeah, but no one really pays attention to lyrics anyways. No one likes music for the lyrics, they just like it because…well, yeah.”
Lyrics can serve one of two purposes: they can act as a guide, a tour guide of the song, or they can act as an instruction manual for what the listener is supposed to feel. The latter is primarily shown in songs such as those played on the radio. Given the fact that no emotion is shown through the music of the instruments, and listeners aren’t paying any attention to the one possible source of emotion, one can easily concur that music is no longer a true source of self-expression, but an exploitation of the most catchy sounds.
I am a complex soul filled with complex emotions, as we all are, as the human race is intended to be.
Destroying one of the core forms of expressing these complex emotions is the first step to destroying them completely. We, as a human race, will become no different than animals.
Let’s not be remembered as the generation responsible for it.