In our world today, medium has become more important than message. If you listen to a lot of the popular songs today, they all sound really good. Great rhythm, good beats, wonderful vocals. However, quality of the lyrics has degraded over time.
Switchfoot, one of my favorite bands talks about this phenomenon in their song "Selling the News." The first part goes, "See opinions are easier to swallow than facts. The grays instead of the whites and the blacks "
We dislike hearing the things that we sometimes have to know. More often than not, we'd rather hear about what Oprah thinks about this certain brand of clothing than what Pastor Joe has to say about right and wrong, what's moral and what's not. The second part of the verse goes, "See money speaks volumes louder than words. And virtues with wings maybe not quite at first." Media has become a money making industry. The corporations will scrounge up whatever they can, make it look pretty and attempt to sell it. The problem is, no matter how pretty that thing is, if they got it from the dumpster, it's still trash right?
A few weeks ago, I made a blog about my love for music and the measures my parents took to help me choose good music. As of now, I don't really listen to any of the new stuff on the radio because a lot of today's songs are all about getting laid, how "cool" you have to be, money, being popular, girls, and broken hearts. For example, Akon's song, "I Just Had Sex"
"I just had sex! And it felt so good! (felt it so good)
A woman let me put my penis inside her!
I just had sex, and i’ll never go back..(never go back)
to the not-havin’-sex ways of the past
A woman let me put my penis inside her!
I just had sex, and i’ll never go back..(never go back)
to the not-havin’-sex ways of the past
Have you ever had sex? I have - it felt great!
It felt so good when i did it with my penis
A girl let me do it, it literally just happened..
Havin’ sex can make a nice man out the meanest!
Never guess where I just came from - I had sex!
If I had to describe the feeling: it was the best!
When I had the sex man my penis felt great!
And I called my parents right after I was done"
When I first heard this, it was pretty catchy. But, come on man. What kind of world are we falling into? I heard this song playing in a children's playroom in Robinson's Pioneer. Okay. The thing is, we're all too preoccupied with aesthetics. We usually just focus on how great a song sounds, how nice the visual effects of the movie are, or how clear and vivid the pictures in that men's magazine. Back in the day, when the Beatles talked about love, all they wanted to do was hold your hand.
Basically, what I'm trying to say can be summed up in one phrase.
"The medium is the message"
According to the notes Sir Beaver sent us,
"Meaning should focus not on what was said, but how it was said."
Hey ! Fellow Switchfoot fan here !
ReplyDeleteI agree with the things you said, personally I think the music that are circulating now have no more "legit" meaning in their lyrics. Catchy ? Yes ? But if you look at the bigger picture you realize that it's just another attempt by an artist to make money. Music artists today get popular and get filthy rich by writing songs about sex and stuff like that while other artists like Switchfoot or Relient K don't get as much credit deserved.
I noticed this discrepancy too and I came to notice it more when I read the handouts.We normally get sucked in to the contents and that's what we come to appreciate.I got more surprised when you mentioned some of the lyrics your favorite band aired.It is sad though that we listen to how beautiful the form of something is and not to how it was presented.By understanding the medium more than the message or how it was said,then we will enjoy the message like lyrics,contents,rhythms,etc in a different light.I had an experience related to this when I would listen to my favorite songs and I took note not only of the meaning of the lyrics but also on the way the artist sung it (like pitch,accent,tone,and the feelings portrayed). When I did this,I came to appreciate the song more and I understood it better than before.Your blog has reinforced this belief I already had since before and I thank you for it. GReat Job!
ReplyDeleteThe means of actually sending it does hold a lot of content and meaning. For example, I see ads on facebook as a message conveying that this is something for the general masses. But if I see an ad on a magazine I interpret it as this is something for the person who loves ______. E-mailing and IM's are also 2 different things that I use for messaging but i use the former for more formal ones and the latter for informal ones. The medium itself does hold the message.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Josh, when you say that the media has overpowered the message and that the media has become a money-making industry. However, when you criticize a song such as "I Just Had Sex" you have to take into consideration that this song was made as a parody of the hip-hop industry, which exactly what the Lonely Island does. They parody popular music cliches in order to expose them for what they really are - meaningless words set to a catchy beat. Also, remember that the first purpose of any industry is to make a profit, including the music industry! It's hard to make an honest living on honest music nowadays, no doubt about it, and sometimes the way to get people to notice the honest message that there are very few honest messages out there in music is to take the dishonest messages and blow them up to a million times their size.
ReplyDeleteYikes. And to think I take my daughter to those mall playrooms. While I know that they will never really absorb the content because they're too distracted, it's still a very disconcerting feeling.
ReplyDeleteI like what you've been saying in your last few blogs: enjoy the media, but stay critical. Let it entertain us, but let it also be an opportunity for us to practice discernment. That is, what I think, what responsible media consumption means.
Good luck with everything, Josh! See you around campus :)