Lately i've been listening to a lot of country music. I recently went home which for me is four hours up north. For my drive I made three hours of country music to listen to. I was so surprised how similar the music was. Seriously. From the lyrics to rhythm the songs sounded so similar. Adorno stated, "Most listeners of popular music do not understand music... if they did it would be vastly difficult to explain how they could tolerate the incessant supply of largely undifferentiated material." After listening to all the mainstream country music for four and a half hours I had to laugh reading that because I felt like I was listening to the same song over and over again. I found this video put together of popular country music and even listening the music itself without the lyrics sounds familiar.
After watching this video I was surprised how disrespectful country music can be to women referring to their bodies and how often they refer to women as "girls". Yeah the "girls" in your videos don't look like preadolescent female children. Just sayin! I can't remember if we showed this video in class but I liked this song.
Country music may have the most stereotypical reputation for a reason. My family went to Texas over the summer and while shopping or dining out, it was hard to tell when a new song was starting when listening to the music over the sound system. Every song seemed to be about Ice Tea, "Girls", Trucks, or Football. We did hear one "original" song that included all four topics!
ReplyDeleteSeems like every new pop song, country or not, sounds the same.
A few days ago a friend was playing a new song by Kelly Clarkson or T-Swift, I started to laugh...the music sounded just like "All About That Bass." Then I heard the song "Booty" - as I was studying for a class - and it also reminded me of, "All About that Bass." At that point I was glad I don't listen to a whole lot of Pop because it all seems to be the same. I think people are drawn to the repetitive nature of Pop Music because no matter what song they are enjoying, they are comfortable with it because it all sounds the same.