When listening to a song no one ever pauses the music and thinks about the true meaning behind it. Several songs have meanings but some of the artists produce those songs to create an awareness. “Pumped up Kicks” by Foster the People is a song the band created to raise awareness of school shootings. I have always listened to this song, but I never found out the story behind it until this year. Listening to this song now has changed my perspective on listening to music. Songs have a reason for everything, and to have an issue come out of it is a great way of listening to it. Foster the people is an American Indie pop band that is formed in Los Angeles, California. The lead Vocalist, Mark Foster was the reason why the band was founded in 2009. Foster the People have been said to be known as “modern day Beach Boys”. The band was not a big hit until the release of “Pumped up Kicks”. “Pumped up Kicks” was a viral success in 2010. Magazines, such as Nylon used this song for advertisement. “Robert’s got a quick hand, he’ll look around the room he won’t tell you his plan”. The first lyric of the song introduces you that a story is about to be told. “Pumped up Kicks” is about a child that is losing his mind, and is plotting revenge on others. “Robert” the kid in this song feels like he is an outcast, and that he is never heard by others. Mark Foster, the lead vocalist realized that several young kids today have felt isolated in our society. However, Mark Foster did not want to
In today’s society, music controls the way we live our lives. The influence that music has on society has broadened throughout the years and with social media being one of the world’s top priority, the fan base and spectrum for music in general has expanded significantly. Music is used to express feelings, moods, circumstances, experiences, knowledge, and so much more. With this being the case, the lyrics of any song can be interpreted differently by each and every listener. Many song lyrics give positive messages, promoting well-being, whiles others give negative messages, promoting violence, criminal behaviors, sexual contents, and disrespect towards others. With this being said, music reflects what the public demands, and in many cases the negative messages are often times what sells more than those music giving positive messages.
This song is a wakeup call for America to set a better example for the next generation. People are hurting other people. Some are paranoid of what will happen next. Life should not be scary, but there are people afraid to walk out and be among the chaos. Everybody is against one another, and they are not willing to compromise. “It’s time we stop” and look at what we are doing and what has become of us. There are wars for ignorant reasons, there are people hurting, there are innocent children watching, WAKE UP AMERICA! The riots and wars are not worth all of this pain and suffering.
Millions of people in the world listen to music for all different reasons. Most people all over the world listen to different genres of music in order to relax, but not too many people pay attention to the actual lyrics of a song. If you listen to the lyrics of a song you will realize that many songs have important messages or themes to them. An example of this is the lyrics of the song “Changes” by Tupac Shakur. If you listen to this song, you will realize that Tupac raps about not only the problems that African Americans face from society, but also the struggles that poor people in society have to endure and overcome. Many
McBride uses emotional, logical, and ethical appeals to drive his point. His use of emotional appeals are used to get attention and provoke thought from people who may have similar backgrounds to his, or those who may have a strong opinion towards hip hop culture. An example of this would be “hip hop remains an enigma, a clarion call, a cry of ‘I am’ from the youth of the world” (McBride 1). A clarion call is a strongly expressed demand or request for action- a plea, essentially. This pairs with the word “cry” to create a sense of despair in the youth of the world. By grabbing the reader’s heart as well as their attention, this moves the reader to consider the music as more than just defiance.
Cultural phenomenon, rapper Kendrick Lamar has embraced a growing minority centered culture in America through his album “To Pimp A butterfly” this album conveys themes of hardship for minorities and cultural uprising. One of the singles on this album “Alright” simply tells black audiences that with faith everything will be alright. He uses the Lyrics “Alls my life I has to fight, nigga .Alls my life I...Hard times like God. Bad trips like: ‘God!’ Nazareth, I 'm fucked up..Homie you fucked up..But if God got us then we gon ' be alright” These lyrics simply tell suppressed minorities that despite hardship there is hope within our communities. . Months prior to the release of Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” several attacks from white police officers happened in the black community. A common case in this uproar was the “Mike Brown case”. In this case a black man was shot dead after allegedly robbing a local gas station. Kendrick simply responded to these seemingly racial attacks with his album to “Pimp a Butterfly”. To pimp a butterfly simply means to use your influence to the best of its ability to make a meaningful impact. With tracks like “Alright” Kendrick Lamar does just that. The Primary themes and issues conveyed in this song are white supremacy, racism and black uprising
Through songs many people express their feelings of the world threw the words they have wrote. Many songs talk about civil rights of the people and how change should be an option. In the world we live in today we have social issues that people have to face such as: police brutality, racial profiling, discrimination etc. Through Kendrick Lamar, Public Enemy, The Game, Bebe Winans, and N.W.A they will use their voice as a weapon for change among all people. Music with a message thrives in a live setting, for obvious reasons, and many politically conscious musicians aim to channel the heightened emotions
Has it ever occurred to you that this generation tries to search for the next best thing? Is it like a business man try to look for the next best thing that everyone is buying? I mean if other people do it and there perfectly fine doing it we assume that we could do it and we think we will be just fine as well. Take those examples and try to use it with music. Do you think that what we listen to can affect us in any way or not? Maybe and maybe not, but some of us tend to get influenced by what they put into their heads. Not everything that we see or do can import negative thought or feelings, but listening is a part of that category as well. Therefore, what these artists are trying to do is trying to use a rhetorical device to tell us that
These songs brought a culture of ‘Hippies’ into mainstream life, with thousands of university age youths spreading into the streets of American cities and protesting the ideals of the government which caused the war in
Music is part of everyday life and serves as the center of many cultures across the world. Music brings out the best parts of a movie, a car ride, or even a special event. The purpose of music varies from artist to artist and different cultures. Every piece of music carries a unique message, but a song, in particular, carries meaning. “Runaway Love” by Ludacris, featuring Mary J. Blige, exploits the struggles of young girls by using rhetorical techniques, such as pathos, ethos, logos, tone, and visual rhetoric throughout the music video to raise national awareness about youth runaways.
The band Foster the People first started in Los Angeles, CA in 2009. Where singer Mark Foster formed the band after being a struggling musician and a commercial jingle writer. Foster knew Mark Pontius, the drummer, since film school where they were both talented musicians. Mark eventually left his old band Malbec to form a new band with Foster. After Foster had written a few songs, he realized that they had a singer and a drummer, but they needed a bassist. So Foster’s long time friend Cubbie Fink joined the band after losing his job as a television producer during the great recession. Together they formed the band Foster and the people, but people misunderstood and thought that it was Foster the People. Foster the people wrote their hit song
These three songs show protest through rap music. The first song, “Don’t Shoot” by The Game, featuring Diddy, Rick Ross, 2 Chainz, Diddy, Fabolous, Wale, DJ Khaled, Swizz Beatz, Yo Gotti, Curren$y, Problem, King Pharaoh and the R&B super group TGT. This song right here brought together rappers and R&B artists to support the black lives matter movement. All these rappers come from different regions of the US. The Game is out of California and 2 Chainz is from Atlanta, Georgia. Two different states here with the same issues. Unfortunately, I could not find a music video for this song, but the lyrics were strong enough to portray a very serious message. “Game recruits an all-star cast to speak out against the recent violence and injustice in Ferguson, Mo. The song covers topics such as Injustice, Emmet Till, the relationship between people of color and the police and the increasing militarization of the officers.” (Genius). The message for this was real and it showed light that black people are getting shot because white authorities presume that black people are harmful. In Diddy’s verse, he throws down a lot of the incidents that have happened and claims “history is repeating itself”. The tone and the music playing in the background does not come out as hardcore rap music sounds. Instead it is more of a softer tone and a softer melody with pianos and trumpets. This shows they are feeling hurt and they are serious about the
The song ‘Teenagers’ really stood out to me because it focuses on a topic that is stereotyped in society. Behind the actual meaning of the song, being that teenagers scare society
Do you ever wonder what is the meaning behind what you so proudly sing whenever you hear it? Music is an art form of culture which organizes sound with times It first came around in prehistoric times, however, as times passes, music is drastically changing. As a result, in the last decades music has experienced drastic changes in the themes they are talking about. These changes are due to the generations and what they are living, political and social actions of the time. For example, the decade of the 80s was the rise of hip-hop and rap music from a local phenomenon to a worldwide known genre of music. Previously, a crack cocaine epidemic had stroke major cities in the USA and it coincided with the rise of hip-hop in black communities as these
Bruce Lee when explaining the Functions of the longest kicks; “The kicks you use will vary according to the type of opponent you face.” And in examples 5 and 6; “Use maximum reach to kick the target-that extended distance is what makes an all kicking attack possible. Utilize intense grace and awareness, comparable to the hand, and explode with killing power-that’s the Art of
Kendrick’s song expresses the continued struggle faced by African Americans in modern society. The first couple lines of his song truly display how he feels about the mistreatment of African Americans: