`` Promise, By Romeo Santos Featuring Usher

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.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the song “Hey There Delilah” by the Plain White T’s. This paper will identify the message and tone of the song, as well as the artist’s appeal to the audience by analyzing the organization of the song, and the specific rhetorical strategies the artist used to connect to the audience. The song’s organization, style, figurative language, and hyperboles in the lyrics will also be analyzed to connect the artist’s intention back to the audience. In this song, the artist’s main point and thesis, is that he is head over heels in love with a girl named Delilah. He wants to tell the world, and Delilah herself, how much he loves her, and how their love conquers the distance between them.

Blue Wind from Spring Awakening Introduction “Blue wind” is one of the most popular songs of “Spring Awakening”. “Blue Wind” is a duet song that is sung and performed by Ilse and Moritz. This song is interpreted by different people in different ways. Some find it haunting while others see it as gorgeous duet. Ilse and Moritz are childhood friends and are suffering in their personal life.

Often music is consisted not only by sounds made from musical instruments, but also by voice and verbal messages. The structure of the voice, or as Roland Barthes describes it ‘the grain of voice’ is the element in a certain piece of music which is responsible for creating the emotions when listening. The grain and the lyrics make the signified and carry out the message. The vocal part of music is formed of words, text, which communicate and make the representation and expression of what it is sung - talked about. According to Barthes the emotive modes of the voice and the changes of the tones from low to high is what delivers the final message and makes us feel the music. (Barthes, R. 1977 [1972]).

Women throughout history have been continually oppressed and have faced inequality in all aspects of life. In My Forbidden Face by Latifa, this theme recurs many times since the main character has been robbed of all basic human rights because of her gender. During the time period of the book, the Taliban took over and forced the people to take part in a radicalized version of Islam and worship as they saw fit. They made their own rules on how people should live, by taking the words of the Koran and twisting it to suit their needs, without any thoughts of how it would affect the people. The majority of the rules were aimed towards women and how they should live their lives.

On April 14th, 2017, proclaimed artist, Kendrick Lamar, released his fourth studio album, titled Damn. This fourteen track album was possibly Lamar’s most personal and most in-depth project yet. However, no song on this album, perhaps, reaches the personal level of the fifth track titled “FEEL.” In this song Lamar gives a super in-depth look at what he believes his biggest issues are and allows the listener to realize your own by confessing his. The purpose of this essay is to conduct a rhetorical analysis of Kendrick Lamar’s “FEEL.” and his effective use of the rhetorical devices ethos, pathos, and logos.

We see how these concepts norms, values, structure and social facts, and agency give an understanding to lyrics in a song for society and how the concepts tell the story in the song “Wrong way” by Sublime. Many important factors came from these concepts we have to see the role society (her father, brothers, and narrative) played in Annie’s life and what influenced her choices in life. Symbolic interaction theory effectively explains the narrative in this song because of the different views Annie and him see with her life, that her reality of her life is a good life, and that he does not see it as a good way of life but as a bad road ahead.

In the play, As You Like It written by William Shakespeare, as well as the short story “Let Me Promise You” by Morley Callaghan, both playwright, and author are trying to convey the idea of a strong emotional bond between certain characters. In Shakespeare’s play, we see how Celia and Rosalind, two cousins, have been inseparable ever since a young age and will do anything for one another. In Callaghan’s short story, Alice has strong feelings towards George, waits restlessly by the window, and despite their differences, she still tries to please him. The theme that these two works show is unconditional love. The playwright and author are trying to illustrate what one will do for another even though the situation and conditions might be though.

The prosperity of In Paris railway station, two strangers sat down on the same piano bench and performed a remixed masterpiece, which attracted a bunch of people and brought a great joy for them. Such various positive role that music plays exists everywhere and everytime in human beings’ life. Meanwhile, music emits its perfume as an incredible intermingling, as such, it does not only give people miscellaneous emotions but also endows us both microcosmic and macroscopic insight to observe the diverse world we live in. It is worth noting that Moises Velasquez Manoff currently states his own perspective, “The Meaning of Despacito in the Age of Trump”, of the New York Times. Mr Manoff published his opinion based on how the song “Despacito” approaches the most streamed song in history when issues of nativism and panic from both residences and non-residences are skyrocketed. More significantly, Mr Manoff notably highlights the virtue of the song, such as the song itself “binds us as a global community”, considered “Despacito” contains different races, classes even national cultures. In a nutshell, music is able to make the world better and better, insteading of barely making America white again through its capability to strengthen cohesion, ease tension, encourage spirit and build foundation of education for living creature.

A desperate and hopeless underlying tone is maintained throughout the piece, and is skillfully developed in relation to the surface tone of idle indifference and fascination from the speaker.

Once the image of burden has been established, the speaker talks of her permissive willingness to stay committed for survival. In stanzas seven and eight, the speaker advocates “ but without pay. If i had known how it would go I think i would have lived alone. In spite of the speakers anguish toward the commitment to a man, the only means of survival in that culture is through relationship ties. In spite of her discontentment in the injustice shown in the relationship, the speaker has an obligation to keep up the relationship. It is evident that culture and society is responsible for the speakers negative attitude toward objectification in a relationship. The speaker has no choice but to adhere to societal norms as a means of survival.

Throughout history, music has been seen as a medium in which different people all over the world can relate. Adorno criticizes, however, that songs that have the most “hits” on the top music charts or are most listened to, otherwise known as popular music, are being produced for and consumed by the masses as a commodity. He identifies popular music as being a part of a culture used for capitalism, and that we as listeners, are falling into a trap in which we believe songs have individuality and that we have the freedom to choose what we listen to. He argues that in reality these popular songs are all standardized and made to seem different through various elements that are added. In this paper, I will display how Adorno’s critique of popular music being used for capitalism applies to the song,1-800-273-8255, by hip-hop and rap artist Logic, through its standardized elements in both its content and marketing; however, I will argue that although it contains these elements, the audience is actively listening and responding to the song as it brings awareness to mental health and suicide prevention that is changing and saving lives all around us.

The Human Condition is Jon Bellion’s first album and is rising in popularity through its appeal to the pop genre and witty lyrics. Jon Bellion is the character in his own album and his journey from a child to an adult and a nobody to a celebrity is the primary focus throughout most of his songs. The journey of himself through the songs is what makes the lyrics interesting. The general understanding is that Bellion wishes to portray himself as unique but humble. The pressures he feels from society and the pressures of his childhood are prominent in the understanding of his self expression. Bellion seeks to find the universal in the specific. The Human Condition is an attempt to transcend his own experiences, to say something

The fact that replicating a seventeen-years-old song can still become a hit in 2017, demonstrates that there is a pre-designed pattern for popular music in which changing a few characteristics to make a new songs sound “unique” can still result in success. For this reason, Adorno argues that the music industry produces music in an “industrial” way--popular music is centralized in its pattern and modifies some characteristics to seem “individualistic.” Though Shape of You and No Scrubs contain different keys, tempo, and of course, lyrics, they both rely on a chord progression of i-ic-VI-VII in a common time (MusicNotes, 1 & FindSongTempo, 1). Shape of you takes advantage that the audience is accustomed to listening to the same pattern and it is modified to fit the current era and thus, result in a significant monetary income.

This essay will evaluate Adorno’s critical attack on popular music. The essay will briefly provide some context on Adorno. Adorno claims that “listeners are made not born”, thus listening is a cultural practice, in which modernity has transformed into a profit (Adorno, 2002:248). By this, the essay will begin by focusing on the broader idea of the culture industry, in terms of commodities and popular music as not being critical. Following on, particular focus will be given to three main areas which convey Adorno’s criticism of popular music. These being, the musical form under standardisation, pseudo-individualisation and regressive listening in terms of escapism. Standardisation will be evaluated in structural terms, and critiqued by Middleton (1990) and Witkin (2003). Adorno’s critique of popular music can only be understood in relation to his analysis of serious music, therefore, the essay will focus on both types of music. Adorno’s criticisms of popular music and critics of this criticism, will enable for a conclusion to be drawn on whether or not I agree with Adorno’s claims on popular music.