Shallow lyrics that fail to evoke much thought can be detrimental to a listener's intellectual health. Many developed countries have seen declines in reading proficiency and the superficial
The hippie aesthetic implies a song has a message to convey to the listening audience by any means at their disposal (Covach & Flory, 2015). My interpretation of this would be exemplified in the song “War” by Edwin Starr released in 1970 on his album titled “War and Peace”. Written as a protest against the Vietnam War (War by Edwin Starr), the listener cannot misinterpret the intended message. Most songs are not as direct as to their meaning but are none the less passionate about the topic. “Silent Running” by Mike and the Mechanics is one such song. Other songs are not as ‘global’ in their message but take on a personal connotation and elicit the listener’s emotions, such as “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper.
During this Lecture, the UC Merced Hip Hop Movement group educated us about the history of hip hop and what it is, and what it has evolved to. Hip Hop is a way of expression. The four pillars of hip hop are graffiti, Dj, Mci-ing/ spoken word, and dance. Hip hop first started out as just break dancing in the 1960s in Bronx, New York by immigrants. During the financial frustrations of WW II, immigrants used break dancing, as an outlet and form of expression. Break dancing can be so intense that it can be a battle of dance between two dancers. It can be a way to settle arguments. Later on, the Jamaican tradition of “impromptu toasting/boasting through rhythmic poetry over/with the music developed into “rapping” a.k.a. “Mc-ing.” (Movement) Dj-ing
Throughout Kanye West’s prolific career, he has possessed an intricate sound that has separated him from his hip-hop counterparts. After the immense praise he received on his breakout album, College Dropout, it was no surprise that Kanye West would perform at the same level on his second album, Late Registration. West presented an innovative and soulful sound to the hip-hop industry, earning individuals’ ears and hearts.With lyrics that discussed themes of poverty, drug abuse, and domestic issues and samples that provided a sense of nostalgia, Kanye West was steadily transforming into a political icon far beyond the means of his hip-hop artistry. With such empowering and sincere lyrics, Kanye West served as the voice of historically marginalized people, whose voices were seemingly unheard before. In the song “Drive Slow,” West’s guidance and empowering message remained evident, as he joined forces with GLC and Paul Wall to create a soulful song that offered assistance on how to overcome barriers in life. Through the use of suggestive details, figurative language, and vivid storytelling, West utilizes the automobile culture to assert how individuals can achieve success of every field of human endeavor through constant efforts in the right direction. In addition, he also attempts to convey that one must “drive slow” in a car in order to appreciate the environment that consists outside of the automobile. West creates a double entendre of the word “drive slow,” expressing that
Then, I will present the results in graphs and tables and discuss them. I plan to split my discussion into two parts parallel to the survey’s parts. I predict that the participants would describe the women in the infantilized song lyrics and music videos as childlike and dependent. If my prediction was true, I would use the discussion parts to explain the powerfulness of music in shaping the perception of women in our society. In my discussion, I will incorporate the findings of Huot’s and Carlson’s research that go along with my predicted finding. I will also use the examples of the infantilization of women in pop culture that are shown in “The Codes of Gender;” a documentary film, written and directed by Sut Jhally, that focuses on the American’s pop culture role in shaping the stereotypical ideas about femininity and masculinity. Also in this section, I will discuss other effects that resulted from the infantilization of women in music. I will use Alanna Vagianos’s Huffington post article “Drake’s ‘Hotline Bling’ Just Got A Genius Feminist Makeover,” to help me provide an example. In this article, Vagianos presents the story of a 27-year-old woman named Javetta Laster who was affected by the infantilizing lyrics of the hit song “Hotline Bling,” and decided to rewrite the lyrics in a more accurate way. One example of Laster’s rewritten lyrics shows how the original one was presenting an infantilized look of women; the original lyric says: “Why you never alone? Why you always touching road? Used to stay at home, be a good girl. You was in the zone, yeah,” while Laster’s edited feminist version of the same lyric says: “You used to stay at home and be someone I saw fitting into the patriarchal expectations of women to be infantilized good ‘girls’ which is some bizarre father/daughter husband/wife dynamic left over from women being considered adult children & property.” Laster’s rewritten
American Writer James McBride, who wrote the essay "Hip Hop Planet", spent most of his life disliking the culture of hip hop, but after some research and personal experience, he had a change of heart. The purpose of his essay is to shine a positive light on hip hop culture and move his audience-- people who think it is all bad-- to have a change of heart like him, and to achieve his purpose, he uses rhetorical strategies including appeals, specific diction, and meticulous sentence structure.
Hozier’s 2015 song “Work Song” suggests that true love comes from hard work, devotion, and sense of faith. The author creates a story that illustrates how someone who is miserable and at his lowest point, can find love and finally have a greater purpose. Hozier’s song encourages his listeners by showing them that true love can make someone strive to be better. As the song progresses, rhythm, the juxtaposition an image, and careful diction convey that above all, love is the root of happiness, but it is not achieved without laborious work.
At that time, Bruno realized he continuously took her for granted. While he once thought nothing of his choices the second she was out of the picture brought him in a dark place; bringing it to his attention the importance of waking up next to her genuine love—becoming all too serial to him. Losing his sense of comfort he was so use to having. To further understand, he incorporates the simple fact of the radio. Regardless of one’s mood, the radio is a source people rely on to deal with mental stresses. Music helps bring people out of a funk. It helps them feel what is needed to be felt in order to overcome different emotions. Bruno Mars sings, “Our song on the radio, but it don’t sound the same” (1.2.) Significantly, spending an enormous amount of time with a person indefinitely draws an emotional connection to the other. It means that the smallest details will turn into one of the greatest memories. At one point in time the song had was a very catchy and uplifting tune to it. Signifying the love and happiness they felt for one another as a couple. After the breakup he refers to the same song but with a different tune, only to represent her absence in the relationship. Minifying the sadness and heartache he felt; the feeling of emptiness in now a contributing factor to his persona. Serving as a constant reminder of what he once had and lost.
While many may argue that the rise of hip-hop is a major triumph, Questlove worries that by becoming so pervasive, the genre has, to a certain degree, become “invisible.” Instead of serving as “resistance to mainstream culture,” he believes hip-hop is now “part of the sullen dominant.” Questlove further laments that nowadays hip-hop is not as much a form of protest art; it has been marginalized, and its themes have been narrowed into ideas “mostly about [artists’] own victories and the victory of their genre.” Countless critics have made this same complaint—that hip-hop music is largely dedicated to lyrics about women, money, and fame.
Hozier’s 2015 song “Work Song” suggests that true love comes from hard work, devotion, and sense of faith. The author creates a story that illustrates how someone who is miserable and at his lowest point can find love and finally have a greater purpose. Hozier’s song encourages his listeners by showing them that true love can make someone strive to be better. As the song progresses, rhythm, the juxtaposition of images, and careful diction convey that above all, love is the root of happiness, but it is not achieved without laborious work.
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.
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.
Music is a universal way in which people connect, and it does this through its use of literary devices to make the songs meaningful while still appealing. The song, “Wait and See,” uses literary devices like similes and metaphors to contribute to the theme of society’s mistakes and their impacts on the
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.
Hip-hop dance is a popular and energetic dance genre, usually accompanied by hip-hop music. It has enjoyed popularity among young people all over the world. I have been interested in hip-hop music and dance for a long time. I can show my love for life and exercise my body by practicing hip-hop dance. Young people like hip-hop dance because they can invent their own moves. It offers young people a new way to express their own personalities and emotion. Hip-hop dance also shows that they feel good about life and that they are not afraid of problems. With a history of about 40 years, hip-hop dance first began in the 1970s in the US (Pabon, 1999). In early times, people in New York and Los Angles began to perform hip-hop dance. It was first