SOUNDTRACK FOR THIS POST: Queen, Radio GaGa
A little over a year ago, I had a strange hankering for something that I hadn’t wanted in years. Yet suddenly, there it was, this hankering that evolved into a burning desire gnawing away at me until I had no choice but to satisfy it.
I needed to listen to the radio.
For the past several years, I’ve noticed that the prevailing attitude among my peers has been this weird pride in not listening to the radio. I’m sure this conversation will be familiar to many of you:
Friend #1: What the hell song is this?
Friend #2: I don’t know. God, I haven’t listened to the radio in years!
Friend #1: I know! Neither have I. I haven’t watched MTV in years, either.
Friend #2: Seriously! I have no idea what “the kids are listening to” these days.
Friend #1: Whatever. They only play crap nowadays, anyway…
I’ve heard this conversation. I’ve had this conversation, steeped in a pride in musical ignorance. I’ve made those general statements about “music today” without really knowing anything about it save the stray notes I’d hear from a passing car, or on some channel or other while flipping with my TV remote. For several years after college, I relied on my friends for musical recommendations. Once I discovered Pandora Internet Radio, I thought I’d discovered the best of all worlds! Here was something like radio with the added bonus of being shaped by my musical tastes! It recommended new artists that have ended up becoming favorites of mine. It is something I can reliably leave on all day at work, knowing it will provide me with a steady stream of music. Great, right? Pandora was surely the thing that would successfully transition me into being a musically mature adult!
Except that after a while, my stations started becoming repetitive. With nothing but my limited taste to guide them (and I have a pretty eclectic musical taste!), the same songs and artists kept coming up. The same problem I ascribed to broadcast radio – “They play the same 5 songs over and over!” – was happening to me here, too. Suddenly, the advantage I thought internet radio had over broadcast radio wasn’t so clear an advantage.
Then I realized an even bigger problem, and it connects to that all-too-familiar conversation above. I realized that I’d been limiting myself to music I know I like. Friends who think like me were recommending music to me they already had an idea I’d enjoy. I was listening to my own music collection ad nauseum. Pandora was using its fancy-schmancy algorithm to spit out songs and artists it knew I would like. This is a great thing in theory.
Except that I got bored.
I missed something as simple as not knowing what’s coming on next. I missed being able to turn on music and say “I don’t like that.” I missed taking a chance on something new and forming a new opinion. I missed hearing radio personalities who are steeped in this music talk about it. And I realized that the attitude I had about “what the kids are listening to” was doing nothing but insulating me in a snug (and smug) self-satisfied little cocoon. This is a difficult realization for a Native New Yorker. We Native New Yorkers pride ourselves on being open-minded, and we love nothing more than to look down on other people and places that don’t think the way we do and make fun of them. But…wait…aren’t we then doing the exact…same…thing we criticize them…for doing?
Indeed.
So many people I know, myself included for a long while, stopped listening to the radio because we equated the songs found there with hormone-addled teenagers and our “less sophisticated” brethren in Middle America. God FORBID we be anything like THEM! And it is here where I will make a startling confession.
I LOVE POP MUSIC! Whew! That feels so good to say out loud. I think I’ll say it again. I. LOVE. POP. MUSIC. It’s something that, for a while, I felt uncomfortable being honest about. And so, even when I’d come out and say something as risky as “I like Britney Spears”, it would have to be said with a trace of irony in the voice. Because no one over the age of 16 actually likes Britney Spears, right? Or Kelly Clarkson? Or Lady Gaga? Or Justin Timberlake? Or, um, ANY hip-hop? And it wasn’t just me. Whenever many of my friends “confess” to enjoying a pop song, it’s always with some sort of qualifier like “It’s a fun, fluffy song!” or saying that some pop singer or other is a “great performer!” Both of those statements being code for: I can’t admit that I just like this song, but I can get around that by complimenting an element having nothing to do with the music or lyrics while simultaneously acknowledging that I “know” the song is “actually” bad.
Why do we do that to ourselves? Why do we punish ourselves for what we like and make ourselves listen to music that bores us just because it’s more critically acclaimed or has more hipster cred? And why do we dismiss pop music out of hand, as if it doesn’t contribute anything valuable to our culture, as if its lyrics can say nothing to us, or as if its melodies and beats have no artistic value? Popular music is popular for a reason, and instead of ignoring it out of some false sense of musical superiority, perhaps it would behoove us to examine that reason, those reasons, and become a part of the conversation. Perhaps if we do participate, pop music will evolve in our image. Just as you can’t complain about the results of an election in which you haven’t voted, you can’t complain about the state of pop music and make snarky comments if you’ve purposely separated yourself from it. Let’s remember - Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald sang “pop music.” The Beatles were “pop music.” Motown churned out “pop music.”
Pop music can change the world, if you let it.
Since I started listening to the radio again, I’ve heard some now-favorite songs of mine (like Ke$ha’s Tik Tok and Pink’s Sober), I’ve heard an interview that solidified my love of Lady GaGa, I’ve been regularly listening to a morning show I used to listen to all the time when I was younger and didn’t realize I was missing until I heard it again (Elvis Duran and the Z-Morning Zoo!), and I’ve discovered a new radio station that I’ve fallen in love with (101.9 RXP, the only rock station in NY playing NEW rock as well as classic rock) which introduced me to a UK band that might become one of my favorites very soon – Florence and The Machine. I’ve rediscovered the joy that is being part of the musical mainstream. I know, right? But willfully distancing yourself from “what the kids are listening to” is just as misguided as a teenager sticking his/her nose up at “old people music” for no reason other than it being outside their experience. And they’re young, so they understandably don’t have the historical perspective to appreciate anything before their time.
What’s your excuse? 
For my part, I’ve decided to start a new feature here at The Teresa Jusino Experience called Pop Goes Teresa, wherein I will attempt to analyze/speak intelligently about a pop song, a pop artist, or trends in pop music. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you’ll participate and give me suggestions as to what you’d like to talk/hear about!
I’ve also decided long ago to stop being ashamed of what I like. That way of thinking is annoying and was giving me an ulcer.
So very true! Funny, I was sharing an iPod with my friend’s daughter just yesterday. I DO LOVE Lady Gaga and Ke$ha… and several of the others my 15-year-old compatriot played. And, much to some people’s surprise, we had some good conversation about why we liked the lyrics. Scary, I know, but some teens (maybe more than some, I admit I don’t know enough) listen to the lyrics and meaning of the songs. It’s NOT mindless. Regarding interviews, I was rather fond of the Lady Gaga interview in Maxim; she’s smart! And a Neil Gaiman Fan (she wanted signed books per @neverwear, @neilhimself & @fabulouslorraine Twitter feeds, if I recall correctly.)
Strangely, I found myself explaining these things to the other ‘adults’ in the room… And my friend actually ducked down and listened with us. Yay!
I’m excited to read the “Pop Goes Teresa” posts (great name, btw). And in reading this post, I’ve figured out how to explain some of my own music tastes and prejudices.
I actually disagree about not being able to make snarky comments about pop music while distancing yourself from it. First off, pop distanced itself from us too. I think now, more than before, pop music has target markets in mind. We always hear the “music is universal” thing but we know that that’s not true anymore. And when music starts to get “aimed” at people, that’s when I begin to have a problem with it. If I can’t find my place in their music, then it’s over, you lost me. I can make all the fun of Miley Cyrus I want because “Party in the USA” wasn’t meant for me. It was meant for someone who is, was, or will be a 12-year-old girl. But someone like Lily Allen, on the other hand, is much more universal and connects with me. The universality of pop music is lacking today and I think universality is essential to pop.
And you’re going WAY too easy on the kids today. Their not having a historic perspective to appreciate anything before their time is not an excuse and not understandable. John Lennon was shot when we were still in diapers; how’d we get into the Beatles? Or Sinatra, Elvis, the Supremes or anything before OUR time? It’s because that was all that was on the radio back then. And if a kid don’t know ’bout Bachman Turner Overdrive, he better ask somebody!
All this reminds me, I still need to give you the Imani Coppola CD. If you want to talk about pop…
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a bunch of kids on my lawn.
@Trisha – I agree that teenagers listen to lyrics a bit harder than adults do, and I think it’s to do that they’re at a time in their lives when they have no idea how to express themselves fully yet, so they latch on to other people’s words to try and find some kind of meaning. I remember the days when I would use song quotes to preface just about EVERYTHING! Now, I only do that SOMETIMES!
@Alex – yay! I’m so glad you’re in on this, because I know you feel passionately about music and can talk about it intelligently.
First, I would ask – is it necessary to make snarky comments about something just because one can’t relate to it? I mean, I don’t relate to a lot of country music, but I also don’t sit around tearing apart the whole genre, because I know that there are several songs I do like, and the ones I don’t relate to, I don’t have to care about either way.
And it’s funny, but “Party in the USA” is going to be the topic of my very next post! So I don’t want to say TOO much about it. However, while it might be true that it might not be something an adult male would bop around in his underwear to, I would disagree that the song “isn’t universal.” I mean, the lyrics are pretty much about someone who goes somewhere new, feels out of place, and is comforted by familiar music. That’s what the song’s about. Are you saying you can’t relate to that story at ALL?
Lastly, I think you’re too hard on kids today. First, just because pop music is the way it is doesn’t mean kids AREN’T listening to older stuff. I’ve met a lot of really cool teenagers who ARE into The Beatles or The Clash or old-school rap. Secondly, a lot of people our age like those things NOW, but didn’t come to bands like The Beatles until late high school, early college. And if we were into it before then, it was probably because our parents listened to it, so it was a part of our experience in a way that it’s not for younger people today. They are that much more removed from that music than we were. Also, as another example, I got into 1930s swing music because of a Chips Ahoy commercial when I was little that used Benny Goodman’s “Sing, Sing, Sing.” My brother got me an Andrews Sisters cassette for my birthday that I LOVED. But when I told my friends that I loved people like The Andrews Sisters, or Frank Sinatra, or Duke Ellington, they looked at me like I had 5 heads. Sure I was kind of “progressive” musically, but I was an exception, not the rule. It wasn’t until college when I met other people who, like me, liked Ella Fitzgerald really early.
But the bottom line of all of this is that the music-sharing between generations shouldn’t be a one-way street. All I’m saying is that if we expect kids to respect music that either isn’t contemporary or isn’t mainstream, we need to at least try and understand the mainstream songs they like and FIND ways to relate to them. We don’t have to LIKE them, but we should try to UNDERSTAND them and include them in the general conversation.
POP!!!