Oxford Defines music as: - vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion: IS THIS WHAT WE HAVE NOW??
Over the years we have seen music “develop” from orchestral
grace to rock’n’roll to pop to electronic noise. Lost are the days where lyrics
told stories and beats caressed eardrums. To be a musician back in the day, you
had to be talented in many ways, be it lyrically, vocally or instrumentally.
Today only a handful of artists still have the ability to write good lyrics and
sing them with their own voices.
As a person who grew up in the 90s and a fan of many a
genre of music, I believe that today’s music has lost its soul. “Artists” like
WILL.I.AM, PitBull, Nicky Minaj amongst others in my opinion have made millions
on just throwing random words to catchy beats and it’s apparently ‘good music’.
If you can afford to pay either of the people I mentioned earlier and get them
to spit a few rhymes on your track, your pretty much guaranteed to be in the
charts.
So in essence you don’t really need to be that creative or
talented to write lyrics anymore, start a song with “Mr Worldwide, Mr 305” add
some random Spanish, end it with “Miaaami” and you’re sorted.
Don’t even get me started on Miley Cyrus, what a waste of
god given talent that girl is. Granted, these days sex sells pretty much every
damn thing, but I’m sure there’s an ethical way to do things. And she’s being compared to people like
Madonna and Britney Spears?? Remind me again which one of these two smoked weed
on public television???? Granted both Madonna and Britney are very controversial
and by no means saints, but damn, Narcotics on TV?? I’m certain Billy Ray
Cyrus, who happens to be a country music legend might have had a mini heart
attack seeing his little girl do that. But hey, there’s no point crying about
spilled milk now. The funny thing is, people always talk shit about rappers who
smoke weed and this was hushed up.
I know that the younger generations would probably roll
their eyes at me and say that I’m getting old and that I don’t understand music
anymore. But people this is fact. A good example of the “Power of Pitbull”, is
Jennifer Lopez. These two have released four or five songs together and have
now been chosen to do a song for the FIFA World Cup called “We are one”. The demo of this song sound horrendous, mind
you it’s sung by some other guy, hopefully the actual song sounds better. Thus
far it lacks the power and the passion of the previous World Cup songs.
Moving on to one of my favourite genres of music, Rap. Good lord!
Where to even begin. Back in the day, legends like Eazy E, Ice Cube, Run Dmc,
Coolio, Tupac Shakur and Biggie were awesome at the Rap game. I will go out a
limb and say that if they were alive, they would still be better than most of
the rappers today. How the hell did white guys become better rappers than black
guys?? The answer, Eminem, the man is a lyrical genius and he will out rap
almost anybody in the game right at this point. Marshall Mathers, Raps last
hope! THANK YOU DRE!!!
People like 2 Chainez, Drake, Lil Wayne, Whiz Khalifa etc
only rap about sex, money, cars and drugs. Now, I’m not saying the gangster
rappers of old didn’t rap about the same stuff, I mean Snoop Dogg might as well
have been born with a joint in his hand, and Dr Dre’s albums were called
Chronic. But still, the new stuff in my opinion is just a bad imitation. The rhymes
these guys spit don’t even make sense anymore. “I aint tupac, im the new pac”
Lil Wayne said this. I’m sorry what?? There’s only one Tupac, and if he were alive to hear that statement, he’d have ripped this guy a
new asshole. In the words of Ice Cube, " You just now learning the game, I taught it'
What do the majority of chart topping artists have in
common? They can’t bloody well sing! Everything is auto tuned now. This is a
question that people need to start asking record labels, why the hell do you
give people record deals, IF THEY CANT SING?!?. Nicky Minaj once claimed that
she is more talented than Mariah Carrey, seriously??? I swear the Botox has
gone to her brain. Mariah Carrey has a vocal range that Nicky Minaj (wouldn’t be
anywhere without Auto-Tune) couldn’t even dream of. Auto Tune has destroyed the vocals in music. If not for people like Adele, Daughtry amongst others, music would have truly died by now.
Party goers these days all look like zombies, they’re on all
kinds of drugs, they stand in rows, arbitrarily moving parts of their anatomy,
while facing a ‘DJ’ whose hands will be stretched
out, and the music?? It all sounds the same to me. Whatever happened to dancing?? Back when we
partied, it was all about meeting people, getting your drink on, and getting
rejected by all the hot girls that you ask to dance. NOT being on drugs, staring
at a DJ and standing next to each other.
Comedian Russell Peters said, “I know a lot of you spend
money to go see these so-called DJs who stand there in big arenas like this and
their arms are in the air. They better be DJing with their dick right now,
because if your arms are in the air who the hell is playing the music? Cos that’s
like you spending money to come see me and I put a DVD on and stand there
making hand hearts”. Oh so true…
The worst thing about music these days, is that musical instruments
have almost become obsolete, and that sucks. Lyrics don’t make sense anymore, beats and baselines
sounds exactly the same regardless of genre.
Back in the day, when artists like Freddie Mercury and
Michael Jackson or Elvis and The Beatles before them, ruled stages and venues
all over the world, music was amazing.
It was almost a separate language that
brought everyone together, regardless of cast, colour or creed. The 80s and 90s
saw remarkable changes in music and pop culture, but still for all, nothing
like what we have to deal with now.
If anyone has any issues with anything I’ve said, feel free
to comment, but remember this is just my humble opinion.