For starters, I'd hardly say that these genres are aimed at or marketed for "kids". When you say "kids", what immediately springs to mind is the 6-12 age group. This music is primarily marketed towards teens and young adults, more in the 13-17 and 18-25 age groups, which is
considerably different. I"m going to gout on a limb here and say that an 8 year old and a 20 year old
probably want different things in life.
That said, while these genres are aimed at youth, I think their lyrics and music is something that can cross over and have some appeal with adult audiences. The lyrics typically focus on more universal things that adults still experience like relationships, break-ups, realizing that growing up wasn't all its cracked up to be, being angry with the current state of affairs in politics and world events, worrying about death, depression, wanting to feel important and like your existence meant something, etc. And, y'know, there's all the lyrics about going out and having a good time. I know a lot of adults who can grasp on to that.
The music is no 9th Symphony, sure, but there's nothing
wrong with simple music. Sometimes the story you want to tell with your music requires you to modulate eight times and use a bunch of mode mixture, sometimes it just requires three chords. Either approach is fine, as long as it fits the music. Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan use three chord songs all the times, and I would hardly call their music "childish" or "for kids". I don't think their music would strike the same chord if it went straight for that crazy jazz fusion reharm. It would not be appropriate for the kind of message that they're trying to convey and what they want their songs to focus on. Pop-punk is focused a lot of times on building energy and drive, and emo is usually focused on conveying a message along the lines of "life sucks, go do something about it". That's overly simplistic, but you get the idea. The music fits what they're trying to do, and while it's not for everyone, it's not "childish" or "wrong". Intent matters.
I think all mainstream music is written for young people, hence the lyrics dealing with stupid, childish, adolescent stuff, bitches, money, badass mothafuckas, sex, the ever-repeating love themes and any trivial, mundane shit, take your pick. I mean.. I don't think the artists themselves have enough intelligence or intelect to write something clever. It is automatically directed to the younger audiences, even if not intended.
The second you step out of all that, you get more sophisticated, more complex music. Well, even pop or rap or hip-hop can be very well written, with good, intelligent, fresh lyrics. Any genre can. The problem is that the money lies on the other side of the fence.
Same thing with movies... people prefer 923847029384723980 super-hero movies a year with plots so childish, simplistic and full of explosions, special effects, and what-have-you rather than a movie that actually adds something to your life or makes you think or innovates or is a critic on society or the way we live. I mean, in this instant reward, instant gratification generation, who has an ever-decreasing attention spam and can't follow anything other than very linear, predictable storylines over and over and over again every year, what can one expect? But yeah, this is what makes money.
Well. There's a lot to unpack here that's just wrong.
I think all mainstream music is written for young people, hence the lyrics dealing with stupid, childish, adolescent stuff, bitches, money, badass mothafuckas, sex, the ever-repeating love themes and any trivial, mundane shit, take your pick. I mean.. I don't think the artists themselves have enough intelligence or intelect to write something clever. It is automatically directed to the younger audiences, even if not intended.
First, it's spelled "intellect". If you're going to insult someone else's intelligence, I would recommend actually spelling words correctly.
Second, a lot of that "stupid, childish, adolescent stuff" you're complaining about is either a) based on universal things almost everyone deals with in their life (i.e. love, money, sex, etc.), or b) not as common as you think. Sure, songs that glorify hedonism and are about how cool the artist is pop up often, but that's not as common as you think. And that's not limited to popular music by any means. Have you actually READ some of the lyrics to metal songs? Tell me lines like "faster than a laser bullet" (Judas Priest - Painkiller) and "rape the limbless cadaver" (Cannibal Corpse - Rancid Amputation) and "Let me introduce my brother, a bearded gentleman, historian!" (Dream Theater - The Count of Tuscany) are prime-examples of "intelligent" lyrics. Or the entirety of the American songbook, or opera lyrics, or musical theater lyrics, or prog lyrics, or rock'n'roll lyrics, or singer-songwriter lyrics. You pick a genre, you can find loads of example of bad, cliche writing in them. That's not limited to popular music or rap by any means.
And if we're throwing out universal topics like love, sex, and money...whoops! There went half the canon of establish poetic and literary masterpieces.
Third, pop musicians are very capable of writing deep and intelligent lyrics. Kesha's Prayer is about dealing with being raped by someone with a lot of political and social power, Drake sings about how he screws up a LOT, there are so many mainstream rap songs about the difficulties of growing up poor and black or the horrors of gang culture in black communities that they're almost cliches. I could go ON and ON about this. And about them not being intelligent? Kesha snuck in to university classes because she wanted to learn, Ozzy Osbourne got high/drunk and bit the head off a bat. Taylor Swift is an incredibly savvy businesswoman who owns her own label; Mozart got drunk a lot, squandered money, and wrote a song about wanting to lick someone's butt. Should I go on?
Fourth, the number of classical masterpieces written off of children's stories or for children is...staggering, to say the least. Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, the romantic era's entire fascination with folklore, Saint-Saen's Carnival of the Animals, Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, etc. Just because it's intended for young people, doesn't mean that it's bad or intelligent.
The second you step out of all that, you get more sophisticated, more complex music. Well, even pop or rap or hip-hop can be very well written, with good, intelligent, fresh lyrics. Any genre can. The problem is that the money lies on the other side of the fence.
Well, no, you don't. Mozart wrote a LOT of pieces that are mostly just V - I, there's an entire movement of classical music that focuses on Minimalism. That music is hardly what one would call "complex". Have you SEEN any of the Late Romantic/Modernist operas? Elektra has a scene where a woman pleasures herself with the decapitated head of John the Baptist, mainly for shock value. There's hardly a drop of sophistication in that. Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique is about him tripping out on opium and fantasizing about killing a woman that he had been obsessively in love with in real life (they got married btw, and were totally miserable). I mean, a lot of operas kill off characters or have unnecessary trauma in them because it creates soap opera-like drama. And opera has been around for centuries and can make a killing (especially in its hay-day). And Jazz lyrics (yes those exist) are literally the same as pop lyrics. Literally. The same.
Also, sophistication and complexity is BY NO MEANS a guarantee of quality, and neither is popularity. I remember a video Adam Neely did about his cover of Zedd's Clarity, and he demonstrates that reharmonizing it entirely with those complex polychords that everyone freaked out about made it sound
awful. There was a TED talk about the world's ugliest piece of music, and it was remarkably similar to the total serialization procedures of Stockhausen and Messiaen. Meanwhile, some of the best music ever written is almost astonishingly simple. There are a number of pieces in the Late Romantic period that can mainly be broken down to "well what's the smoothest way we can connect these two notes?" and Classical period music was all about simplicity and musical "cleanliness". Jazz was originally dance music! And yet the music of Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Bach, Duke Ellington, et al has impacted thousands if not MILLIONS of people across decades and centuries.
Same thing with movies... people prefer 923847029384723980 super-hero movies a year with plots so childish, simplistic and full of explosions, special effects, and what-have-you rather than a movie that actually adds something to your life or makes you think or innovates or is a critic on society or the way we live.
Yeah, superhero movies never say anything deep. I guess that's why Black Panther isn't about presenting the conflict for the black diaspora of identifying oneself with one's race or nationality and the conflict of whether to be isolationist or to give aid to other when your country has surplus. Or The Dark Knight isn't about conflicts of order and chaos and how it is sometimes better to tell a noble lie than to tell a truth that could have damaging ramifications throughout society. Or The Incredibles isn't about the conflict of whether to be individualistic vs homogenizing society (after all, "if everyone is super, than no one will be"). Or...do you want me to keep going or is that good enough?
I mean, in this instant reward, instant gratification generation, who has an ever-decreasing attention spam and can't follow anything other than very linear, predictable storylines over and over and over again every year, what can one expect? But yeah, this is what makes money.
I'm guessing you haven't seen Infinity War have you? It subverted every possible expectation anyone could have about what the movie was going to be, through EVERYONE for a loop, and was almost 3 hours long. That's not even counting all the people who rewatched all 18 movies leading into it. And don't even get me started on The Lord of the Rings, which can take a day or two to watch all the way through (especially the extended edition) and those are based on classic novels and are some of the most popular movies of all time. Or how Pulp Fiction is still one of the most popular movies ever, even with its non-linear narrative. Or how Bird-man was popular despite its story being almost painfully esoteric?
Basically, if you're going to try to be the gatekeeper of "high, intelligent culture" you should know that there is no such thing. As Duke Ellington famously probably said: "There are simply only two kinds of music: good music, and the other kind." It doesn't matter what genre it is, how "sophisticated" it is, how complex or simple it is, who it was written for, or how popular it is. Good music is simply good music.
Topic: Are pop-punk and emo music that is aimed only at kids and not adults? (Read 1288 times)