comp lit and mediaphilia
I love you. You read my teenage diary and you get it. Your entire Fearless album is my jam. Love it love it. You might be crazy, you might date people just for publicity and then complain that nobody loves you, and you might be sometimes overrated, but you’re also a genius, and I respect that. (Let’s forget that Speak Now happened, because we all do hugely awful things from time to time and we just need to get over them.)
But why, oh why, can you not keep your pronouns straight?
You have problems in tons of your songs, but let’s take your latest and most egregious, “I Knew You Were Trouble,” and break it down: Continue reading →
Posted in music
Tagged grammar , music , rant , song lyrics , songwriting , writing
Jul · 06
There’s this new song by Eminem and Rihanna that’s sparking a lot of conversation.
A few things to preface my own opinion of the song: I don’t think Eminem is that great, as rappers go. I find him a bit dull, but there are a couple of his songs that I think are decent. “Stan” I like, which may be why I think “Love the Way You Lie” is interesting as well. I do like Rihanna, though in general I listen to more quiet indie music than anything else. Still, she has catchy music that I like to listen to when working out, cleaning, driving, etc. And I always like to defend mainstream, top-40 music (when it deserves the defense) because popularity does not negate talent. Sure, some mainstream stuff is shit, but it’s not because it is popular. I will also say that in this post I will kind of imply that people who listen to top-40 are not smart. I don’t think that’s the case; I just think that there are more people who don’t think for themselves listening to top-40 than to some other genres. But, again, top-40 doesn’t mean it’s bad, and it doesn’t mean only lame people listen to it.
So. First of all, Rihanna’s part in this song is beautiful. It’s an example of one of those songs when the melodic line is really fitting for the lyrics. It’s like onomatopoeia. Even if you didn’t hear what she was singing, you would still know there was pain and confusion and inner conflict. The song goes on to describe an abusive relationship, in which both members do pretty horrible things to each other, but they still love each other (or at least think they do), and Rihanna also says that she likes “the way it hurts,” which I think describes how a lot of people feel when they love someone who treats them badly, no matter whether it’s just a guy who’s a bit of an asshole or a guy who should be put in prison for beating his girlfriend.
People mostly have a problem with this song, I think, because it seems to glorify abuse, or at least demote its significance and make it seem like abusive relationships are no big deal. Nowhere does Rihanna sing about calling a hotline or going to a women’s shelter. She, or at least her character, is happy with the relationship. Or at least she’s settled in it and unwilling to change it.
This song can certainly be seen as irresponsible. Because Eminem and Rihanna are mainstream artists with a lot of fans who are young and impressionable, I can see how it is a bad move to sing a song that literally condones staying in a bad relationship. I doubt anyone would see that as the right thing to do.
But are Eminem and Rihanna actually condoning it, or are they just singing? I see singing as a form of acting, where you can sing about things that haven’t necessarily happened to you and make them your own. What’s more, Rihanna has been in an abusive relationship and probably felt some of these things, which makes her one of Stanislavski’s finest, because she’s method acting through a song. I choose to see the song as drama, not as fact, and I like to think that they are singing it to shed light on how a lot of women actually feel, not to say that it’s a good thing. But then again, that’s maybe not a good choice when many of your fans might not see the distinction. I don’t know that I would necessarily have been able to understand music as fiction when I was 11.
So I guess the real question is whether mainstream artists, whether they chose to be that way or ended up that way out of chance, have more of a responsibility to their own art or to the persona and public image and public role that they have been pigeonholed into.
I, however, really hope that I’m right about their intent, and I’m happy I bought the song. Because it’s pretty.
*The video, though, sucks. It delegitimizes the message that (I think) they’re trying to give. And also, like many music videos, it’s stupid and the “plot” doesn’t really make any sense. Though I love Dominic Monaghan.
(Find Eminem music on sale at Kmart .)
Tagged criticism , famous people , feminism , music , pop culture , song lyrics
Aug · 09
Now my eyes are wide open Now that everything’s been stolen And I’m here to get it back from you See I ain’t wasting no more time Got to get back what’s mine What else am I supposed to do?
Here I am With my heart on the floor And my love out the door You should be knocking But there it goes I’ve got nothing to show for Except pictures I posed for But I keep ‘em in a box under my bed
I told you time and again You never win I told you time and again But you keep doing the same old thing When I thought that you would change I told you time and again
Here I am With my heart on the floor And my love out the door You should be knocking There it goes I’ve got nothing to show for Except pictures I posed for But I keep ‘em in a box under my bed
Oh, oh, oh, oh.
Here I am With my heart on the floor And my love out the door
There it goes I’ve got nothing to show for Except pictures I posed for
–Meiko
Posted in rambling
Tagged angst , nothing , procrastinating , sad , song lyrics
May · 30
I like to learn things slow I like learning a lot I like to get it all again and in the end you know you get what you got I like to mean what I say But it don’t always come through ’cause if I say it all again again again it doesn’t make it more true
And the world’s like a science and I’m like a secret But I saw you lingering still I saw you lingering still
It’s all just news to me Don’t really care if it hurts ’cause if I knock it I won’t know it, then I know that it will only get worse He was different at first But then he won’t understand Because he’s never gonna know me if he doesn’t want to just shake my hand
–Zooey Deschanel
Tagged angst , boys , music , procrastinating , sad , song lyrics
Apr · 15
I’ve started mostly paying for music again, and it’s wonderful, because now I don’t listen to crap, and I support indie music aside from just when I go to shows, AND I get to find out that the Swell Season released a new deluxe album, and I just downloaded it a few hours ago.
I’m not sure that most people would like them, given that a lot of what makes them awesome is the movie “Once,” so if you haven’t seen it, you may be confused. Also, though their concerts are cool, they play with the Frames, so even in a place as small as the Rialto, say, it’s still a loud cacophony of noise compared to their studio recordings, in which you can actually hear the musical part of the music. However, while they’re not my favorite people in the entire world, I really like them a lot and respect their way of doing the whole music thing. The Swell Season is really a band for musicians, I think, especially for musicians who love the Irish musical tradition. Which is awesome.
The first problem with understanding the Swell Season is that there is no real way to categorize them. Not that “genre” is ever really helpful, but where do they go? Indie music, yes, but are they folky? Bluegrassy? Irish? Something else? Their albums are collections of songs, but the songs don’t always have much to do with each other. You have Glen Hansard writing himself songs to sing, and they’re interesting lyrically, because if you just read the lyrics, they look like bad poems, but somehow they work. Then sometimes he likes to get loud with his Frames buddies. And then, out of the blue, everything will stop, and here comes Marketa Irglova with the most depressing, heartwrenchingly sad, sad song that makes you want to die, but it’s so pretty and so universally personal that you can’t help but think she’s amazing. And then, if you listen really closely to the other songs, you hear her harmonies behind Glen, and you wish that they would have evened out the levels a bit.
What I love about them is that they make music that tells you how much they love making music. It’s not really trying to be this perfectly produced gem with songs that music supervisors are clamoring for. They are not going to end up on “Grey’s Anatomy”–at least, probably not. But, just like I’m at my happiest when I am belting any song while driving in my car, you can tell that they just love what they’re doing. And they each have this unique background that they’re coming from, and they just sound like people experimenting and having fun and sharing–”We do this in Ireland.” “Oh, really? In the Czech Republic, we do this”–and just being musical. The Swell Season is like music in progress.
Definitely this album is easier to like if you’re not really music-y or if you’re not me than their previous one, which was a bit too hard to discern what the harmonies and melodies were. I’m liking it so far. Yay music! It makes me want to get writing again. G-d, I miss writing so much.
Tagged famous people , music , review , song lyrics
Oct · 27
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