What Is This World Coming To?

If there's anything about me that most everyone ought to know, it's that I'm boycotting pop music. Not that I would judge anyone who DOES listen to it, this is just my own take on the matter. Looking through the artists of today and their corresponding works, it depresses me to see the incredible decline in creativity in the modern music industry. I've noticed 3 general themes that apply to most any pop song: Falling in love, falling out of love, and life purpose.

Falling in love:

This subject brings forth a shocking array of products, my theory behind the diversity being an incredibly skewed perception of how love works. A good number of people think that love means slutting up and heading off to a club to see what your bait catches. Others take Disney's point of view and "follow their heart" to just the right soul mate, describing the experience in a magical sort of way. I don't agree with either technique. This category may also reflect trying to save a relationship after having ravaged it with unfaithfulness, all the while still expecting a happy ending.

Falling out of love:

This can take a couple of forms; lyrics either convey a ruthless, hate-ridden tirade or a soft-spoken, gradual pushing away. Just because the other person seemed so perfect at first (via Disney-fied perception) doesn't mean that you can't hate them now. They messed up, and thus owe you some grand favor, namely the last *enter time period here* of wasted life spent with a worthless nobody.

Life purpose:

Whether lost, found, defined, or obscured, life songs usually have people nodding their heads in agreement. "Live like it's your last day." "If only everyone learned to love." "Why can't I find what I'm looking for?" All very profound and thought-provoking, to be sure. But once the music stops, so does any desire to dwell on the imperfect. One thing I've noticed is that these songs come up from bands who are usually found screaming about injustice or pursuing a hot someone who happens to be dating their best friend. Hypocrisy happens a whole lot in this area, giving the impression that--while clearly searching for something deeper--humans are, indeed, wicked and depraved and can not turn their will on their own.

I personally have this nasty intolerance of lyrical genericness, and melodic unoriginality also grinds my nerves into a pulp and drives me to find relief in the music of decades past. However, the deeper current here is our generation's lack of drive to find something new and worthwhile to sing about; the well-beaten path of love and wishful thinking has turned into a ditch that no one has the motivation to jump out of. What more, the ditch is headed in a direction doomed to failure, and that unsound course is what the youth of today are singing along to.