Music for the People

I’ve spent the last three weeks on a road trip, a lot of that time in the car driving past fields, through rain forests, along coastlines whilst listening to my iPod, or silence, fail that, the radio.

It’s always awkward going on a long road trip with people, even if they are close friends, lovers, or family. There is always that argument on what should be listened to, or whether there should be any listening at all, attacks on music preferences taken personally, silent grudges kept until an eventual explosion, and then the radio goes on. A treaty of peace. The United Nations. Collective resignation.

And so I have mainly listened to the radio for the past three weeks, my musical library not stretching wide enough to come within conservational coercive distance from that of my travel partners’ or vice versa. We listen to Classic Hits, The Rock, Solid Gold, the odd section of Newstalk ZB, and I highlight the cultural significance of Radio Sport when cricket is on. We hear the same awful rotations of songs, sometimes singing, sometimes saying “I can’t believe this is music!” We bang our heads on respective aspects of the car interior, complain that the emcee talks too much, complain that there is too much advertising, then wish for more advertising or talking after the next smattering of ‘hit’ songs are played.

I look at my iPod and she at hers.

We consider reprisal of their connective duties to the speaker system. 

I consider listening to her music and she considers listening to mine.

We decide that radio stays on.

Songs are rotated so frequently that I start to know them on a personal level. I learn every unfortunate, cliche lyric. I start to imagine the inspiration behind the song. The chain of events that brings the song into being;

Someone writes a song. Song passed to Record Executive. Record executive makes phone call, sets off a jumbled chain of various phone calls. Neo Britney Spears picks up the phone terminating jumbled chain of calls. Told by manager that she has a new hit song including interlude by yet to be determined rapper. She hangs up, redirects attention back to mirror, insecurely questions the size of her breasts and need for surgery, looks at an adorned poster of Madonna in her glamour days and says a prayer.

I am convinced it goes something like that.

I start to question the inventiveness of the song writer, the substances smoked, the therapy sessions that ensued out of guilt, the soul-less Record Executive and marketing department, Simon Cowell, xxxx Idol winners, the dim-witted consumers and fans. I despair.

I mean, listen to the lyrics. From Pink’s song Funhouse;

This used to be a funhouse

But now it's full of evil clowns

It's time to start the countdown

I'm gonna burn it down down down

I'm gonna burn it down

9, 8, 7, 6 5 4, 3, 2, 1, fun

I had to ask myself: These aren’t the lyrics I’m hearing, are they?

But yes. Yes they are.

And then she goes on...

Oh, I'm crawling through the doggy door

My key don't fit my lock no more

I'll change the drapes

I'll break the plates

I'll find a new place

Burn this fucker down 

(sounding really bad ass with that last line before repeating;)

do do do do dodo do

do do do do dodo do

do do do do dodo do

do do do do dadadada

do do do do dodo do (9, 8, 7, 6 5 4, 3, 2, 1)

do do do do dodo do

do do do do dodo do

do do do do dodo doo

This, my dear readers is a radio hit.

Or this song by Bruno Mars;

I’d catch a grenade for ya (yeah, yeah, yeah)
Throw my hand on a blade for ya (yeah, yeah, yeah)
I’d jump in front of a train for ya (yeah, yeah , yeah)
You know I'd do anything for ya (yeah, yeah, yeah)
Oh, oh
I would go through all this pain,
Take a bullet straight through my brain,
Yes, I would die for ya baby

It sounds like the sort of song an Islamic fundamentalist would sing in worship but it’s not. It’s about a guy who is a bit sore after being jilted by a girl.

I can picture him pacing his lounge room floor distraught. He is thinking:

F*** that bitch! I loved her! I would have done anything for her! I would have f***ing jumped in front of a bus for her. I would have jumped out of a plane for her, taken bullets for her, caught a grenade for her....

He then pauses, no longer so distraught. He smiles surprised. Holy shit, he thinks. I’ve just written a song!

What irks me most is that the people responsible for all of this pollutive auditory stimulus are getting rich out of it. Every time one of Pink’s songs are played on the radio she is earning money. She’s got to be sitting at home laughing. All of the rappers must be doing it too. It’s a hard life turning up to a recording studio and saying: “Uh. Yeah. Uh. Yeah. Say what? Uh. Yeah” repeatedly into a microphone then rapping two or three lines like;

Yeah girl, you were always the one for me, got butterflies when you first noticed me, got you on my mind all of the time, you the inspiration for this rhyme, I was in a dark place and you was there to comfort me, in a tough spot you were my liberty, now that we got each other we like a lab mixing perfect chemistry, your love’s a drug, I feel it when we f-, come baby come, scream it from your lungs...

And then I’m hearing it on the radio a few months later and wanting to shoot myself.

But it is I who am listening to it. I who has been listening to it for the past three weeks as I have driven in my car.

Music on the radio is an ugly illustration of the human condition. What I hate on the radio is what I hate in humanity. Radio plays our anthems, most meaningless, intellectually shallow. We live for bastardized themes of love, and heartache. We procreate to it. We use it for escapism, comfort, and meaning. We are that pathetic, that lost, that ugly, that different, but that similar. It slowly shuffles itself through generations, these common themes and nuances, our common bond. 

That’s popular culture.

Towards the end of our trip I’m listening to my iPod plugged into the car stereo speakers and  she’s listening to hers through her headphones.