Reflection of Popular Music

“Don’t stop! See what are you listening.” It is my bumper sticker of this unit, and my Aha moment is “don’t stop!” as our class moving on. I awake that studying, should not only study things around me. To studying, we should go to things of the society, the things around people. Also we were not stop in the shallow area of pop music. Music is like ice cream, everybody like it, who doesn’t? It help people relax, Inspire love, religious ecstasy, cathartic release, social bonding. But people were not always known what are the song singings about. Our job is to analyzing pop music, so we do not stop in listening, we were continues to see it, to look at it, fine out the deeper things of popular music, fine out the relationship of pop music and our society.

Pop-music was not only mean western pop-music. In the essay “I hate world music” we can see western music were only a part of pop-music. In fact western pop music is boring and monotonous. There are many exciting creative music outside the western pop. But people were only focus on western Pop-music because they were thinking that is “their” and this is “ours”. People were choosing the music that their want. They were choosing the music that have consonance whit them. And people were leading the way that pop-music go by choosing and marketing.

As we can see in the “same old song” essay, Pop music were changing their topic following the generation change, Pop music were always targeted the kid and teenager, and keep away from the older generation. They were usually begun as a kind of counter-culture. Then they gradually became the mainstream. But the things were different today. Today sex-and-violence lyrics were dominating the billboard. The songs were not as tame as the song in 50’s or against the Political correctness as the song in 60’s and 70’s. Today, some pop music was revolting because they want to be grab people’s attention. There was nothing real new break through. It reflects the difference between generation’s minds.

Pop music was always explaining the young generation’s zeitgeist. I use the word “explaining” but not “influence” to describe the relationship between pop music and people, because as I see pop-music was not real deeply influencing the zeitgeist. It can influence a person or a group of people’s mind, change their behavior. But In general to say, music were choosing and creating by people, especially pop-music. Madonna was the first one sang about the sex issue, that is real shock the world, but it is not because she creates the idea of sex, It because the idea of sex were already ingrained in people’s consciousness, and the people were real craved and ready to talk about it. All they need is a flash point. Madonna is the flash point.

Also, Rap music is a flash point. Hip-hot culture was a subculture for a long time but before the race problem became a popular issue, it was not popular. But by the time that race problem became more and more serious. And people were real need to face to this problem, and then rap came out, hip hot came out. Yes it promotes the race problem, but what if we didn’t have rap music? Will the race problem never came out? Or the African American will be still the second-class citizen today? No, rap music is just a tool that people use to promotes and express the issue. It’s not where the problem come from, it’s where the problem express.

If you look at the wide picture, there is so many other great issue or ideas that were created or mention in some of the song that you never heard. That’s called underground music, it’s kind of subculture. Some of them were real great, but they have never been popular or up to the ground, because people were not choosing it. That’s why some guy became famous after they die, such as Van Gogh. That is art, if you mind do not have the idea, you were never understand what did Van Gogh drew. I have seen many people in China, they love rap music they like hip-hot clothing. But they were never known what it’s rapping about. Of course they were have never thought about the race problem, because race problem were not popular in china. Today Rap in U.S were the symbolizing the underclass, but in china It symbolizing the foreign style. There are thousands Hamlet, in thousands people’s eye.

At the end of this unit we have a song analyzing presentation, in that projection we learn how to analyze a song. It real makes me awake and understands why the “introduction to student “essay said that studying popular culture can make richer connections. It makes me understanding the song mean, and the song were describing the world and our society. So we can see where our society is heading. That is the skill helps us moving on. That is a life time skill.

But according to my presentation, I was disappointed by myself. I was well prepared, and I was analyzing the song very well, I know everything about that song, at least I am good at this song. And I try to make it funny so I think up a joke. And I wrote some main sentence. I did a power point that can help my audience understand my joke. But in fact, I was fall, when I was presenting I’m every nervous. So I think about it, I want to see what is wrong with it. Then I awake that joke was too big, I’m able to handle it yet, and the power point was not real connect to my real point. It was talking too much about my joke it confusing my audience.

In conclusion, our unit of pop music was finish, I have learned the way to studying music. But as my bumper sticker said it will not stop, it is a life time issue.