The day the music died
I have commented before on the singer, Soulja Boy (see Video killed the radio star on this blog), with regard to people playing music out loud on their mobile phones:
The speakers are rubbish and any sound that comes out (quite apart from the lyrical delights of Soulja Boy’s wonderful hit, Crank Dat (Soulja Boy), which exhorts us to watch him do before cranking it ourselves, possibly without the necessary safety equipment) will be offensive to the ears.
Soulja Boy has come out with a new song. I hate to do this to you, but I want you to listen to and watch the video that accompanies the song on YouTube.
It is awful, is it not? This song has actually made me angry. Why? Let me count the ways.Firstly, the music. There is a single, tinny phrase that repeats throughout the song; fortunately, much of it is obscured by the rapping and voice-over, but it still comes through. The five notes on a synthesiser and drum machine beat go on throughout the song, repeating without regard to verse, chorus or bridge; there is neither synchronisation or syncopation. The repeated phrase is, however, perfect for mobile phone ringtones, much as Soulja Boy’s previous song, Crank Dat (Soulja Boy), was.
Secondly, the lyrics. One particularly memorable lyric is
Aint got time for chit chat I’m tryin to get this money
So get up out my face, you doodoo head dummy
‘Doodoo head dummy’? It’s almost not worth commenting on that level of wordsmithing. Soulja Boy has been famous for about (by my watch) thirteen minutes and he’s already telling his fans how much he hates them.
Thirdly, the message. Contrary to popular belief, under this crusty exterior, there’s a pretty crusty interior, so I’m not claiming to be ‘down wiv da yoof’. The appeal to c-list celebrity status, though, is remarkable. Soulja Boy has had one hit prior to this and we’re already being told ‘about the life and how you live it when yous [sic] a star’. Singers often say and are often told to write about themselves, their lives and what they know. Unfortunately, they becomed divorced from reality and start banging on about the perils of endless fame and their deep insights. Nickelback took eleven years to release Rockstar, Madonna was around for twenty-one years before the truly execrable American Life and even Britney Spears took a couple of years between Baby One More Time and Lucky.
Fourthly, the rest of the message. Saying ‘Yahh’ is not a solution to problems any more than ‘talk to the hand because the face ain’t listening’. It may be me being crusty again, but I don’t think dealing with issues by making a random noise is a good message or even a message worth listening to. It’s still a random noise.
Fifthly, the b-side. As I said, I am not ‘cool’, but the low expectations expressed in the b-side appended to the end of Yahh!, Report Card are disquieting. The song talks about receving a report card that is all ‘F’s and then insisting the teacher change it to ‘D’s. Even I recall that some people found it amusing to do badly but what annoys me here is that the improvement is only to a ‘D’. There’s a lack of ambition for you.
Sixthly, the endcap, in which he exhorts people to ‘[l]isten to Soulja Boy Tell’em – stay in school’. If you’re going to sing about being wild and rebelious, making random noises towards people who annoy you and if telling your teacher to change your grades, don’t then insult your audience’s intelligence by telling them to stay in school.
Seventhly and finally, the record’s existence. Someone, somewhere (a producer by the name of Mr Collipark) thought this record was worth releasing. While Soulja Boy says that he wants to get away from the negative messages traditionally associated with hip-hop, he replaces it with inanity. For example, the song SideKick is about his mobile phone and even he has the decency to end with the lines
Man I Can’t Believe That I’m Rappin ’bout A Phone
But What U Won’t Believe Is I Wrote This Song….
and the attempt to be ‘nice’ by telling people to stay in school seems rather flat given that the lyrics to his previous single, Crank Dat (Soulja Boy) include the memorable lines ‘Superman that ho’, ‘Superman that bitch’ and ‘Super-soak that ho’. There is also ‘and if we get to fighting / then I’m cockin’ on yo’ bitch as’ which I presume to be a reference to cocking a weapon, although I may be wrong on that one.
Apologies for the rant, but I hate the song with a passion.
xD.
May 17th, 2008 at 8:50 am
I just don’t get why you listen to it if you hate it so much. I didn’t play that video because I know it’s going to be crap and I’m happy to leave it there.
You seem to have wasted a lot of effort writing about something that your entire readership (probably) won’t listen to either because it’s obviously not to our tastes. Plenty of decent sounding songs are bollocks if you actually analyse the lyrics, and the fact is, that some people like the sound that this song has. I assume.
Snore.
May 17th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Ouch!
I wrote about it because it is an example of an important social phenomenon – the continued commercialisation of music. The result is that record companies are looking for songs that are cheap to produce, have an element of self-marketing and can raise money through channels other than record sales, in this case ringtones.
I accept that I am not compelled to listen to this dross. However, it is precisely the sort of rubbish that is played by people using their mobile phones at the back of the bus. Moreover, it has an effect on the entire popular music scene by taking up airplay time so that I can’t find other, new music that I do like and by encouraging people to fund and resource this kind of music.
It’s not just a rant – there’s a point to it!
xD.
May 17th, 2008 at 9:07 am
I see! Listen to Virgin Radio, they don’t play crap.
I didn’t mean to be mean.
And having been out of London and with a car lately I’ve escaped the morons blaring out tinny music on buses. Poor you.
May 17th, 2008 at 9:46 am
You weren’t being mean
Problem is that Virgin Radio will end up playing this crap and that Virgin only plays one broad area of music and I want to be able to hear lots of different things. That, and Soulja Boy is part of the relentless homogenisation of music.
xD.