"POP"...SHORT for the word "popular."
It is a term commonly attributed to anything that circulates widely
over a particular culture. In a way, it is related to the term "mainstream"—though
it's not quite as simple as that. Mainstream circulates freely, but
it is not always the kind that is supported by the largest group of
people. Something that is labeled as "mainstream" does not
necessarily affect a culture the way something labeled as "popular"
does. Anything that is popular greatly affects culture, for good or
ill.
To write a general topic about "pop" would use up undue
space in my column; at any rate, we are only here to talk about "pop
music."
Nothing has probably affected the mode of life in the twentieth century
more than pop music. In some cases, it has been likened to a rare
gem that enriches our lives, one that gives it hue and definable form.
Largely, however, it has been as much a nuisance as the bubonic plague
(also known as The Black Death—which wasn't just metaphoric)
that almost decimated the population of Europe and Asia in the fourteenth
century. (All right, perhaps I'm over-dramatizing a bit. Do you remember
SARS? That's probably a more accurate description.)
Pop music has been an occasional—but somewhat bearable—nuisance
in the past. But never so much as it is now.
Today, pop music can also be described as "The Unknown Creeping
Sinister Demented Disaster" (which is a description I find in
awful taste, not much different from the way I think of the genre).
As if it wasn't enough that one representative of the genre destroys
a significant part of our thinking, another one decides to sweep in
and edit "destruction" to "devastation."
Let us take, for instance, one of the kinds of songs that seem to
be the current rave: those that contain undertones of sex. Granted,
there are—many—perverts in the world, and the undertones
are not always so ostentatious, but what is the song without knowledge
of the undertones? Nothing. Nothing more than random, silly, bullshit.
Those perverts were probably better off watching porn.
Yes, porn. It is defined as, "An appeal to prurience without
any artistic, scientific, or cultural value" (according to Mr.
Heherson Alvarez). At least in porn videos you might actually learn
something (like: what not to do on your first date). In a sense, porn
videos (and pictures) are less porn than what has already been mentioned
in the previous paragraph.
What has become even more abominable, is that these songs have actually
been used by many political candidates to further "popularize"
themselves to the masses (notice how the word commonly appears in
ugly circumstances). I can think of a better term for this goal: "Political
Prostitution."
If anything ever gets more illogical than that, try listening to
songs written in another language...without learning the language
first (or getting a translation).
Try approaching someone to tell him that your favorite music is metal.
Chances are, he will call metal "satanic music." Try to
let him explain why he calls it satanic music, and he'll probably
tell you that they make songs about Satan. Tell him that only a small
number of metal bands play satanistic music, and he probably wouldn't
care. Tell him that singing about Satan is quite a bit less evil than
what the government does, and he calls you a communist.
Irritating, isn't it? It's actually even more irritating than Kris
Aquino's ululating voice (did I just say that? *Looks out the window
to check for head-on comet crashes to Earth, as well as other galactic
tragedies*). Let's just say that I was emulating the kind of narrow-mindedness
the current trend of pop music has produced.
And that seems to be one of the primary goals of pop music: to addle
the brain; make it as fragile as a rotting piece of tofu. And, of
course, to make money. But, that comes hand in hand. Those people
whose sole purpose is to make money don't give a damn about what happens
to the masses, who are often their captive audience. What's important
to them is money: lot's of it. (I also have suspicions about a conspiracy
going on—something like, Government Orders Record Companies
to Publish Bullshit Songs to Lessen the Opposition of the Common Man
to Their Idiotic Policies—but this is not confirmed.)
So, they will go through all sorts of things just to expand their
already overflowing pot of gold (or their already overflowing tank
of blood, if you are into the grotesque). What's currently happening
to the pop scene is no different from the eradication of natives and
the flattening of their sacred lands to create towering subdivisions;
a factory or power plant's dumping of toxic waste in a river; a land-robber's
stealing of an innocent farmer's soil; or a war against an imaginary
terror.
What's left to us, then, when other genres are commercialized? When
rock, rap, punk, metal, grunge, folk, country, and even reggae music
are co-opted by institutions whose first-term goal is to make money?
What's left is to choose, carefully, the songs that we listen to.
Besides, there's nothing much left of pop albums but a few (very few)
good songs with bland fillers strewn around like the faceless corpses
in the aftermath of a war. There are always good bands in the aforementioned
genres, all you need to do is to hunt for them; the blood, sweat,
and tears gained in the effort are well worth it, believe me. Would
you really like to make the money-hungry institutions of pop music
bleed you to death, and make them filthy-stinkin'-rich? And all the
while they would be laughing at your misfortunes like ecstatic hyenas.
Let us not make the same mistake twice.
