Talk Music to Me

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Artists Who Give Hip Hop a Bad Rap

The hip hop industry isn’t new to controversy. In fact, it welcomes it. From artists being associated with drug addiction, violence, or gang activity, people have almost found comfort in the authenticity of hip hop — it emanates from people who have actually experienced similar struggles like depression, suicidal thoughts, or the dark days of thug life. Hip hop music is exactly where people turn to in order to reject the mainstream pushing of Ed Sheeran’s dopey love songs and Justin Bieber’s attempt to pass off as cooler than he really is. Hip hop was a way to separate the elite and traditional from the innovative; it was the creation of a democracy where people could indulge in music about their own struggles for other people to relate to.

We’re all familiar with Eminem’s backstory of growing up with a mother addicted to prescription pills and his run-in with the law way back in the day when he pistol-whipped John Guerra. But, where do we draw the line at creating music that reflects our experiences, verses music that glamorizes and promotes domestic violence and gang activity?

Rapper Bobby Shmurda was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2016, in which “The rapper was accused of leading Crips-offshoot street gang GS9, which police said was responsible for several shootings and one murder.”

The lyrics that artists use within their music can’t be subjected to censorship or used as evidence for criminal activity. That’s just a dark spiral down the path to infringing on someone’s freedom of speech and artistic freedom. But, Shmurda’s hit song, “Hot Nigga,” isn’t shy about:

GS9, I go so hard

But GS for my gun squad

And bitch if there's a problem we gon' gun brawl

Shots poppin 'out The AR

But that’s the thing — people were shot. Someone was murdered. Where’s the line that distinguishes an artists’ lamenting of his painful childhood from those who brag about murderous gang activity? Should there even be a line?

It seems like there definitely needs to be a line, or some black and yellow police tape, or even a tape outline of that person who got shot and died. It seems like the hip hop industry isn’t doing enough to banish those from their community who participate in the same kind of behavior as exemplified through Bobby Shmurda, Kodak Black, or XXXTentacion, just to name a few. It’s almost like facing criminal charges has become a prerequisite in establishing your authenticity or credibility within the hip hop community.

Would most people still listen to Kodak Black when they find out he sexually assaulted a woman? Probably. Should we listen to his music even if we’re all aware that “He told the woman he couldn't help himself, as she screamed and tried to push him off her,” and then he proceeded to bite her? What the fuck?

Kodak Black even had an arrest warrant out for charges of robbery, false imprisonment, fleeing a police a officer, possession of a firearm by delinquent, possession of marijuana, and even child neglect. When is the hip hop community going to stop feeding into the pockets of artists who are instead, taking away the authenticity of hip hop and destroying the community its built upon? Why are we letting people like Kodak Black justify their behaviors because they’re grown ass men who are incapable of recognizing a rough start in life, and instead, use their bougie, Billboard-charting status to pretend to stand for any real hip hop values?

Or how about men like XXXTentacion? He was charged with “aggravated battery of a pregnant woman, domestic battery by strangulation, false imprisonment, and witness-tampering.” He literally punched a pregnant woman in the face. Come on. Let’s just not.

Hip hop was a safe place for a lot of people. It was a safe place for people who spent their lives downtrodden, or for people who were rejected because of their mental health struggles, or for people who were abused and neglected in their homes. But, the hip hop community’s continuous support of artists who ironically go against everything hip hop ever stood for should spark anger in people. I don’t care how rough your childhood was; singing about raping women and then actually doing it are two completely different things, and let’s hope that the #MeToo movement seeks out and persecutes individuals that further perpetuate this kind of gang activity and domestic abuse, even if it means reevaluating parts of hip hop and its culture.

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Ariana’s Rise to Fame — or Infamy — or both

We all know Ariana as her role in “Victorious” on Nickelodeon, in which we then discovered she was a teeny little bopper on Broadway, who eventually graduated from obscurity to become one of our country’s top divas. Even though a single Google search can give you a general impression of her diva-attitude and her pop-princess personality, she’s not perfect — and I think that’s what makes this donut-licking and America-bashing persona of hers different.

The media wants Ariana to be a diva. They want her to be attached to a new man and label her as Big Sean’s ex, which she ever-so-eloquently defies. In an interview about Ariana Grande, she was instead being interviewed as a secondary person, in which her name is only relevant because it’s being attached to Big Sean or Niall Horan. Ariana’s defiance of her individuality being contingent upon a big name is great; I never expected it from her, and that’s exactly how our little pop princess knocks down sexists who think her image must be associated with a weak notion of femininity. In another interview on a radio show, when Ariana was asked to choose between makeup or her cell phone if she were to be marooned on a deserted island, not only did Ariana guffaw at the stupidity of the question, but even the title of the video itself is labelled “Ariana Grande - Sassy and Shady moments.” Refusing to be asked sexist questions doesn’t make somebody sassy or even remotely shady — but it’s what we want to see from her.

Don’t get me wrong — she isn’t above anything. I don’t think she “keeps it real” when she’s being a diva, but Ariana’s seemingly princess-y exterior is forcefully met with some of her songs that have even achieved Grammy nominations. Not too shabby.

Anyone who has ever disregarded Ariana Grande because of her bubbly pop singles on the radio (that we all know are some of the least impressive songs on any artists’ album) is missing out. You’re missing out on a female artist that embraces her sexuality, her lonesomeness, and her grief without needing to prove anything to anybody. She doesn’t have to twerk to be cool (looking at you, Miley), and she doesn’t have to get a body full of injections to be pretty (looking at everyone else in Hollywood). I’m not bashing any women who chooses to do what she wants with her own body; I’m simply in admiration of Ariana’s reliance on her powerhouse vocals, in which her little outfits and thigh-high boots are only secondary. Ariana is sexy and clearly conforms to the American image of a female pop musician, but her recognition comes from her impressive four octave vocal range before anything else.

Watching Ariana come out with her first album, “Yours Truly,” and then “My Everything,” and most recently “Dangerous Woman,” is almost celebratory. Her albums transformed in a nostalgic, throwback sound from 90s R&B, reminiscing about a cotton candy type of love, into the pop music she makes today about her unabashed craving for the human touch. The transformation of each album is almost like watching a caterpillar turn into a butterfly, or watching somebody go through puberty. It’s transformative.

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Peering into the Mind of halcionne’s Bass Player, Tracey Crystal Miller

(She’s the really cute brunette on the right, accompanied by some of her closest acquaintances)

So Tracey, even though we’ve known each other for years, our lives don’t always intertwine. When we get together during our once-a-semester food dates, and when we spend at least two hours lamenting over relationship issues and the fuckery which is this world, we never truly sit down and vocalize why we choose to do what we do. For example, I love writing because when you come across certain lines of prose and poetry, sometimes it makes you go, “Damn. That was beautiful,” and that’s exactly the feeling that I attempt to pursue everyday.

As a crazy talented artist and member of the band, halcionne, when did you experience “the moment” that made you want to dive into music and its composition?

You’re too kind dear Ashley!! To be honest, “the moment” probably occurred sometime in middle school, when I started actually being aware of my angsty adolescent emotions, including the feelings that listening to music provoked in me. For me, it was indie and electronic music that really inspired me to do music, because it seemed like something I could try - recording my voice into a shitty microphone and layering horrible midi instruments behind it was a task any teenager could handle. As soon as I began creating my terrible music, I felt something click inside of me, something that allowed me to work on a song for hours but feel that no time had passed. It was something that truly got me excited. Unfortunately those days are gone. JK.

As a devotee of the liberal arts, what are some obstacles you had to come across in terms of people suggesting that music isn’t a real career? (Don’t be afraid to tell off these assholes).

To be completely honest, I understand that point of view, in a way. It’s an extremely different career for most. In most cases, as a full-time musician you really need to know how to do just about everything, like teaching, arranging, improvising, transcribing, sight-reading, fixing instruments, etc. You are your own boss and you need to book yourself, keep yourself busy, and make ends meet in any way you can. It sounds rough, but musicians choose this path willingly and need to be able to face it. Along with all the joys of it too of course!

How exactly do you start the creative process when you have to compose a piece? What’s your source of inspiration? What’s your secret? Give it. Give it to me.

To be honest, there are so many ways to look at this, but a thing that you hear over and over again is not to wait for inspiration. Given the demanding and fast-paced nature of the music business, you simply cannot. Inspiration is usually something that happens amid the mundane revisions, and transforms your piece from there. Although I agree with this in some ways, sometimes I need to be inspired in order to come up with an idea that I’ll actually want to stick with throughout the grueling revision and rewriting process of composing (which makes up about 90% of it). One thing that helps me is to ask myself, especially when I’m in some type of mood, what would I like to hear now? What would make me feel this way, or that?

Do you ever feel like a badass feminist icon, shattering gender roles by being a kickass bass player? Because I totally do.

Since I play both upright and electric bass, in two entirely different spheres, I feel that I should talk about both of them. To start, let me tell you about the basement scene, where I play bass: it’s a sausage fest. It’s such a popularity contest. The few bands dominating the scene are made up of interchangeable members from the same pool of men with larger-than-average egos. Of course, most of them are very talented and I’m horribly overgeneralizing, but that’s the gist. It’s honestly pretty difficult to be in a fem band. We don’t play many shows and we’ve rarely felt very respected. We’re usually the opener for shows, who play when guests haven’t shown up yet. As for playing upright bass in the classical music program here, I haven’t had too many problems. Besides carrying that monstrous thing. I eventually got myself a bass buggy so that I can wheel my enormous bass around and save my back at the expense of looking ridiculous.

And finally, what makes music composition so fulfilling for you? Do you think it defines any aspect of you as an individual?

At this very moment, in the middle of an undergraduate composition program, I could most truthfully say that it’s hard. It’s so hard. But I like challenges. I’m a slow writer, and when I finally finish, get in rehearsals with musicians, and hear my piece performed after all the blood sweat and tears that went into it, it’s quite a feeling. It’s a feeling I’ll continue to chase for a long time.

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A Look into the K-pop Scene: Because it’s More than Just Music

Ah, the formidable Korean pop scene, also referred to as “k-pop.” With the milky white skin, the petite women romping around stage in matching outfits, and the wide-eyed boys with plush and brightly colored hair, k-pop has garnered millions of fans around the world.

To be honest, I used to be an admirer too. Surrounded by a k-pop obsessed sister and a bunch of Asian fanatics in my very own high school, it was super easy for me to jump on the bandwagon and indulge myself in musical groups of handsome Korean men.

But then I grew up.

— I’m not condemning anyone for necessarily enjoying Korean pop music. Hell, I used to be there myself too. But it wasn’t until I dug a little deeper into what the Korean pop scene truly entailed, which then spurned a huge aversion inside me towards the dark and oppressive truth behind it all.

Unpopular opinion of the day: The Korean music and entertainment industry functions and perpetuates a legal way of indentured servitude.

Every person who sets their sights on debuting as a Korean pop star has to be taken in by an entertainment company for the proper training, but it’s more than just learning how to sing or dance. A beautiful young woman named Stella Kim stepped into the Korean pop industry, but her strides towards her dream became a stride on to the scale each week, in which her weight was measured. According to her interview with NextShark, Stella eventually reached a weight of ninety pounds at her 5’7 stature as a teen woman.

Stella isn’t the only victim of over-the-top and grandiose promises of fame and fortune. Other than the societal pressure to be thin, the fact that most Korean pop stars go through cosmetic surgery in order to confine to South Korean notions of beauty is blatant. The Korean pop industry of “manufacturing” and producing shiny Asian barbie dolls that are indistinguishable from another skeeves me out; it makes my skin crawl, and even the men can’t escape the music industry’s demands on aesthetic perfection.

Other than an almost anorexic ideal for beauty, and even after going under the knife or having students balance school with up to thirteen hour training days — I questioned my complicitness in admiring and supporting such music. I got tired of watching the singers that I admired passing out on stage from exhaustion and starvation while taking selfies from hospital beds. I got tired of the never-ending lawsuits over lack of payment, and all the erupting scandals about entertainment companies lending out their female employees as escorts on the side.

My condemnation of the Korean pop industry which churns out singers with a shelf life shorter than canned foods isn’t my attempt to destroy people’s dreams, but to raise awareness. Being able to perform music is a massive privilege and a life-long dream for some people, but these dreams  can’t be achieved when such a music industry only disregards the heaping depression and isolation that their singers find themselves enveloped within. Just recently, Kim Jonghyun, the lead singer of one of South Korea’s most popular boy bands, SHINee, committed suicide. His suicide was linked to the perpetual demands that the Korean pop industry forces, in which an artists’ entertainment industry dictates their romantic and personal lives, up to “their musical style and fashion to diet and even mobile phone use.”

The k-pop industry churns out its’ singers so effortlessly, that even I was fooled for the longest time. All the glitz and the glamor only serves as a front to all the mental health issues that can only be exacerbated by the deprivation of a personal identity. These singers are instructed on how to live in an even more restrictive and horror-movie-esque manner any of us could possibly fathom. Until we recognize the corporate greed that festers and raises singers like cattle up for slaughter, I think it’s time we reevaluate where our enjoyment within the Korean pop scene truly resides.

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How blackbear Made Solfege Cool

Blackbear’s “Do Re Mi Fa So” is a musical masterpiece. It’s ingenius. It’s the ultimate play on words to have happened in pop music.

Alright, that’s just me being hyperbolic, but I thank my curious fingers for clicking on this song. When the song first starts out, there’s a pitched voice singing the first five notes or syllables of solfege. Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So. Easy enough right?

I was totally confused where this song was going until the chorus began:     

“Do Re Mi Fa So fucking done with you baby.”

This song definitely catapulted blackbear’s fame because it’s a song that you’ll never get out your head. It’s catchy as hell, and it’s ingrained in our heads because it’s usage and reiteration of the major scale is something literally everyone will recognize. The major scale dictates our life, with children learning in elementary school the basics of notes and pitches, and then learning how to “jump” pitches by singing the alphabet or “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” The scale is something that’s integral to blackbear’s song itself; the scale is literally the stepping point for not just recognizing the song and its inclusion of everything we know about music, but the scale’s rise in pitch parallels the literary resolution of the song. As the major scale goes up higher in notes and pitch, the statement itself reaches: “So fuckin’ done with you girl. So fucking done with all the games you play.” This demonstrates blackbear’s resolution of the scale as the ultimate message of his song, in which the girl that plays insufferable games with someone’s feelings needs to be “So fuckin’ done,” as the end of the major scale reiterates.

Blackbear’s play on words (or rather, his play on notes) almost makes you laugh when you realize that one of the most recognized songs that incorporates solfege syllables to teach pitch is the Sound of Music. Blackbear has taken the song even further than just his own creation of a creative one-liner, and turned it into something so sharp of a contrast to another concept that we already know: Julie Andrew’s attempt to teach the Von Trapp family the different solfege syllables and pitches.

Blackbear’s ability to take a concept that everyone’s familiar with and transform it into something catchy and memorable speaks praise to his songwriting abilities. We even get another taste of his play on words, though executed cleanly and not in a cliche and predictable manner, when the song goes: “So fuckin’ done with all the games you play, I ain’t no tic-tac-toe, Send the X and O’s on another note.” Once again, the extracting of a concept that we’ve learned in our childhoods and turning it into a song about a crazy, psychotic, self-involved girlfriend is exactly what makes this song fresh and relevant. Blackbear succeeds in painting the same vivid image in everyone mind of a tic-tac-toe board scrawled in chalk on a pavement. That’s the power of familiarity.

Jarod Golub of University of Maryland’s own news publication shares the same train of thought as me. He states how “On the track ‘do re mi,’ each individual component of the song can be heard separately and all at once, a testament to the skill that went into mixing and mastering the song.” — Not only does blackbear literally use the individual components of the major scale within his song, this drawing upon of familiarity is most likely the reason why everyone will remember it.

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A Personal (& Embarrassingly  Uncomfortable) Annotated Playlist

After inspecting the songs that I chose for my playlist, I realized how the human desire for some kind of catharsis has an overwhelming impact on the music we listen to. While I can’t listen to certain songs within this playlist in public without blubbering like a little baby, the compilation of this specific playlist is important. These songs acknowledge all your vulnerabilities; you’re forced to confront them and understand that what makes your heart break is ironically, what helps stitch you back up together.

The first song within this playlist is Seinabo Sey’s “Still.” Whether you attribute this song to a past relationship or a current one, the lyrics “I still remember me before you. I will no longer need your rescue,” have an inexplicable, comforting effect. It isn’t about rejecting someone’s help — Seinabo Sey isn’t singing a song about anger or pain, but rather, it’s a bittersweet tribute about moving forward while always holding onto a piece of yourself. Seinabo’s soft and soulful voice conjure Pocahontas-rainbow-leaves-in-the-wind-type of vibes for you. It’s a keeper.

Then, there’s Ariana Grande’s “Just a Little Bit of Your Heart.” Don’t be fooled by her pop diva persona; this song hits you right in the feels. I think everybody can relate to what it feels like to want someone —but surprise, they don’t want you back. The lines “I know I’m not your only, but atleast I’m one. I heard a little love is better than none” makes you ball your fist up in frustration. Ariana’s lament translates to our pain of being stupidly willing to be heartbroken if it means that you could be wrapped up in that person’s arms one last time.

Ah. The infamous “Battle Scars” by Guy Sebastian. God, what did my little teenage heart know anything about being wounded? That’s what makes this song so special; it’s about how your scars will never go away, but the funny thing is that they usually do. If you’re in a battle with your inner self, or if you witness the people you love use words to tear each other apart and that pain tattoos itself upon your heart — you’ll heal.

Sam Smith’s “Leave Your Lover” nears the territory of being one of those songs you shouldn’t listen to in public unless you want your face all scrunched up as an attempt to not cry. “You’ll never know the endless nights, the rhyming of the rain, or how you feels to fall behind and watch you call his name.” That’s when you need to sit down and clutch your heart because it gets real. It’s that feeling of when you wake up in the middle of the night and you reach out, because your half asleep, subsconscious body still thinks that they’re lying next to you

—but they already left.

Finally, we have the classic “Because of You” by Kelly Clarkson. This song is like a grip on your throat as you start to choke back those tears. “My heart can’t possibly break when it wasn’t even whole to start with” meets “I’m ashamed of my life because it’s empty.” Jesus Christ Kelly, take it easy on our poor souls. This song evokes more than just sadness; it makes you acknowledge the little hole in your chest that happened after someone picks apart the seams of your heart. If you’re really wrapped up in your emotions while you listen to this song, you can actually feel a tugging on your chest, and that’s your heart attempting to spackle the hole someone else left for you to fix.

After going back and reflecting on just exactly why I choose to listen to music that leaves me as a small, vulnerable puddle of tears, I think that’s the goal. Listen to music. Feel it. Allow it to get to you because it takes a really strong person to acknowledge what makes them feel small and afraid. 

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Disaster! at New York’s Nederlander Theatre (2016)

What do you call when you have a love story, a rock n’ roll nun with a gambling addiction, and natural disasters all wrapped up with a pretty neat bow on a floating casino?

— That’s right. You get Disaster!

Disaster! is a musical comedy created by Seth Rudetsky, and this Broadway production sets the scene in the 70s, where flashy outfits and disco balls meet tidal waves and infernos.

Rudetsky’s homage to 70s disaster films brings this show to life. Both Seth Rudetsky and Jack Plotnick’s writing and creation of the show makes a previous era into something enjoyable within the modern day. The audience feeds off the nostalgia of the adorably predictable theme of disaster, which could only happen when you build a floating casino on top of a fault line, all while enjoying refreshing humour — no dad jokes involved. The show’s beginning with their own powerful rendition of “Hot Stuff” brings you back to simpler times, when big hair, shiny outfits, and singing about missing out on the love of your life (and pretending they can’t hear you even though they’re literally ten feet away) was all the rage.

Rudetsky and Plotnick’s vision of paying tribute to cheesy and predictable 70s films was spectacular in the execution of the show. The entirety of Disaster! and its charm was indeed contingent upon feelings of nostalgia, but the writers of the show made Disaster! the opposite of outdated by throwing in its own modern twists.

The show itself was always captivating in the struggle to survive natural disasters like earthquakes, tidal waves, infernos, and even sharks that plagued the floating casino, Barracuda. However, the entirety of the show was lackluster in comparison to Jennifer Simbard’s portrayal of a nun with a hefty addiction to gambling and love for rock music. If it weren’t for Simbard’s hilarious and epic role, the rest of the show would have faded into even greater obscurity, which in a way, is exactly what happened because the show is no longer running any longer. According to Adam Feldman of Time Out New York, he pointed out the “charms of actress Jennifer Simard, whom he calls the show’s ‘secret ingredient.’” Simbard’s portrayal of a nun whose mouth waters at the sight of a slot machine is hilariously coupled with her belting out to “Never Can Say Goodbye” (literally while wearing a wimple and gambling away money that was originally designated for orphans). Simbard’s nomination of a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical was rightfully earned, and honestly, if someone could just write an entire Broadway play with the tiny nun drooling and licking slot machines while simultaneously shredding a guitar, that would be greatly appreciated.

However, while the jukebox musical itself was comically adorable, Jesse Green of Vulture “remarked that Disaster! was in fact a disaster of a show, calling the set ‘sparse and ugly’ and calling the entertainment within its frames ‘tiny’ and fitting for a basement rec room.”

Jesse isn’t totally wrong. It pains me to say it, but the almost “kiddish” feel of the set with a blue blanket to represent and imitate waves flooding the casino was definitely reminiscent of a high school play. While the show was redeeming and unique in its more nostalgic and simple approach to its production, many individuals simply won’t appreciate such aspect and instead, will only be disappointed in its cheap-looking execution. As a result, Rudetsky’s attempt to utilize nostalgia as one of the selling points of the show was just as much its weakness. While Disaster! left the audience happy and smiling, even throwbacks to classics like “I Will Survive” to conclude the show just weren’t enough to draw enough attention and appreciation to the show and its charm.

The production’s charmingly nostalgic setting of 70s disaster films simply wasn’t redeeming enough for a large part of its audience, and only left for a greater yearning of something a little more “Broadway” and a little less “Off-Broadway.”

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The Good, The Bad, & The Meh: An Album Review of Ariana Grande’s Dangerous Woman Album

Ariana Grande is arguably one of the most talented female singers to have emerged in the last decade. At the mere age of twenty-four, all of her three albums have been certified platinum and she’s achieved four Grammy nominations. As a result, Ariana Grande’s third album, Dangerous Woman, is the ultimate culmination of the star’s talents.

The track list begins with “Moonlight,” which is the golden ticket of this album. I call it the golden ticket because it’s sensational — it’s everything we wanted from Ariana Grande. This particular song was Ariana’s way of demonstrating that she hasn’t abandoned her original voice that put her on the charts two albums ago. This ballad showcases the singer’s impressive range with clear notes (none of those airy, ad-libbed, layered vocals that makes it impossible to hear what she’s trying to say). The 50s nostalgia within the song wraps you up and makes you wish you were sitting in a drive-in movie with someone special, where the only real worry you have is reaching into the popcorn at the same time.

As Digital Spy states, “Ariana Grande eases you into her third studio album with this '50s-inspired sway, which blossoms with its dainty string plucks and romantic violins. But despite the twinkly production...this isn't reflective of what's to come. Consider this Sandy Dee's soaring ballad before she sexes it up with the black leggings.”

Ariana’s beginning of her track list with “Moonlight” was completely ingenious. She provides her audience with a similar taste of the sounds of her first two albums (Yours Truly & My Everything) before posing in a latex mask with bunny ears for the cover of her Dangerous Woman album. This introduction to an expected and comforting sound from Ariana is met with yet another masterpiece that poses a completely new side of her music for her listeners. Her second song, “Dangerous Woman,” in which the album is named after, highlights Ariana’s impressively powerful range, which isn’t masked by heavily layered vocals or an over-the-top instrumental. Instead, the sexy lyrics, her chocolate-smooth voice, and the seductive guitar line helps demonstrate these inner sex goddess-esque vibes that Ariana is portraying through her new sound.

This album also has solid collaborations. However, of the four collaborations (with Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, Future, and Macy Gray), the real winner would have to be “Leave Me Lonely,” where Macy Gray’s raspy and soulful voice compliments Ariana’s powerfully smooth pop vocals like peanut butter does with jelly. While this song was definitely overshadowed by the ever-so-popular “Side to Side” which featured Nicki Minaj, there’s something about “Leave Me Lonely” that makes a greater lasting impression. Once again, Ariana reconciles this dichotomy of her pop voice with Macy Gray’s smoldering R&B voice (inspired by Billie Holiday) which makes the song come together.

As for the songs that did this album no justice, this would have to include “Be Alright,” which combines a seriously lackluster beat with incoherent mumbling (one of Ariana’s infamous weaknesses). The first few lines of the song are: “Midnight shadows, When finding love is a battle. But daylight is so close, So don’t you worry ‘bout a thing.”

— I mean, she definitely has all the pretty words that make the impressionable youth swoon at the “deepness” of these “midnight shadows,” but it’s absolutely cringe-worthy. This song is so generic, that it almost sounds like something you’d hear in a Forever21 when you’re at the checkout line and picking out socks that are always impulse purchases. 

However, the most disappointing song on the album would have to be “Touch it,” which was a huge letdown. The song is generic; it leaves no significant impression for a song that’s supposed to express this insatiable need to be sexually satisfied and the shameless request for it. The song is so stagnant that it never actually feels like it’s going to accomplish anything — the song never achieves that “peak” you feel when you listen to something with an actual wow-factor.

However, while the album has its drawbacks, I can confidently say that Ariana’s creation of a track list which embodies her ability to create music of different genres makes Dangerous Woman highly worth listening to.

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Chris Brown - Loyal (Explicit) ft. Lil Wayne, Tyga

What Sexism & Misogyny in Pop Music Means for Us 

There’s just something about bopping around in a dark frat basement and just screaming to Chris Brown’s “Loyal” that seriously needs some revisiting.

What exactly is it about music that perpetuates sexism and misogyny that we’re all so ready to purchase on iTunes? Where do we draw the line where we even begin to get offended? Or does that line not even exist?

As a proponent of feminism, to be honest, sometimes I feel like a really bad human being. This type of inner turmoil seeps out when listening to Chris Brown’s undeniably catchy song, “Loyal,” which is about if a guy happens to be broke, a woman is more inclined to cheat, and this gold-digging mindset apparently applies to all women.

Now, the possible reasons that I’ve brainstormed as to why we don’t even bother questioning Chris Brown’s stated attitudes towards women includes the following:

1. What an artist incorporates in his work doesn’t necessarily reflect his true intents. (This can’t possibly be an option because we’ve evolved into a society where your emphasis on any message through you or your own social media platforms is something you are inherently associated with.)

2. If these demeaning lyrics offend you, then you are most likely a cheating and gold-digging woman. (There isn’t anything wrong with acknowledging the total sexism, misogyny, and hypocrisy about men labeling women as “hoes” while still expecting sex from these same women.)

3. Whoever wrote this song just had a really, really bad experience with women. (That still doesn’t make it totally okay to label the entirety of the female population as money-hungry cheaters.) Or,

4. It doesn’t matter that these claims are made against women because most people don’t care.  (This one honestly seems to ring the most true).

I think it’s almost hard to convince people to reject any of the music we hear today. In fact, I don’t even think I could pull myself away from pop music. Even with the sheer number of songs on the radio that depict not just misogyny and sexism, but more specifically rape culture, with Fetty Wap talking about running into your house to “fuck your ho,” nobody cares. It simply doesn’t matter if song lyrics are about objectifying a woman because it’s just a catchy song; nobody actually takes what these song lyrics have to say for some deep and philosophically meaningful literature...right?

According to the International Conference of Music Perception in 2012, there actually seemed to be studies that show “that women had a much more negative attitude about the nature of those lyrics when they read them, less so when they listened to them, and even significantly less so when they watched them in videos.” There seems to be some negative correlation between a more emphatic presentation of sexism/misogyny and a woman’s ability/desire to pay attention to it. Sounds goods to me.

Not only does research demonstrate women’s attitudes regarding lyrical content in different presentations, there’s also studies to back up how our mental capacity just isn’t enough to actually process an entire song’s content while we’re preoccupied with, for example, dancing. We’re essentially too busy to even be offended.

If that’s not comforting enough, there’s also the idea that offensive lyrics are almost a badge of honor, where creating explicit and vulgar material has people more inclined to listen to more taboo subjects, like Snoop Dogg’s shameless love for anal sex in Jason Derulo’s “Wiggle,” rather than us sit around a campfire and sing songs about a hundred cartons of milk on the wall.

Maybe the music we choose to create and listen to aren’t exactly models for society to “be better” at treating women worse. But at the same time, I can’t help but feel like it’s just as bad that we’ve all become so desensitized to men like Robin Thicke telling women he knows what they want in his song, “Blurred Lines.” I think something even bigger than music itself would be for us to ask, “Is it permissible if we allow sexism and misogyny consume pop music, and therefore have it define culture itself?”