Mistake.
Hands on my knees, shakin' ass, on my thot shit
Post me a pic, finna make me a profit
When the liquor hit, then a bitch get toxic
(Why the fuck you in the club with niggas wildin'?)
I've been lit since brunch, thot shit...
And on and on, getting worse as it goes along. Maybe a third of the lyrics I didn't even understand at all. But what the lyrics seemed to be was essentially an id howl shouting I am great, I am better than anyone else, but exulting in a life of utter pointlessness depicted in the crudest way possible.
I don't get it. Who listens to this? Why? The song may baffle and repel me, but obviously I am an outlier, merely a weirdo freak with oddball tastes. The rest of the modern world enjoys and understands this type of entertainment.
I mentally staggered back and regretted my peek into the present. Whatever this...this...civilization -- if it deserves that name -- is, it's got nothing to do with what came before, the grand civilization, sweet and decent in its pop culture and magnificent and awe-inspiring in its high culture that existed just a few decades ago. Gone. All gone. And as likely to come back as Periclean Athens or Florence of the Renaissance.
Well, to hell with it all. I will go back in reverie to that world that was and ignore today. You may well say that I can choose to ignore the present but the present won't ignore me. I suppose. But for as long as I can, to the extent that I can, I will ignore it. Life is short and soon over. Maybe I can make it across the river before the tidal wave of horror overwhelms me. But what of the next generation? Our children? All I can think to do is rescue and pass on to them as much of our ancient cultural heritage, high and low, as I can, so that they can know there was once a world of beauty, happiness, love and sincere emotions, a world worth living in.
On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand,
And cast a wishful eye
To Canaan’s fair and happy land,
Near the cross I’ll watch and wait
Hoping, trusting ever,
Till I reach the golden strand,
Just beyond the river.
PS: Looky what I found. Seems like I'm not alone in loathing the new after all. But, you know, it's a bad sign when your culture can no longer generate art and entertainment that your own people have any interest in. A really bad sign.
Old Music is Killing New Music
"Old songs now represent 70 percent of the U.S. music market, according to the latest numbers from MRC Data, a music-analytics firm. ... The new-music market is actually shrinking. All the growth in the market is coming from old songs.
The 200 most popular new tracks now regularly account for less than 5 percent of total streams. That rate was twice as high just three years ago. The mix of songs actually purchased by consumers is even more tilted toward older music.
I encountered this phenomenon myself recently at a retail store, where the youngster at the cash register was singing along with Sting on 'Message in a Bottle'(a hit from 1979) as it blasted on the radio. A few days earlier, I had a similar experience at a local diner, where the entire staff was under 30 but every song was more than 40 years old. I asked my server: 'Why are you playing this old music?' She looked at me in surprise before answering: 'Oh, I like these songs.'
Never before in history have new tracks attained hit status while generating so little cultural impact. In fact, the audience seems to be embracing the hits of decades past instead. New songs that become bona fide hits can pass unnoticed by much of the population."
