Jason Talk About Pop Music

Pop Music!

Or How I Learned to Stop Listening to Shit That Makes Me Want to Kill Myself

Hello dear readers. Every now and again, I find myself all too impressed by the indie music scene. Sure, sometimes it’s disappointing and makes me sad to think that I follow it but overall, it’s not so bad. Every now and again, however, I like to take off my hoodie and slip into something more…common. Basically, I need to keep my fingers on the pulse of pop music and, in order to do that; I need to check in on the Billboard Hot 100. I will be delving into the top five songs currently atop the list to see if they are deserving of their spot or, more likely, I will be shitting on them and the current state of pop music. What will I do? Read on and find out!

I’m going to shit on them. Here’s the top five songs, in order, as of this article being posted:

1. Harlem Shake by Baauer

2. Thrift Shop by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis feat. Wanz

3. When I Was Your Man by Bruno Mars

4. I Knew You Were Trouble by Taylor Swift

5. Stay by Rhianna feat. Mikky Ekko

Okay. Full disclosure, I haven’t heard a single one of these songs before right now. Here we go.

Harlem Shake

This is actually a pretty decent song. It’s got weird little samples in a foreign language, which patently means that they are artsy. Additionally, if you can manage to get past the first 30 seconds of the song (aka “the part that everyone has posted those terrible videos to”) you will find something that ebbs and flows. It’s well put together and even though house music has never been something that I love, this is something that I can appreciate. Okay, pop music, you’re one for one. Let’s keep this thing rolling.

Thrift Shop

Here we go. This is much more along the lines of what I pretentiously assume pop music is supposed to be. This song hits all of the garbage points that pop music has been much maligned for over the last decade plus. The hook is catchy, the beat is ethereally danceable and the lyrics are pure fucking garbage. Bonus points: Shitty video with more stereotypes than I can count. (editor’s note: I can only count to 4)

When I Was Your Man

On the opposite side of the Macklemore garbage, this song is trying to be artistic and emotional. Put simply, it fails. It is so riddled with cliché “shoulda-coulda-wouldas” that it can’t get out from under the pressure of what it wants so desperately to be. The best sad song ballads were written from dark, introspective places. This song sounds like it was manufactured by a robot in a sterile room where emotions are charted and plotted on a wall-sized piece of graph paper. Those rooms exist, right?

I Knew You Were Trouble

Fucking Taylor Goddamned Swift. You’re really going to start this song with a two minute long monologue? Okay, once you get past that, you are left with another bouncy, sad-sack piece of shit break up song. I fucking hate pop music.

Stay

Really? This is popular? There are 95 songs on this list that are LESS popular than this? Imagine if I were to jam my last two paragraphs together and you get my review of this shit.

So that’s that. Fuck pop music. 80% of the best that pop music has to offer is pure goddamned garbage. Fuck. I’m gonna go slowly sway to some Black Owls.

 

With Love,

Jason R. Noble