Now while I will sometimes gamely listen to the music that my children do, I remain something of a musical snob. I believe that the rock music of the 60s and 70s and even later, of my college days is far superior to the synthesised, auto-tune enhanced sound and mind-numbingly pedestrian lyrics of today. It will always be the Doors and Beatles and Bob Marley for me; not the Beibers, Keshas and Nikki Minajs. So a lot of the facts listed below are a source of acute dismay.
He has nearly 107 million Twitter followers. This is about the same as Barack Obama’s followers. Arrogant pop star raking in the moolah thanks to inane lyrics on the one hand (listen to the dreadful Sorry if you dare) and one of the most admired world leaders and Nobel Peace prize winner on the other. Sigh.
Now I will grant you that Low is an annoyingly catchy song but get this: this song which speaks of a female’s rear end as ‘birthday cakes’ has sold 8 million copies. This is the same as the sales for that timeless, beautiful, lyrical Beatles melody song Hey Jude.
I start listening to this song and right away I become unbelievably annoyed. Then I learn that this incredibly humdrum song sold more copies than any Beatles single and I begin to despair of the human race.
It starts out with Rihanna twerking to herself in the mirror and someone rolling themselves a joint. And then I unmute the video before promptly muting it again. Then I learn that Rihanna has had 10 number one singles while Led Zeppelin, REM, and Depeche Mode had none, I tell myself to be strong.
I gotta feeling that tonight's gonna be a good night starts and goes on and on that way until I completely lose patience with this ridiculously unintelligent song. Now I try to swallow the fact that this song is more popular than any Simon & Garfunkel or even any Elvis song! Really? The poignancy of Sound of Silence, the quiet desperation of The Boxer, the tremulous hope of Bridge Over Troubled Water…is it any wonder that I have trust issues with humankind in general.
This utterly forgettable song is accompanied by a most disturbing video of a human being pounded like dough, coated in flour, boiled, garnished and heaven knows what else. And then I learn that this singer holds the same record as Michael Jackson for the most number of singles from an album. Someone please just shoot me in the head.
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