I was listening to the radio yesterday and caught part of a catchy song. At first I thought it was Nickelback. The lyrics were self-absorbed and whiny, and the sound was, well, Nickelback-y.
Turns out it’s actually by a band I’ve never heard of, Theory of a Deadman. The song is called “Not Meant to Be”. It includes such lines as, “It’s never enough to say I love you/No, it’s never enough to say I try” [you're right, generally just saying you try isn't enough. You kind of have to actually try], “Nobody wins when everyone’s losing” [yup], and “No matter what I do/You’re always mad…Maybe we’re not meant to be” [I sympathize here, having been in a couple of those relationships back in the day].
So basically the guy is in an unhealthy, dysfunctional relationship. That’s understandable, it happens. The reason the song bugs me is that it continues a trend of whiny rockstar songs singing about relationships, who can’t seem to figure out what makes relationships work. Please, someone, sing a song that sheds light and understanding rather than just moaning woes!
Rock has roots in the blues, you can’t just separate pain and suffering from music, that’s a major reason it exists. Artists sing about how terrible life (or a relationship) has been to them, and people find catharsis in either hearing how bad that guy has it or identifying with his problems based on situations from their own lives.
Rock and roll isn’t FOR people who have it all figured out, it’s for everyone else =).
This is just a statement about rock music in general though – I’m definitely not defending that band. I haven’t heard much from them, but the last thing I heard was terrible.
Oh, and for the record, THIS is the most pathetic song in the world (the video may make it seem touching – don’t buy into it. Close your eyes for the full effect):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt6jzHCf0d0
I think there’s a difference between a lament and a whine. I certainly agree that it can be quite comforting to listen to the stories of others who experience similar sorrow to your own. I’ve been touched deeply by sad, reflective rock music at times. I’m not sure how I draw the line between mourning and moaning, but this song definitely falls in the latter category for me.
I liked the music video. Made me sad. Awaiting full frontal lobe development, kids+alcohol+cars=incomprehensible consequences. How could this happen to anyone? For teens and young adults, life is all about you.
Yeah, I guess without the video it wouldn’t have the same effect.
A had an idea for a superhero movie many years ago. It would be like Batman or Spiderman, except that right at the end when the hero was going to save the city, he gets hit by a drunk driver and dies.
Since then I’ve concluded that preachy performance art is not very effective, either as art or as a vehicle for its message.
I like it. Let’s go with that…
Interesting… I just had a brief conversation about overly preachy art, in the context of art and politics on Friday night. We definitely both agreed that putting a message into art is, well, an art. Overt crap is just propaganda, yet an image or a work that lacks any kind of message at all is just kinda vapid and pointless. That said, I have nothing against decorative or entertaining art for its own sake, and what’s just decoration to me might be a deep painting or film for you.
There’s a campaign going on in California – not sure if it’s going on up there or not – about how buzzed driving IS drunk driving. The ads show or talk about how it doesn’t matter if you’ve had only a couple drinks or a lot – if you’re impaired, you’re impaired, and you can still cause accidents. Like any public service announcement, it comes off as a bit cheesy and overdone, but at least it’s forgivable because it’s not trying to be art.
As far as music goes… yeah. I’m not sure where I fall on the subtle-and-nuanced-versus-excessively-whiny discussion. Music is an art, and so its interpretation is relative. My friend M loves to listen to super slow love jams after she and her husband have had a fight. She says, “I know it would make most people would feel depressed, but it makes me happy.”
The problem can come in, I think, when music is created to please a crowd and not for the sake of expressing a true human experience. Then it becomes vapid and irritating. Again, though, it’s relative, and what sounds like self-pitying whining to me or you obviously works for SOMEONE, even if SOMEONE is mainly record company execs or the gods of CommercialRadioLand.
That being said, I want to address your point about unhealthy relationships. I think they are an almost universal experience – everyone has SOME kind of bad relational experience in her/his life. However, the recapitulation of certain formulaic relationship stereotypes (either with a focus on being dumped or being cheated on, or, when the singer is happy, oftentimes being all annoyingly co-dependent about it, or even just the unrealistic expectation that you’ll never have problems in your relationship) via popular music in some ways tends to reinforce these relationship patterns in society. I could wax sociological/conspiracy theorist about how keeping the masses focused on their petty miseries is a beneficial tool for distracting them from fixing real societal ills, but I won’t.
I just think that balance is a good thing – there are times you want to listen to self-pitying music, and there are times you want to listen to songs of empowerment about fostering your personal strength and healthy aspects of relationships.
As for me, I know for a fact that some of the music I love dearly is just terrible. But that doesn’t stop me from loving it.
Thanks for the well thought-out reply, Hethre. I haven’t heard much about drunk driving in Oregon recently, but I’m also not really up on much lately.
You make two particular statements I want to respond to: “what sounds like self-pitying whining to me or you obviously works for SOMEONE” and “the recapitulation of certain formulaic relationship stereotypes…via popular music in some ways tends to reinforce these relationship patterns in society.”
You’re certainly right that these songs must work for someone, lots of someones in fact, considering that these bands are selling millions of albums. I think the reason they work, though, is because they “reinforce”, or even validate, dysfunctional relationships. If I were judgmental (and I certainly am), I might say that they give listeners an excuse to continue in an unhealthy relationship by making unhealthy relationships seem either inevitable or acceptable. I mean, if Mick Jagger can’t get no satisfaction, than what right do I have to expect any?
Having said that, I think the line between useful sad songs and useless sad songs is about how they portray problem ownership and personal accountability. If the song says, “Life sucks and it’s not worth trying”, or “I tried, I failed, so now I’ll just to give up”, or “All these problems keep happening to me, what’s up with that?” then it denies the power of the individual to change his or her circumstances. My issue isn’t with sad songs, but with resigned songs.