Ahh, the Irony

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The music industry in America today is absolutely huge. Music has always been a large part of our everyday lives, as well as the media. Without it, I believe that not only would our daily life be bland, but also television shows, movies, etc. In order to conserve our music industry and keep it flowing with mass revenue, many critics tend to defend the sexuality and gender stereotyping in particularly hip-hop and dance music.

Hip-hop and dance music are two types of genres that seem to be extremely popular present day. You cannot go to a club or scan through radio stations and not hear these two types of music. Hip-hop tends to hold a more “hard” attitude with vulgar language and songs consisted with a flurry of information about the artist’s hardships throughout life. Although most hip-hop consists of strong sexual innuendos and statements, as well as derogatory statements and terms used against the opposite sex, I find that many critics tend to defend hip-hop. Yes, you would not want your eight-year old child listening to hip-hop, but that’s not really an issue with critics. I am a huge hip-hop fan and find that most reviews of albums put out by these artists almost always have a great review. For example, about a year ago “The Carter 3” was released by the popular rapper Lil Wayne. The album was stamped with the “parental advisory – explicit content” label and was full of terms degrading women. Despite all this, Lil Wayne managed to win four out of eight nominations at the infamous Grammy Awards this past year. From what I mostly read, many critics doted his album as “artwork and poetic.” Despite all of the vulgarity, critics focused more on how he expressed these inappropriate remarks. The same is applied towards dance music, which is mostly played at clubs because of its high level of sexuality. Although critics are known to be brutally honest, they show their utmost respect to most hip-hop and dance music artists.

Although critics mostly describe hip-hop and dance music as “well-thought of and creative” and even though most of it is about women and sexuality in derogative terms, I think that yes, many women do find both affirmation and power through this. Many popular female artists in fact write a lot about sexuality and gender stereotyping because that seems to be what sells the best. Look at Britney Spears for example, she’s been around for awhile now, and her music has always had some strong references to sexuality and men, especially recently. Her newest song titled “3” is even about sexual relations with two men at the same time. You would think this would change America and her fan’s view about her differently, but in fact it creates more interest. Britney, as well as many other female artists tend to sing about these types of things in order to gain fans as well as power because it sells more. We all know that money is money, no matter how it is earned.

The music industry is pretty simple, but it truly is funny how it works out. What we typically would call “inappropriate” seems to sell ten times more. Our mainstream media is scavengers among sexual relations, scandals and stereotypes that have to deal with celebrities. They typically try to demolish the celebrity they have attacked with these types of stories, however, our music sells more when doing this. If you think about it, our morals tend to go out the door when it comes to music. In my opinion, I think that it’s pretty ironic, actually.