Top songs lack originality but the public still keeps buying

(Note: This piece originally appeared in the April 13, 2011, edition of The Pendulum in the Opinions section.)

By Zachary Horner

I don’t understand the hype behind the Billboard Top 100, particularly the top few songs on the list.

According to its official website, the Hot 100 is “the week’s most popular songs across all genres, ranked by radio airplay audience impressions as measured by Nielsen BDS, sales data as compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and streaming activity data provided by online sources.”
I’m fine with that, but what’s really confusing me is the lack of creativity among what are supposedly the top 100 songs in the nation.

Let’s look at the current No. 1 for the week of April 16: “E.T.” by Katy Perry featuring Kanye West. The lyrics include, “You’re from a whole other world, a different dimension. You open my eyes, and I’m ready to go, lead me into the light.”

How is this considered original, creative or even good? Is it the beat? The instrumentals? And why do artists like Perry, who do nothing for the instrumentals, get all of the credit?

Rihanna’s “S&M,” No. 2 on the chart, is an admittedly catchy song, with lines such as “Feels so good being bad. There’s no way I’m turning back. Now the pain is my pleasure cause nothing could measure.”

Call me old-fashioned, but I feel like we’ve heard lines like these before. Not in this context of sexual roughness, but in a rebellious kind of way.
The sad thing is, Rihanna claims, “I don’t think of it in a sexual way, I’m thinking metaphorically.” I don’t understand the metaphor here. Again, call me old-fashioned.

Then there’s “Just Can’t Get Enough” by The Black Eyed Peas, No. 3 on this week’s chart. “My mind’s dirty and it don’t need cleanin’. I love you long time so you know the meanin’. Oh baby I can’t come down so please come help me out. You got me feelin’ high and I can’t step off the cloud.”
What a revolutionary picture of love. We actually take our time to listen to this stuff.

Songs like these make me wonder why we even listen to music with words at all. Jennifer Lopez’s recent hit “On the Floor” with Pitbull, Ke$ha’s “Blow” and Britney Spears’ “Till the World Ends” are all examples of songs with catchy beats, but lyrics that are dull.

This isn’t necessarily the artist’s fault, unless he or she actually writes the songs.

Bruno Mars’ “Grenade” and “Just the Way You Are” are tracks with fairly original lyrics that actually mean something. Christina Perri’s metaphorical “Jar of Hearts” delves into a girl who is dealing with the return of a Casanova-type love interest in her life. Why can’t all songs be like those?

The answer is money. The old saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” and the non-creative lyrics with snappy beats rake in the most green.

What happened to the ’80s? Take 1985, for instance. Where did songs like REO Speedwagon’s “Can’t Fight This Feeling,” Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” and Mr. Mister’s “Broken Wings” go? They’ve been relegated to artists who work hard for their music, actually play the instruments and write the lyrics.
Artists such as The Script, Train and Zac Brown Band have songs creeping close to those top 20 slots, but are staying behind because of the crappy lyrics and hot beats of less-deserving songs.

Granted, I love a good beat as much as anyone else. But I find it sad that we stoop to requesting and buying songs with lyrics such as “Call me a goon or a goblin, I’m a monster, ‘Cause I hit all the baddest women in the world, gangsta” (Pitbull’s “Hey Baby” featuring T-Pain), while artists who write lyrics like “Now I’m falling in love as she’s walking away and my heart won’t tell my mind to tell my mouth what it should say” (Zac Brown Band’s “As She’s Walking Away” featuring Alan Jackson) are shoved in the background. They still sell tracks on iTunes, but the popular ones control the spotlight that should belong to these songwriters.

What a shame.