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Response to the song "Ass" by Big Sean
That song, and others similar to it, have absolutely zero musical or artistic value whatsoever. They appeal to what I refer to as the social lowest common denominator. Its the idea that over the years a stance on any morale subjects gets grounded down to please the lowest acceptable opinion on that particular view. A general stance on something as 'bad', is eroded to the point that it becomes acceptable. If we were to play a song in which the chorus is simply repeating the word "ass", fifty years ago people would be appalled. Getting away from the point a little bit, I think this type of music is a result of the digital distribution of information. Back in the day, the costs of distributing music were prohibitively high and the music labels controlled who would be invested into, in order to justify the millions of dollars it took to replicate: vinyls, cassettes, and later CDs. Not to mention all of the marketing and advertising costs associated with promoting an artist. The financial risk was simply too high to have a talentless moron repeat obscenities. As a result, the music labels acted as a filter and deemed what was acceptable to the masses. The result was that only the truly talented musical individuals rose to the top and set a precedent for the way music was. With the way that the internet and technology has evolved in the past decade or so, those costs of creating and distributing music have all but disappeared. We have essentially opened the flood gates for any no name person to record a song and potentially get famous is from it (Justin Bieber). The flip side to that is that we no longer have the music labels acting as a filter between the crap and the good stuff. There are a lot of good things that came from the digital distributing, like the proliferation of new genres. "Back in the day" there were a few major genres, and people didn't really deviate far from the main ones. These days there is no end to how specially an artist can target a following. Music back then was an artistic representation. I have been thinking about this one point I am about to make a lot and that is, the goal of art is to express some sort of emotion or message. Whether its through a painting, song or dance. But today, music is simply a tool from which to make money, money has corrupted this art form. If an artist were to paint something, and this painting stirred so much interest that everyone wanted to have a copy of it, a real artist would be flattered that so many people have the chance to view the work, and hopefully take the emotion/message. Today a musician does the opposite. They create a song, and do everything in their power to prevent illegal copying of that song. But that goes against the whole point in my opinion. By establishing boundaries against people listening to your music, you are acting like a businessman not like the musician you claim to be. Today a musician is obsessing about creating a single, that will lead to an increased popularity, that will drive people to purchase their album. I cannot accept someone that strategically plans how to make the most money off of something as an artist. more