Over at American Catholic Jake Tawney noted an NPR story about supposed narcissism in modern music. If there is one phrase in any news story that ought to give is us pause these days it is, "there is a study that says". And, well, NPR has a found a study that says pop lyrics are getting more narcissistic:
On this very day in 1985, the number one song on the Billboard Top 100 was...Given the demographic that listens to NPR, it's pretty tempting to read that as "kids these days ...."
(Soundbite of song, "We Are the World")
Mr. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN (Singer): (Singing) We are the world. We are the children.
NORRIS: Fast-forward to 2007 when Timbaland's "Give It to Me" featuring Nelly Furtado topped the charts.
(Soundbite of song, "Give It to Me")
Ms. NELLY FURTADO (Singer): (Singing) ...love my ass and my abs in the video for "Promiscuous." My style is ridiculous.
NORRIS: So more than two decades ago, we were holding hands and swaying to a song of unity, and these days, we're bouncing to pop stars singing about how fabulous they are.
But here is the thing that Tawney and I agreed about in the comments; wasn't "We are the World" a pretty narcissistic song all by itself? Thing about it "we" are the "world". Who says a thing like that? Who seriously believes that that watching a video featuring a bunch of music stars and buying their song is enough to solve hunger in Africa? Self involvement? Painfully unrealistic notions about their ability to change the world? More interested in the outward expression of correct attitudes about a moral issue than actually doing anything about it? Easily bored by the actual issue and moves on to other trivial subjects immediately afterward? I don't think it gets more narcissistic than that and "We are the World" had all that and more.
The Nelly Furtado song is about sex, on the other hand, and I can see a certain amount of that. in the last couple of minutes leading up to orgasm, there is nothing more attractive in a woman than the sorts of attitudes Furtado expresses above. And some suggestion of it seems appropriate to me in female dress and public behaviour. I'm enough of a fogey to go along with the NPR types that there is something excessive about what pop stars do. But that is a subject for Friday.
All that said, as much as I would like to see some more restraint in Nelly Furtado (for her own good among other things) I can't say I find the sort of self love expressed above terribly surprising or disturbing.
But the notion that kids can change the world by making some trivial gesture disturbs me greatly. And I can't figure out why it is so important to some people that everyone, including youth, should vote. It seems to me that if someone doesn't care enough to put down their Red Bull and Vodka and totter off to a polling station that is closer than the bar she was at last night, then it probably isn't a terribly bad thing that she doesn't vote. And, as Milton Friedman would say, she already has voted by making the choice to do what she is doing instead of marking her ballot.
Anything else is encouraging narcissism in kids.
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