Music with a message?

flatfourfan · 2011-09-22T15:21:46+00:00

I know that this was a big thing in the 60's and 70's where songs actually had some meaning. Tracks that come to mind are (The Times They Are A-Changin' ,Turn, turn, turn; Purple Haze; Fortunate Son) to name a few, but has there been anything recent that really hits a nerve??? Or is it all the new stuff just garbage?

StephenG

i have no doubt that hip-hop fanboys will tell you that if you want lyrical depth then hip-hop is the way...
they truly speak about real life on the street and how it is - but yes, they more likely to use a lot more swear words in doing so to get their message across....

how much more real does it get than a brother from the hood popping a cap in your arse??

word up.

Hammeron

StephenG wrote i have no doubt that hip-hop fanboys will tell you that if you want lyrical depth then hip-hop is the way...
they truly speak about real life on the street and how it is - but yes, they more likely to use a lot more swear words in doing so to get their message across....

how much more real does it get than a brother from the hood popping a cap in your arse??

word up.

Not very deep tho....hopefully. ?

Bob-Dubery

Hammeron wrote I never once suggested that Metal is the ONLY genre with lyrical depth.....

That may not have been your intent, but I think people can be forgiven for seeing your post as a declaration of Metal's primacy in matters of lyrical depth.

I don't listen to Hip Hop, to use as an example- so I wouldn't know, but I have a feeling that it is not particularly well known for lyrical depth and meaning....I might be wrong.

Well you seem to have sailed right past my little tale of being treated to a bit of hip-hop in London last year. None of the expected clichés were present - no shooting cops, no slapping women around, no gratuitous sex, no banal lyrics and choruses of "yo". An articulate, well considered song. Written by Michael Franti. I've done a bit of you-tubing and googling since, and he's an interesting guy who writes potent songs.

I think with HM and with hip-hop it's too easy to get caught up in the clichés. Neither genre is intrinsically dumbed down or intrinsically smart. Both have very strong constraints around style - which can be off-putting or threatening to those on the outside, and which tend to draw attention to clichés. The genres are innocent. It's what you do with the genre. Any genre really.... folk doesn't have to be "Puff The Magic Dragon".

I can't think of any song genre that is ipso faco void of lyrical depth and meaning. You get the dumb and the smart and the cliched in all of them.

It's too easy to fall back on cliches. Metal is all about satanism. Rap is all about gangstas and misogyny. Country is all about your wife leaving you and the dog chewing your slippers. Etc etc etc.

It ain't necessarily so.

Sean

X-rated Bob wrote
I can't think of any song genre that is ipso faco void of lyrical depth and meaning. You get the dumb and the smart and the cliched in all of them.

singemonkey

Hip hop has become like late seventies rock 'n roll - in which all the songs were about how much sex the band has or about how much they like to rock.

But even then there were rock bands doing great stuff, just as their are hip hop artists doing good stuff now - away from the usual self-aggrandising idiocy. Hammeron, something that might open your eyes a little might be to take a listen to Public Enemy's "Fear of a Black Planet." That's an old record. But I think it makes for an easy transition for someone who listens to metal.

[deleted]

I am very uinformed when it comes to recent music. Surely a "message" is empathy to a large degree. Some mutual understanding between the listener and the musician.

Times are changing, society is changing, different problems are arising. I'm pretty sure there's plenty of musicians out there explaning how they feel earnestly and finding an audience identifying with them, but I'm stuck on the ones that meant a lot to me growing up. I think George Micheal and Freddie Mercury are very good at relating how they feel. Nina Simone also wrote one or two good songs, Mississippi Goddam being one.

I also find this one funny:

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