Pop Music Killing Expression

 Jennifer Conlee, co-news editor

I grew up listening to country music.
People look at me like I’ve sprouted antlers when I tell them that.  Despite the fact that I grew up in Texas, I find it hard to meet people who like country music.

Instead, the majority of people seem to enjoy brainless pop music that doesn’t even make sense anymore.  If I had my way, stupid teen queen pop idols would all be shot.

I recently interviewed a student who is becoming quite popular on campus, a student whose music transcends the mindless babble we hear on the radio these days.  He reminded me how people no longer read poetry.

According to him, music was the original poetry. But that has died out since the 1970s, and now there is no intelligence in what we hear.

Even country music has lost its touch.  All you ever hear on the country stations is the same story of love lost, heartbreak, and women who are really angry.  But at least some of it is original.

A few weeks ago, the store I work at was moving to its new location, and while we were working, they played a pop music station.  I heard the same three or four stupid songs several times that day, and I thought my brain was going to explode from the sheer ignorance of the themes.

I refuse to listen to any songs that I can’t even understand.  I don’t mean understanding the meaning of the songs either.  I mean when they slur the words, or have loud music, and you actually can’t understand what is being sung.

I really enjoy listening to classical music, which provides intelligence, and some of the music from the ‘70s.  The Beatles and Elvis were geniuses.

So-called stars such as Brittany Spears and Gwen Stefani need to hang up their microphones and give up what they are doing.  As a bumper sticker I once saw said, “Please, God, no more blonde teen singers.”

I absolutely adore musical scores as well. I am constantly listening to and memorizing soundtracks to my favorite musicals, such as “The Producers” and “Thoroughly Modern Millie.”

I believe that the best music is the type that makes you stop and think, and the kind that inspires you.  As the student told me, until people start reading poetry, there has to be good music.

The loss of intelligence in the United States is a sad trend.  Children would rather play video games than read a good book. 

I love poetry. I love music that is poetic.  When people tell me I’m strange because I don’t know the lyrics to the song that is currently at the top of the Billboard charts, I start to wonder if any of them memorized Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” when they were in junior high, or if any of them could quote Jabberwocky perfectly.

The truth is that anyone who can memorize the lyrics to songs has the ability to memorize poems; they just don’t want to read the poetry.

It drove me crazy in high school when fellow students claimed that poetry is boring.  Good poetry is not boring.  Poems hold meaning, which, though it may be difficult to find, does exist.  You have to find the meaning, but no one concentrates on that any more.

If a student reads poems now, they just skim over them, and don’t try to find the meaning.  This is the reason why today’s music does not hold meaning anymore.

Instead, we have a million dime-a-dozen songs that silly little girls jump around to.  The only reason songs become popular is because of the pretty people who sing them.

As today’s English teachers get younger and younger, I know that future generations will read less and less poetry.  It will soon lose all meaning in the world, and this earth will be populated by mindless children who can’t understand a sentence of the poem, though they can get to level 500 on the latest video game.  This is a prediction that breaks my heart.

Literature should never lose its meaning in the world.  I can only say that I am grateful for the fact that I had great English teachers who still believe in the beauty of poetry, and that I know people like the student who are attempting to bring poetry back through original music.

As long as there are people like them, there will be some reason for existing. But when they are gone, the beauty of this world will no longer exist, because there will be no way to express the beauty.