Musical Maturity
I was streaming music over last.fm, which has the nice feature of displaying the artist’s album cover art while playing a song, and noticed a particular correlation about the music I was listening to.
All of the bands looked quite young in all of there albums. With a few notable exceptions, e.g. U2 and Red Hot Chili Peppers, most chart-topping songs were written by artists in their youth. Hits from the 70’s or 80’s that are considered “classics” have youthful spirit of the artist at the time. Take Guns N' Roses for example, their album covers show an immature group of misfits, not the world famous rock stars they have become.
All of the bands looked quite young in all of there albums. With a few notable exceptions, e.g. U2 and Red Hot Chili Peppers, most chart-topping songs were written by artists in their youth. Hits from the 70’s or 80’s that are considered “classics” have youthful spirit of the artist at the time. Take Guns N' Roses for example, their album covers show an immature group of misfits, not the world famous rock stars they have become.
Today is no different. In fact, artists are becoming stars at younger and younger ages, e.g. Justin Beiber, and their lyrics reflect their maturity. But if most music is written during adolescence, should we be surprised?
Looking back to those classic hits, you can see a handful of topics, on repeat. Should we be worried that society is enthralled with rehashed song topics, or do they inherently resonate with the largest number of people?
Maybe musical interest peaks during adolescence, and popular songs are determined by the current generation’s youth. As such, their interests are the same as your interests were at that age, and hence, songs about the same topics will flourish.
Or should we be more worried that society is obsessed with and idolizes this type of music? Think about the Jonas Brothers singing about true love or other experiences unbeknownst to them.
Most people get nostalgic when listening to music, and maybe that’s its true power. No matter how corny, cliche, or how much time passes in between, it evokes the youthful spirit of the song into the listener, bringing back a snapshot of fresh memories that everyone can relate to.
Some artists are more deep and thoughtful, and hopefully that continues, but until that’s the norm, I’ll continue to tune out the lyrics for the music.
