Why is it that society today demands, and indeed apotheosises, music that doesn’t actually do anything? It seems increasingly that the charts are filled with catchy tunes that don’t say anything and inspire nothing. Call me old fashioned, but weren’t songs of the bye-gone-age, songs that actually caused some emotion, a little more warranted than the electro-loops that dominate the radio, but effect little else than a tapping foot?
Frisky, for example, was certainly another chart hit for Tinie Tempah, though having been released shortly after his number 1 hit, Pass Out, was somewhat overshadowed by it. Whilst Frisky was undoubtedly another club favourite, it’s similarities to Pass Out are paramount. With very familiar synth-hop beats, Tinie Tempah delivered another irresistibly catchy hip hop track. Lyrically, Frisky is just as indulgent, arrogantly witty and self-assured as Pass Out; hard to take seriously, the track offers something to mindlessly enjoy – great for dancing to, and not a shadow of any real depth. The inventively repetitive chorus, ‘Ooh la la la la, la la la la la, ooh la la la la, la la la frisky’, leaves more than a little something to be desired. Similarly, it doesn’t take a genius to note Tempah’s more than obvious chauvinistic tendencies: ‘Honey I won’t even miss ya when I’m done with ya, eh eh.’ Whilst women will groove out to this song with the best of them, would it really be beyond Tempah to stretch to an illusion of women being anything other than an easy one night party-pass?
But Tempah is not alone. The acclaimed singer-songwriter Taylor Swift has been at it too, with one of her latest hits repeatedly claiming: ‘We are never ever ever getting back together, We are never ever ever getting back together, You go talk to your friends, talk to my friends, talk to me, But we are never ever ever ever getting back together’. So basically, everyone knows it’s over between her and the ex-beau, but little else can be dragged out of the so-called-hit. And who can forget Rihanna’s Umbrella and the annoyingly nonsensical ‘You can stand under my umbrella, ella, ella, eh, eh, eh,’ that reigned at number 1 in the UK singles chart for 10 long, painful weeks? That was one hell of a rain-dance, and boy did we hate her for it afterwards; but why the love for it in the first place?
Back in the day, it seems musicians weren’t so self-absorbed and considered things much bigger than themselves. Blue Oyster Cult’s Don’t Fear the Reaper, looks at the inevitability of death and challenges people’s general fear of it. It wasn’t, as some believed, an anthem to promote suicide, but instead the exploration of why people fear death and what it would be like to be re-united in an afterlife. A few years later, Triumph released Fight The Good Fight, a song clearly prompting people to value the important things in life and own up to the truth of the moment: ‘You think a little more money can buy your soul some rest, you’d better think of something else instead, you’re so afraid of being honest with yourself, you’d better take a look inside your head’. This was something apparently playing on many musicians’ minds of the time with Kansas, Styx, Asia and many more besides also releasing songs that echoed similar principles.
While I am guilty of happily singing along to all the aforementioned tunes, it is not the songs of recent years that I turn to when I’m actually dedicating time to listening to music, but those from the 70s and 80s. Perhaps I was just born a generation too late, but I’m massively envious that it was my parents and not me who got to grow up to the likes of Kansas, Led Zeppelin, John Lennon and Eric Clapton who actually put their breath to good use.
Becky Prime: There's no piece without pie 