Sunday, February 12, 2012

Gender specific lyrics - mostly just applies to females.

One thing I find amusing is the fact if a girl sang lyrics from a song by a male vocalist, the lyrics are usually genderless unless the lyrics are about wanting to fuck women (unless of course a girl is bi or lesbian). With female vocalists, it's an entirely different situation. I do not listen to very many female artists, but I have 948 plays for Lady Gaga, 739 plays for Lilly Allen, 292 plays for Heart (I seriously need to check out more albums by them), and 190 plays for Nico. All of these artists make songs that are embarrassing for a male to sing. To prove a point, I'm going to take a section of lyrics for some of my most listened to songs by these artists.


Lady Gaga - Marry the Night
I'm gonna marry the night
I won't give up on my life
I'm a warrior queen
Live passionately tonight

I'm gonna marry the dark
Gonna make love to the stark
I'm a soldier to my own emptiness
I am a winner
Lady Gaga - Heavy Metal Lover
I want your whiskey mouth
All over my blonde south
Red wine, cheap perfume and a filthy pout
Tonight bring all your friends
Because a group does it better

Why river with a pair?
Let's have a full house of leather
Lilly Allen - The Fear
I want to be rich and I want lots of money
I don't care about clever I don't care about funny
I want loads of clothes and fuckloads of diamonds
I heard people die while they are trying to find them

And I'll take my clothes off and it will be shameless
'Cuz everyone knows that's how you get famous
I'll look at the sun and I'll look in the mirror
I'm on the right track, yeah I'm on to a winner
Lilly Allen -  Not Fair
Oh, he treats me with respect,
He says he loves me all the time,
He calls me 15 times a day,
He likes to make sure that im fine,
You know I've never met a man,
Whose made me feel quite so secure,
He's not like all them other boys,
They're all so dumb and immature.

There's just one thing,
That's getting in the way,
When we go up to bed your just no good,
its such a shame!
I look into your eyes,
I want to get to know you,
And then you make this noise,
and its apparently its all over
 Heart - Barracuda
So this ain't the end - I saw you again today
Had to turn my heart away
You smiled like the Sun - kisses for everyone
and tales - it never fails!

You lying so low in the weeds
Bet you gonna ambush me
You'd have me down on my knees
Wouldn't you, Barracuda?
  Heart - Magic Man
Cold, late night so long ago
when I was not so strong you know
A pretty man came to me
I never seen eyes so blue
You know, I could not run away it seemed
we'd seen each other in a dream
Seemed like he knew me....he looked right through me....yeah

"Come on home, girl" he said with a smile
"you don't have to love me yet, let's get high awhile
But try to understand...try to understand
Try, try, try to understand.....I'm a magic man"
Nico - Evening of Light
Midnight winds are landing at the end of time
Midnight winds are landing at the end of time
In the morning of my winter
When my eyes are still asleep
In the morning of my winter
When my eyes are still asleep
A dragonfly laying in a coat of snow
I'll send to kiss your heart for me
A dragonfly laying in a coat of snow
I'll send to kiss your heart for me
 Nico - Roses in the Snow
He came your way
And when he had to go
There were roses growing in the snow
Silently you'll go to the shadow of your soul
And you know that it was like this before we had to go

You will never see these lights
Glowing in your nights
Until you feel this way
The only one of these four lyricists that doesn't make very girly music is Nico. I actually struggled to find girly music by her hence why these examples are what I chose. But her music is also creepy as fuck so it makes sense a lot of her lyrics aren't very gender specific. At the same time, she still uses common female lyric choices like referencing roses and talking about kisses.

With Lady Gaga, Lily Allen, and Heart however, they made a lot of music that would be very embarrassing for a male vocalist to cover. I can't think of a single one of the male artists I listen to that made a lot of lyrics that would be embarrassing for women to sing. Hell, even a lot of Beatles songs which talk about girls were sung by a lot of female fans. I just find this a fascinating gender dynamic when it comes to song writing and wonder if it's because of my musical tastes, or if this is pretty typical.

-William         

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Facebook parenting gone terribly wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl1ujzRidmU

For those who don't know, this video that was uploaded three days ago by a pissed off parent already has over fourteen million views. A lot of people feel this was some great revenge video that (SPOILERS!) ends with him shooting his daughter's laptop all because she bitched about her parents on Facebook WHILE USING VULGARITY! GASP! Considering how he worked on his daughter's computer the previous day and made it clear she set her privacy settings to where her parents weren't supposed to see it, he was only able to read that Facebook post by going on her account which I consider a violation of her privacy. If he respected her privacy, this video wouldn't even exist. For parents who think this is a great revenge story about unappreciative kids, maybe this will influence some parents to have less respect for the privacy of their kid(s). Since the guy seemed like a redneck, perhaps he's preaching to the right crowd about having less respect for privacy in the name of revenge.

One thing that needs to be kept in mind is that teenagers bitch about their parents all the fucking time, especially on the internet. While I haven't complained about my parents much on Facebook except for my mom's alcoholism (she's often a nightmare when she's drunk), I complained about my parents a lot on forums when I was a teenager. Yes, his daughter is disrespectful, but at least she had her privacy settings set to high to where only her friends could see it. To some parents, the idea of their kids bitching about them online just angers them beyond belief even if only their friends can see it. While I never plan to have kids, hypothetically, if I did have kids, I wouldn't give a rat's ass if they bitched about me online because I did the same fucking thing. If that parent had access to internet when he was a teenager, he probably would have done the same damn thing as well because I'll be damned if he didn't used to bitch about his parents to his friends. That's not to say I wouldn't feel hurt by the statements his daughter wrote, but it's nowhere near as big of an issue as he makes it out to be. It's not like she made a YouTube video with the purpose of humiliating and insulting her parents that ended up going viral for millions to see. Now that would be a jackass move.

When it came to how he punished her besides the worldwide humiliation aspect, he chose to do so by deciding to make her life harder AND destroying her laptop. While the former is an understandable punishment, the latter goes too far. Instead of destroying that laptop, how about doing something less destructive but still gets the point across. It sends a point that destruction is a valid way to punish a kid WHICH SENDS A REALLY FUCKED UP MESSAGE ESPECIALLY SINCE THIS VIDEO WENT RIDICULOUSLY VIRAL! Even my dad, who has some serious anger issues, taught me destroying things out of anger was totally unacceptable and I realized that from a young age. I once had a friend who's dad used to destroy his games and video game systems when the kid fucked up, and that kid did not have a positive view of his father at all. Kids and teenagers are fucking stupid. They make dumb mistakes; that's normal. From how the father reacted, this sounds like this is the worst thing his kid has ever done. OH NO, MY SPOILED ROTTEN DAUGHTER WHO I SPOILED ROTTEN LACKS RESPECT FOR HER PARENTS! BOO! HOO! HOO! He has all the right to be pissed, but he took this way over the top. He should re-evaluate his parenting skills and try to figure out why his daughter is so disrespectful. Hell, if my parents were violating my privacy, my respect for them would definitely drop a ton. This video somehow made me more sympathetic to his disrespectful, spoiled rotten daughter than the guy who clearly isn't getting enough respect at home...and maybe for some valid reasons.