If you’ve interacted with someone older than 50 — or read one of their Facebook posts, for that matter — you’ve likely heard them bemoan the current state of music at one point or another.
Maybe they complain about Miley Cyrus or Nicki Minaj’s outrageous behavior. Maybe they don’t understand the appeal of electronic music. Or maybe they really just can’t get past those hazy days as a Grateful Dead groupie.
But, no matter your opinion on the matter, they do have at least one solid point.
Over the past couple decades, music itself has witnessed a transformation of sorts, one that finds artists of all genres becoming more explicit in their lyricism.
Which isn’t to say that music suddenly became a sex-filled and drug-laced experience one day; in fact, many of the most popular songs from the 1960s onward were loaded with hidden innuendos.
Allow me to provide some examples and potentially ruin some of your favorite songs.
Remember “Ticket to Ride” by the Beatles (“She’s got a ticket to ride, but she don’t care”)? Well, according to an interview with John Lennon, it has another meaning. “Ticket to ride” was a term to describe a card given to prostitutes in Hamburg that indicated a clean bill of health. Suddenly, the song becomes a lot less endearing, especially considering all the times my 10-year-old self would sing along to it.
Or what about Friends of Distinction’s 1969 song “Grazing in the Grass?” Once you consider the other meaning of “grass” — think the green, leafy substance beloved by Snoop Dogg — you realize just how much of a stoner anthem the song is. Just listen to the track’s opening two lines and you’ll probably wonder why Wiz Khalifa hasn’t sampled the song yet. (“Sure is mellow grazin’ in the grass [grazin’ in the grass, yes, baby, can you dig it?]/ What a trip just watchin’ as the world goes past [grazin’ in the grass, yes, baby, can you dig it?]”).
The songs don’t shy away from potentially objectionable material. Instead, they use intricate metaphors and analogies to conceal their ulterior message.
But today, fewer artists have the patience for that. In her song “Partition,” Beyoncé has no time to mince words about her sexual encounters (“Yeah, he’s so horny; he wants to fuck/ He popped all my buttons and he ripped my blouse/ He Monica Lewinsky-ed all on my gown”). Neither did Cyrus in her megahit “We Can’t Stop,” referencing both “dancing with Molly” and “trying to get a line in the bathroom.”
One final example of this trend can actually be found in Zayn Malik’s (or ZAYN, as he likes to style himself) first solo album after departing from One Direction. The British boy band is one of the music industry’s most prominent euphemizers, finding ways to mask sexual lyrics for their teenage fans.
There’s the slightly problematic “Little White Lies” (“You say you’re a good girl, but I know you would, girl/ ‘Cause you’ve been telling me all night/ with your little white lies, little white lies”), which gets right up to the point of being overtly sexual while still remaining ambiguous enough for a preteen slumber party. There’s also “No Control,” home of likely the least subtle lyric One Direction has ever created: “Waking up beside you/ I’m a loaded gun, I can’t contain it anymore.”
Compare that to ZAYN’s Mind of Mine, and it is easily noticeable that the 23-year-old artists represents the newfound no-holds-barred approach to explicit content in songs.
Once forced to filter his thoughts for radio-friendly pop hits, ZAYN now finds himself unabashedly singing about the full scope of his life. He tackles issues with substance abuse in “BRIGHT” (“I found my life in between shots and getting high”), croons about watching his lover undress in “TiO” (“I just want to watch you when you take it off/ Take off all your clothes and watch you take them off”) and honestly just loses all boundaries in “wRoNg” (“I’ll get her wetter than ever”).
None of this is to say the trend toward more explicit content is bad. As a person who listens to The Weeknd’s debauchery fairly often, I can’t really complain. In fact, the transition is beneficial in the sense that it allows artists more free expression, as they live in an age when such content can be profitable. It also signals growing sexual freedom in Western culture, which can’t be a bad thing.
Of course, the trend does enable some artists to get lazy. Because no matter your opinion on marijuana, you have to admit the constant references to the drug in many popular songs are growing tiresome.
Still, you won’t find me complaining about the trend. Instead, you can likely find me somewhere on the campus, headphones in, humming along to Rihanna’s latest sexual escapade.
