The nominees to receive the most prestigious awards in the music industry, the Grammy Awards, were just announced. Among the five nominees for Record of the Year is a song titled “F*** You,” with the F-word, of course, spelled out, and pronounced.
Here are the song’s opening lyrics:
I see you driving ’round town
With the girl I love and I’m like,
F*** you!
Oo, oo, ooo
I guess the change in my pocket
Wasn’t enough I’m like,
F*** you!
And f*** her too!
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The next lyrics add the S-word:
I said, if I was richer, I’d still be with ya
Ha, now ain’t that some s**t? (ain’t that some s**t?)
And although there’s pain in my chest
I still wish you the best with a . . .
F*** you!
Oo, oo, ooo
And shortly thereafter, the N-word:
I picture the fool that falls in love with you
(oh s**t she’s a gold digger)
Well
(just thought you should know nigga)
Ooooooh
It is also worth noting that the video of this song includes children who appear to be under 12 years of age, and all the performers are black — a point which I will address later.
I have long believed that MTV has done more damage to America’s young people than any other single institution. I am referring to the music videos, in which most images or scenes are shown for less than two seconds and thereby numb kids’ minds, and to the sexual imagery and sex talk that permeate the music videos and much of the rest of MTV programming.
But while MTV should be singled out for the damage it has done to America, the music industry in general has been equally guilty.
How does a song replete with expletives, whose very title is “F*** You,” get nominated for a Grammy Award as Record of the Year?
The answer is that the music industry, from producers to artists, is largely populated by people who regard social and cultural norms as stifling. Their professional lives are dedicated to lowering that which is elevated, destroying that which uplifts, and profaning that which is held sacred.
Eminem happens to be white but the larger point I think Mr. Prager misses is that the music industry is just one particular arm of the larger entertainment complex.
This includes, lest we forget, the very same news/infotainment divisions that increasingly derive much of their content from self-referential commentary on what's produced/regurgitated from their allied competitors.
Am I equating, say, Fox's content to the songs Mr. Prager cites? I'm equating their underlying motivation.
The bottom line is, it's not some war against culture as Mr. Prager perceives it; it's a war for attention, for eyeballs and ears, and how to translate that attention into advertising revenue.
It's a war of dollars and the weapons are sensationalism, visual as well as aural: One strategy for increasingly homebound TV-centric consumers, another for still-mobile generally younger consumers.
I'm not a huge fan of the rap songs Mr. Prager discusses, but why does Lady Antebellum get a free pass? "Need You Now" is mainly about being lonely while getting drunk.
Parents should be aware that the training of their children into compliant consumers of this sort of bilge begins long before the teen years. It starts at the point when parents plunk their 2 or 3 year old in front of the TV to keep them busy, inadvertently exposing them to hip-hop style music and/or dancing incorporated into ostensibly educational themes. I have small children and have experienced this first hand - we switch the channel after taking the golden opportunity to refer to this as "ugly music" - the teachable moment, if you will.
Scrutinize entertainment targeted at kids across the age-spectrum and the pattern that emerges is an industry that builds its customer base by continually weaning it upward on a familiar culture of music, dress, behavior and vernacular. Need I say more than "Disney"? Britney Spears the mouseketeer who slowly morphs into Britney Spears the pop tart, bringing a faithful demographic of customers with her for the ride?
The discernment between what is beautiful and what is ugly begins at a very early age when parents have their best chance to shape their children's ability to make choices. As the Jesuits said, "give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man". Media marketing teams certainly abide by this wisdom in building their customer base. Give the vast digital catalog of good media available, more than ever before from across the years, parents have the ability to control the messages reaching their kids if only they will exercise their will. Our culture CAN be changed.
I think you're wrong. Record industry earnings are in decline, and only partly because of digital theft. The music they promote has zero enduring value. Forty years from now will anybody be going "They're playing our song!" about some 50 Cent track? Or will they have by then discovered Stardust and other classics. Duh.
1) Yes, the video includes children. One of them, the one playing a young Cee Lo, mouths something. It's not at all clear that it's the F-word, actually. His mother (who is nearer to him than his father, who is also present) chastises him for it. The backup singers actually don't mouth the N-word, from what I could see.
2) Cee Lo is shown working at a restaurant job during high school and studying music theory in college. This isn't a particularly negative picture.
3) It's an interesting mentality that censors the S-word and the F-word, and then goes ahead and spells out the N-word.
4) The song is really pretty goldurned catchy, which is probably why it was nominated. There are plenty of songs with the F-word that don't get nominated, after all.
Weren't people complaining sixty years ago during the advent of rock-n-roll about the values being promoted by the new music? Some things never change.
If your child starts dropping F bombs after they've heard some lousy song, then you are failing as a parent.
If they were complaining sixty years ago, they were right. Not that I don't like rock and roll. But complainers were clearly correct. Our culture is far coarser than it used to be. Who could deny it?
I don't know what the standards or evaluation points are or ever have been for Grammy-nominated music - I've certainly never expected the pop awards to be the equivalent of the Booker Prize. But the bottom line is that the Cee-Lo song is a fantastic pop song (whether in the original or the radio-edit version, which is, "Forget You" and contains none of the other offense-causing words). It's catchy, poppy, and, frankly, funny in its boldness and phrasing (I'd argue it's deliberate vapidity; I am fairly confiddent the use of "Atari" as a rhyming word in a lyric was not meant to be taken as serious). I'll take it over Celine Dion any day. Not a song for kids, agreed, but neither is a lot of literature, film and art, and that's a job for parents to manage.
Similar for Eminem: I've not heard anything from this album, but the man can be, even while channelling rage, quite clever. Personally, I'm heartened to see someone in his genre and age range (which is about mine, I think) utilize the vocabulary he often does and the internal rhyming that he's perfected.
Chaucer used incredibly crude words (that we read aloud in English class!), and Poe wrote of murder; we've managed to survive.
Yes, the song "F*** You" is profane, but man is it catchy. Besides, I'd think parents would only allow their kids to hear the cleaned-up radio version "Forget You." To my mind, "Empire State of Mind" is by far the more offensive song. I can't hear it without thinking of its connection to the 2009 NY Yankees. And I think we can all agree the Yankees are the biggest threat to our nation's moral character.
This is a minor point, but MTV does not actually play music videos. They haven't in many years. MTV presents scheduled programming like any other cable station. I'm not sure who plays videos these days. I think the kids watch them on YouTube.
The truth is, the f-word is no longer considered offensive or objectionable by many younger people (and by younger I mean anyone under 30). It's just a word. Language changes over time, and the curse words you find upsetting have become benign. There is a place for them, of course: the f-word is not something you generally say to your boss (unless he or she is around the same age and you have a close working relationship). But in the course of peer-based social interaction its use it completely unremarkable in every way.
This is morally neutral. It was once considered shocking to say "pregnant", but obviously this is no longer the case. It's pointless to object to a word's meaning when the meaning you refer to no longer applies. Language is all about intent.
The n-word issue it trickier. Much has already been said about it so I won't rehash everything here. But from a high level, it's a complex word, with deeply nuanced uses. Those nuances are largely culturally defined, so unless you know what you're doing it's best to avoid using them as you are bumbling around in customs you don't really understand.
kreminitly, your argument is a common one, but spurious. Taking it to its logical conclusion, any lyric you can imagine -- no matter how offensive or profane -- could be excused on the grounds that "people were complaining about the same stuff 60 years ago." Sorry, but "f*** you" is not the same as "So, I said politely Darlin' may I intrude, He said Don't keep me waitin' when I'm in the mood"
Thank you Dennis! We were just talking about this with friends the other night and it is so wonderful to have you put into words the very feelings we have about the depth to which the music industry has sunk. Thank God there are still some kids whose parents have exposed them to classical music and who play instruments in their school orchestras, and sing in their acapella choirs as we used to do. I am sorry for young people today who have this trash thrown at them and no family apparently to raise the standard for them.
