Urban music of the unenlightened

[susie_flo]

Today I am mostly feeling irritable as fuck.  If anybody really fancies annoying me then just, y'know, stand near me and say something.  Anything at all... it should do the trick. 

Still, I did enjoy a good evening last night at our local comedy club, which had lots of acts, including the rather funny giant man, Greg Davies.  (Plus it was nice to see steer  out of his natural habitat, navigating the wilds of zone 4).

Anyway time for mini-rant-of-the-day...

This morning, G and I watched the official top ten music videos on one of the freeview music channels.  Having long ago lost touch with today's kids, we were like a couple of anthropologists witnessing a culture far far removed from our own.  (What is with the continued proliferation of horrid, weasely little boys in tracksuits singing whiny songs about what they'd like to do to their woman...  do teenage girls really find that attractive? Ew ew ew!)

Anyway somewhere in there was a Beyonce song where she is berating a fictional ex boyfriend with the lyrics "If you like it, you shoulda put a ring on it" and it brought back the baffled bewilderment that I have been feeling for the last ten years or so while listening to lyrics by female urban music acts.  Is there, like, a whole 1950s retro culture thing going on among urban genre fans that has somehow passed me by?   Is it considered to be high-five-ingly avant-garde to go around saying  things like  "Ah pay mah own rent, so don't treat me bad, brutha" ?
  
One of the chief culprits was Destiny's Child with "The shoes on my feet, I bought it. The clothes I'm wearing, I bought it..."   followed by "All the honeys who makin' money, throw your hands up at me".   I mean really... Women earning money and even buying their own shoes - whatever next?   Given the amount of shoes I bought myself last year, I must seriously rock out as a feminist role model. 
 
Oh alright, I realise there is nothing at all original in attacking urban music for its neanderthal leanings and I am probably parroting many a ranter before me, but what gets me about this lot is that they clearly still *think* they are introducing a new and exciting idea.  Financial independence for the bootylicious, can such a thing ever be real?
 
Compounded with this article ( www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1151404/ ) posted by moral_vacuum, yesterday, it must be enough to make our mothers weep.
 
Tsk.
 
 
EDIT:  On a totally different topic, I've just remembered something hilarious.   A few days ago there was an outraged story in the Metro (Daily Mail Lite) that made me laugh out loud on the tube.  Apparently a school got a class of children to write down all of the rude words they know in their exercise books, and then grade them in order of offensiveness - presumably as part of a discussion on why they were offensive.  What finished me off was a quote from a horrified parent...  "imagine my disgust when I saw the word cocksucker in my child's exercise book, followed by a tick from the teacher!   (Parents, allow me to introduce you to the funny side.)

 

 

Comments

[childeric.livejournal.com]

"If you like it, you shoulda put a ring on it"

I genuinely have very little idea what that is supposed to mean. My first instinct was to assume that it was something to do with genital piercings and specifically Prince Alberts, but I think that probably just reflects the subcultures with which I associate and probably isn't the sort of thing that Beyonce had in mind. My second thought is that it's something to do with getting engaged, but that doesn't seem quite right either.

I'm not playing the faux naive here: I really don't know what that line means!

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Prince Alberts.... oh, how I wish that was what she meant! :-D
Sadly, I believe it is indeed to do with getting engaged...

[ms-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Hello :-)
At the risk of sounding like a high court judge I have no idea what a lot of urban/RnB type music is on about or meant for - it tends to fall into my categories of 'shiny thigh,wobbly head every note in each chorus singing' or worse 'yo, my bitches' type nonsense. I can't be doing with it anyway and am very glad I only have to encounter it when going through tv channels looking for an episode of Randall and Hopkirk Deceased or being sung along to badly on buses by young people with awful tinny mobile phone type mp3 players.


I think Beyonce is refering to cock rings ;-)

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Hello, delighted to meet you. (LJ won't let me reply to your message for some reason).

Yes, I do like the idea of her entire fan base taking it to mean cock rings and prince alberts... she could be the making of many a salon.

[ms-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I sometimes get Beyonce confused with the lady who tells everyone she is from 'the block' and 'not to be confused by the rocks she got' - but that is J'lo isn't it?

As my Mum would say - I wouldn't pay them in washers.

[kissmeforlonger.livejournal.com]

It's because they're all 15 year-olds, and getting to buy your own shoes is still a big deal.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Oh bless... (have to confess that had not occurred to me)
:-)