The baby boomers are trotting out the celebrations for the 40th
anniversary of the "Summer of Love," complete with all that soggy and groggy
Woodstock nostalgia. Perhaps the singular statement of that summer was the
music and the open celebration of "free love."
All of which, believe it or not, is preferable to what is on the
air this summer.
Start with the big hit "Birthday Sex," which brought quick fame
(which is to say, infamy) to a singer named Jeremih. (Why must these people
always celebrate illiteracy?) His basic lyric is "Don't need candles and
cake / Just need your body to make / Birthday sex." But Jeremih also
elaborates about how he wants sex in the kitchen, on a waterbed and so on.
It's an audio porn movie.
Interestingly, and sadly, few can be found to disapprove of
foisting these "adult situation" lyrics on children. Radio station managers
are, as a group, completely apathetic. But school administrators? The
Chicago Public Schools enlisted their newly famous alumnus Jeremih in an
online Twitter campaign to urge Chicago teens to go back to school this
fall.
At least the Chicago Sun-Times was bold enough to disagree with
this campaign. "We know CPS kids will listen to 'Birthday Sex' and far
raunchier tunes whether Jeremih is a CPS spokesman or not," the paper
editorialized. "We also know CPS must do all it can to deal with its
horrific dropout problem. But that shouldn't include implicitly promoting
the message in 'Birthday Sex,' no matter how appealing the messenger."
Jeremih was not alone in the gutter. The rapper who calls
himself Flo Rida unleashed a big hit with "Right Round," which celebrates
oral sex: "You spin my head right round, right round / When you go down,
when you go down, down." He's not talking about spinning his eyeballs
around.
Dirty lyrics don't keep an "artist" from appearing on the
network morning news programs. They're fine with it, too. On the Aug. 14
"Today" show, the rapper also performed a previous hit song, "Low," with
lyrics like this: "Shawty was hot like a toaster / Sorry but I had to fold
her / Like a pornography poster."
Flo Rida granted an interview to NBC anchor Matt Lauer, who
buttered up his guest by asking if his mother deserved credit for inspiring
him to ascend from the rougher neighborhoods of Miami. Flo Rida's answer was
even more offensive in its hypocrisy: "I mean, most definitely. She always
taught me to dream big, put God first, you know, sacrifice and the sky's the
limit."
I wonder what God thinks of that.
It's not just men who behave like pigs. The dance diva named
Lady Gaga had a hit song titled "Love Game" that repeatedly celebrated the
male anatomy: "Let's have some fun, this beat is sick / I wanna take a ride
on your disco stick." A newspaper in the Philippines put the perfect spin on
her concert there: "Lady with Legs Wide Open." Her songs aren't just a smash
on the radio; they star on TV shows like "So You Think You Can Dance" on
FOX.
These songs are not the cutting edge; they are the mainstream.
The Culture and Media Institute studied 29 songs that were listed on top 20
airplay charts posted by Mediabase from June 10 to July 22. A large majority
(69 percent) of the songs made at least one reference to sex, alcohol,
drugs, or contained profanity. Nearly half (46 percent) of the songs
contained sexual lyrics and 31 percent of the songs referenced drugs or
alcohol. Profanity occurred in 41 percent of the songs.
Dr. Brian Primack of the University of Pittsburgh Medical School
studied more than 700 ninth-graders and found in a study earlier this year
that sexual songs lead to more sexual activity by teens: "High exposure to
lyrics describing degrading sex in popular music was independently
associated with higher levels of sexual behavior. In fact, exposure to
lyrics describing degrading sex was one of the strongest associations with
sexual activity." This might seem like an obvious finding, but no one in the
music business bats an eye.
If tobacco companies can be blamed for lung cancer, and oil
companies can be blamed for global warming, why aren't radio stations and
record companies that churn out pornographic music blamed for teen pregnancy
and sexually transmitted diseases?