What Happened to Deeper Thought?
The majority of society no longer has the capacity or desire to comprehend depth in art, music or literature.
The newest phenomenon I’m encountering is comments saying my lyrics are “just a bunch of words.” It seems that people can’t grasp anything that isn’t spelled out for them. Music these days is so watered down that anything that challenges the listener has a significantly more difficult time breaking through. If they don’t get it 100% in the first few seconds, they move on or comment something that deems the song unworthy.
This is the real-time dumbing down of humanity. It’s proof of what I and countless others have been watching and predicting: Idiocracy is playing out in real time, and it’s happening much sooner than I expected.
Deep as a Puddle
If we can’t give more than 10 seconds to let something sink in, we are never going to grow. We’re going to stay stuck where we are forever. That may seem fine and dandy to the viewer who is only looking for comfort and familiarity, but it puts a (low) cap on their potential and the expansiveness of perspective and life they could live. Most want to live their best life, but most don’t know what this actually looks like. This is by design of those in power. This cap on potential may be bad for humans but it’s great for the platform stakeholders because it keeps the platform buzzing and printing money.
Music used to challenge us. It used to tell a story over time. There was a beginning, middle and end. Now everything’s just an end. There’s no substantial “setting of the stage.” Consumers (users) have been trained to receive the answer at the beginning, so if they don’t get the plot twist, the climax, the surprise ending, or the moral of the story at the beginning, they’re unlikely to wait for it to come. They’re also judging that material as “bad” because they can’t figure out what’s going on. God forbid they have to listen to an entire song on a different app to get the full experience the artist is trying to share.
Like, Obviously!
The aforementioned dynamic of putting the cart before the horse is interesting because just two years ago I was told by someone well-connected in the music industry that my lyrics were too obvious. I do think that was true and since then I’ve been working on making my lyrics more metaphorical and imaginative. The twist is: while I’ve been doing that, the music world has leaned heavily towards more obvious lyrics.
Mind you, I’m not complaining, because I could easily write obvious style lyrics. Maybe if I was writing the same lyrics today as I was two years ago I would be getting more traction on social,) but I wasn’t the same person two years ago as I am today. The mission and the vision were not fully crystallized back then. I hadn’t gone through my evolution of songwriting and singing. I wasn’t as good. It’s ironic that now that I am so much better than I was two years ago, that kind of music is what’s popular and connecting today.
I think this also shows the dwindling vocabulary of the masses. I work hard to use more effective and challenging words. We’re not talking about scientific words here though, probably words like “demise” may be lost on some people, and that’s why they call it word salad. It could also be that I don’t always use complete sentences and I write in phrases that may seem Shakespearean or old-worldy – something that’s more common than most may realize in popular music.
What Happened to Deeper Thought?
In a similar vain, the amount of people that ask questions about or pass judgement on a song but haven’t listened to the whole thing or read the lyrics is mind-boggling. People don’t know how to take a single step for themselves. We’ve been trained that everything can be served up to us with a pretty bow without an ounce of effort or investigation. If it’s not served up in this way, it’s invalid or considered academic or scientific, and the masses want none of that!
What about pondering things? What about just not knowing everything? What about figuring it out for yourself overtime? What about listening to the song a bunch of times so that you can form your own meaning? This is what art is for. Some art is instant and that’s cool, but some art and frankly most art during certain periods if humanity is meant to make you think. It’s meant to be absorbed over time – minutes, hours, days – not consumed in 10 seconds. It’s meant to change your mind or give you an opportunity to change your mind. It’s meant to help you see things differently; offer a different perspective – not regurgitate and confirm what you already know.
I understand that my music is the opposite of this “sameness.” For some people, probably my core fan base, my art will confirm what they already know, but for most people it’s going to be that opportunity for them to change their mind. It’s just flabbergasting to me that we’re living a time where people are least interested in changing their mind and exploring. All we want is an echo chamber and confirmation bias.
– Chad
