Has anyone noticed how much cursing is in today’s music? I have. It’s ridiculous. There’s more cursing in today’s music than a truck driver with Tourette’s syndrome. Balls!
Tonight when I got home, I decided to take a look at iTunes best-selling 100 songs from 2007. Guess how many had “explicit” lyrics. Thirty. Isn’t that crazy? 30% of the top-selling songs in 2007 had explicit lyrics. What’s worse, 5 of the top 10 did too.
I decided to run a quick check of the songs I’ve purchased on iTunes with the “explicit” label. My rate? 0.6%. Society is listening to music with explicit lyrics 50 times more often than I am. I’d hate to think how old the average “hit singles” purchaser is on iTunes, but if you read the iTunes Top 10 list below I’m pretty sure you’ll agree that these aren’t middle-aged men purchasing these songs.
I guess it’s official – our society has finally reached rock bottom. It’s a sad reflection on the music industry today and, even more sadly, the state of our society. People have become such sheep that they listen to whatever the big conglomerate radio stations and MTV can most easily force down their ear canals. And it’s not even so much the cursing that really bothers me, although that is unfortunate. People in today’s society, by-and-large, only like songs that they can sing along to after hearing 15 seconds of it. It’s sad, isn’t it? Whatever happened to music that stood on its merits rather than how repetitive it was or many f-bombs were in it?
Oh well. Here’s iTunes 10 top-selling crappy songs from 2007, coming to the “NOW, That’s What I Call Music 47!” compilation soon. The times they are a-changin’.
1. Big Girls Don’t Cry – Fergie
2. The Sweet Escape – Gwen Stefani (EXPLICIT)
3. Hey There Delilah – Plain White T’s
4. Girlfriend – Avril Lavigne
5. Glamorous – Fergie (EXPLICIT)
6. Stronger – Kanye West (EXPLICIT)
7. Makes Me Wonder – Maroon 5
8. Don’t Matter – Akon (EXPLICIT)
9. The Way I Are – Timbaland
10. Party Like a Rock Star – Shop Boyz (EXPLICIT)
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Seeing the Explicit notation is not completely accurate. If an album has any explicit lyrics in a song, iTunes will offer two versions (usually anyway). The clean and explicit versions. So, let’s say one of Gwen Stefani’s songs has explicit lyrics, all of the songs on that version will show the Explicit warning on it. It doesn’t mean that every song on the album has curse words in it. I have purchased songs on iTunes and suddenly saw the explicit warning and got worried–I have two kids. It turned out that the particular song I purchased did not have the curse words.
Two issues that are important however is that when you put in for a search, the explicit version usually comes up quicker because that one sells more. You really have to search out the clean version. Second, Makes Me Wonder from Maroon 5 does have curse words in it. And even if you buy the clean version, you don’t have to be that old to figure out what was taken out.
So yes, I agree, there is too much cursing in today’s music but I wanted to give you a little hope there.
I’ve only heard one song on that list.
There it was.
Can’t agree with you more on this issue. Whatever happened to the great inuendos that AC/DC and others perfected so well? It takes a lot more talent to come up with a clever inuendo.
what about over-censorship, so fairly innocent songs end up marked with the explicit tag..?
Very interesting post. No idea how you found this stuff out, but I’m impressed…with the post, certainly not the Top 10 list! ;o)
Hey the only reasons so many songs are “EXPLICIT” is because most of those songs are Rap. Who ever heard of a rap song without any curses. And relax, music is music. You listen to Led Zeppelin and Guns and Roses and let the teenagers have their fun listening to their music.
The weird thing is that I cannot find any curse words in “The Sweet Escape.” I thought maybe it was labelled Explicit due to other songs on the album, but iTunes also offers a Clean version of the song. I have listened to the Explicit version and checked the lyrics online but I can’t find any objectionable words… Why would they offer a “clean” version of a song with no curses?
Am I the only one in the world that likes the CalPOP album?
It was marked explicit but I don’t hear anything bad on it..it’s just crazy.
youre probably the softest group of people i have ever read…
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