What Rob Fleming Thinks of Rebecca Black
Rory thinks that all you Internet people need to lay off Rebecca Black:
By its nature [pop music is] a reflection of our lowest common denominator interest in music. Some people don’t like jazz. Some people don’t like twee folk-pop. My flatmate doesn’t like Japanese polka sea shanties, because he is an idiot. What we have in common is pretty generic: we like catchy melodies, driving rhythms, things we can sing along to, and lyrics which reflect our shared experiences, which pretty much just means love, heartbreak, and high school.
Would it be great if our shared interests were more diverse and complex? Sure. But as our culture goes increasingly global and open, it becomes harder and harder for us to agree on just which complex interests we should all share.
I agree that the “kids today” nature of self-richeous loathing for Rebecca Black is pretty silly, mostly because people are apt to forget that most things aren’t masterpieces most of the time. Still, I think Rory is low-balling pop music’s possibilities, at least a little.
Think about Pet Sounds, the 1966 Beach Boys album that inspired Sgt. Pepper and is routinely ranked among the best pop music ever pressed. Pet Sounds is a concept album about love. More specifically, it’s an album about a young adult protagonist who processes his self identity through falling in love. Tony Asher and Brian Wilson both make sure the album’s narrator speaks to what growing up feels like without getting bogged down in the specifics. Think about the words the album opens with:
Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older?
Then we wouldn’t have to wait so long.
or the startlingly frank admission that begins “God Only Knows”:
I may not always love you,
but long as there are stars above you,
you never need to doubt it,
I’ll make you so sure about it.
Being in love and finding yourself are in constant dialog in the album - wanting to be grown up (“Wouldn’t It Be Nice?”), feeling too grown up for your own good (“I Guess I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times”), failing to meet other people’s expectations (“That’s Not Me”), making your own expectations (“I Know There’s an Answer”) giving yourself away (“Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on my Shoulder)”), waiting for someone to give it back (“I’m Waiting for the Day”), admiting your powerlessness (“God Only Knows”), feeling your own unworthiness (“You Still Believe in Me”), and, at its end, feeling hopeless when love has gone (“Caroline No”).
Wilson accompanies these basic sentiments with the purest orchestration: tight vocal harmonies, string instruments, and environmental noises. These are both beautiful in themselves, and serve the lyrics’ underlying purpose: Pet Sounds happens in your own head. It’s not about anybody in particular; it’s about you.
So, what exactly is wrong with the song a bunch of publicists wrote for Rebecca Black, or pop music in the 2010s, or kids today? Their pop music is just so damn specific. The lyrics in “Friday” that Rory identifies as “awkward” all remind us that the song is about a particular way a particular group of particular kids experiences a particular day of the week. Pop music in general has responded to the fragmenting of our culture by growing increasingly narrow and self-referential: it’s not only designed for dancing in clubs, it’s about dancing in clubs most of the time. Pop music producers seem eager to toss anything onto the asethetic (“Rapping in the bridge!” “More autotune!”) which reinforces the club-hopping, non-reflective pop music culture that, frankly, doesn’t exist for most people most of the time. While there are definitely some exceptions (the Owl City hit Fireflies comes to mind), pop music just isn’t written for the Rob Flemings of the world anymore.
All of which reminds me how beautiful Pet Sounds was, and is. At some point in my life, I’ll grow beyond feeling the way Pet Sounds makes me feel now. But, even then, I’ll remember who I was when I felt it.
