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A PSA to the music industry

Gone are the lyrics that use to matter the most replaced with lyrics that don’t matter at all. Just as long as there is a beat that accompanies said lyrics that can make me groove and move in my seat, all is well. Who cares if I don’t understand what the artist is saying? The beat is insane! Never mind the fact that we’ve heard this beat before, the exact same pattern; we love it.

 

The singles are more appealing than the CD’s and they wonder why we are not buying albums anymore. I’ll tell you why, it isn’t worth the cash or the time it takes to pick the album up off of the shelf and wait on line for it to be rung up and purchased; and then taken home to be popped into a CD player and subjected to listening to redundant material.

 

I’m sorry music industry we are actually bored with your recycled jams and your ill effort at selling us classics. Where on earth are the variety and creativity of music? Radio doesn’t make it any easier either. They only play the same song over 10 times a day and at the same time. I can not tell you how many times I’ve heard “Mr. Carter”by Lil Wayne featuring Jay-Z at 7 a.m. every single day like clock work.

 

And yes, I have heard the infamous term and the majority of the music industries’ belief system “sex sells”, looks and sex appeal are what sells CD’s and the artist to the audience; and to that I say crack cocaine sells too, that doesn’t mean everyone is interested in it.  I can not see the artist when his/her music plays on my radio, so there goes that theory.

 

All isn’t negative though. I am a person of a positive nature, so with the negative I must shell out the positive. There are the saviors of music who are putting their best foot forward to revive music such as Alicia Keys,  Jazmine Sullivan, T.I., Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco, Jennifer Hudson and John Legend to name a few. Many have said that Jazmine can not sing or that she sounds too much like R&B muti-talented soul sister Lauryn Hill. Unfortunately for them, they haven’t realized that their ears have become out of tune due to the garbage that has been sold to them in the past decade, and would find it difficult to recognize music that embodies the total list of musical ingredients if it jumped into their iPods.

 

We have been fortunate enough to have artist that have blessed us with classics in the past to remerge and assist in bringing back the essence of Hip Hop and R&B. Mega mogul Jay-Z, who said that he was retiring from “the game” in 2003, just couldn’t stay away and dropped Kingdom Come (2006) as well as American Gangster (2007) after dropping the Black Album which was suppose to be his last effort in November 2003. Honestly, can you imagine what the radio would be like without him? I know I can’t. Mary J. Blidge has also been holding it down as the queen of hip hop soul a title that is much fitting; constantly showing these so called R&B artist how it’s really done. With hits ranging from “Real Love”(1992) to the female empowering anthem “Just Fine”(2004) as well as being an 8 time Grammy award winning artist, it’s no wonder why Mary is on the road to being cemented as a musical legend.

 

Many would disagree with me and say no, hip hop is not dead its evolving and yes it is, but not all evolutions are good evolutions and the way things are going there will be no need for lyricist because words are just not that important anymore in a song; this being shown again by Lil Wayne in T-Pain’s new joint “Can’t Believe It” where he does an impressive job at mumbling his entire verse. Music industry, the time has come for you to face the music, literally.

 

Stop blaming the failure of record sales on such platforms as iTunes and Rhapsody or better yet on the recession. Alicia Keys’ album As I Am (2008) sold 742,000 copies in her first week and T.I.’s Paper Trail (2008) sold 500,000+ copies in his first week so it can’t possibly be the recession or iTunes. Its not that we don’t want to buy albums, we just really see no need to buy them because they just aren’t good enough.

 

It is time for you to embody the eye of the tiger, get in that studio or behind that corporate desk and give us classic songs and albums. We would actually like to relate to the rapper/singers lyrics; how else can a song have the honor of being our favorite

when we can’t even comprehend what he/she is saying?

 

Music Industry I do this because I love you.