Worldly Success & Liberation Post

Aim # 2 (Worldly Success)

1. Birdman feat. Lil Wayne & Drake, "Money To Blow", Hip Hop, 2009
2. Chris Brown, "Look At Me Now", Hip Hop, 2011
3. Trey Songz & Drake, "Successful", R&B, 2010
4. DJ. Khaled feat. Diddy, Nicki Minaj, T Pain, Rick Ross, Busta Rhymes, Fabolous, Jadakiss & Fat Joe,  "All I Do is Win (Remix)", Hip Hop, 2010
5. 50 Cent, "I Get Money", Hip Hop, 2007

Aim #4 (Liberation)

1. Destiny's Child, "Survivor", R&B, 2001
2. Yolanda Adams, "Victory", Gospel, 2005
3. R. Kelly, "The Storm is Over Now", R&B, 2000
4. Mary J. Blige, "No More Drama", R&B, 2002
5. Mary J. Blige, "Enough Cryin", R&B, 2006

I found this week’s blog assignment to be a lot easier than last week’s. The two aims for this week, Worldly success and Liberation, are both prevalent in today’s society. However, I found more songs that related to worldly success than liberation. The main themes for songs that are popular today are, Love, Sex, Money and Alcohol/Drugs. A person is considered successful if they have achieved some sort of status. For example, a person who lives in a mansion, drives in an expensive car, and has earned millions of dollars is considered “to have made it” and is successful. The Hindu understanding of worldly success is that it brings livelihood with dignity and self respect. Whereas, in the Hip Hop culture especially, you can see that the idea of success is different, and it is also glamorized and desired. R&B star, Trey Songz along with Hip Hop star, Drake, joined together to create the song, “Successful”. In the song, the two artists are singing about the benefits and their desire of being successful. The song begins with Trey Songz singing:

 “The money, cars, the clothes, the hoes, I suppose….Yeuh! I want the money, money and the cars, cars and the clothes, the hoes, I suppose, I just wanna be, I just wanna be, Successful.”

In his eyes as well as in the eyes of other people, this is the type of success that people strive for.

When I think of the word Liberation, the first thing that comes to my mind is free; receiving freedom. This freedom can come from anything, whether a person may be freed from injustice, a job or a bad relationship. The Hindu belief of Liberation is that it is the highest goal of human life through which everything is accomplished. While looking for songs, I was able to find a variety of songs in which different artists sung about being liberated from various things. I think that artists nowadays are expressing their emotions more and therefore songs pertaining to liberation are also popular. A lot of female R&B artists base a lot of their songs on being liberated from painful relationships, because people across the world can relate to those songs. I noticed this especially while looking for songs for this blog assignment. Most of the liberation songs that I could find were sung by women.

Pleasure & Community Service Aims

Aim #1 (Pleasure)

1. Janet Jackson, "Pleasure Principle," R&B, 1986
2. Beyonce, "Get Me Bodied (Extended Version)," R&B, 2007
3. Bruno Mars, "Just The Way You Are," Pop, 2010
4. Destiny's Child, "Cater To You," R&B, 2005
5. Trey Songz, "Last Time," R&B, 2008

Aim #2 (Community Service)

1. Lionel Richie, Tina Turner & Various Artists, "We Are The World," R&B, 1985
2. Michael Jackson, "Heal The World," Pop, 1991
3. Michael Jackson, "Earth Song," Pop, 1995
4. John Mayer, "Waiting On the World To Change," Pop, 2006
5. Michael Jackson, "Man in the Mirror," Pop, 1987

As I scrolled through the different songs in my I Tunes account and on YouTube, I realized the fact that most of the songs that my peers and I listen to are related more to pleasure than to community service and songs that make a difference in the world. Nowadays, I mainly listen to R&B, Hip Hop and Pop music and in those genres of music, most of the artists are primarily singing about love, sex, and money, which I believe is what most people want to hear. Even on television, a majority of television shows and advertisements are geared towards selling sex, because “Sex sells” and companies and artists realize this. It seems as though most people today are not interested in listening to or creating a song that will not benefit them, but instead will raise awareness towards the needs of other people. Artists such as Michael Jackson, John Mayer and Bono have dedicated songs that are devoted to making a difference for those that are in need of their basic necessities. While doing this assignment, I was surprised to read some of the comments on YouTube that are posted underneath the songs that are related to pleasure. When I watched the video for Trey Songz’s “Last Time,” I noticed that one viewer wrote, “I love the way he says ‘Let’s just make love’ man its making me crazy”! The song had affected this particular person and it provided her with a sense of pleasure. When I watched the music video for “Man in the Mirror”, by Michael Jackson, I read a comment that struck me because the comment stated how people should think about others and help to save the world instead of thinking solely about celebrity. The Hindu understanding of pleasure is much different from the way American Pop culture portrays it. This Hindu aim is to seek pleasure intelligently and it follows the basic laws of morality. In American Pop culture, pleasure does not follow the basic laws of morality; instead it follows the desires of those that seek it whether those desires are moral or not. I believe that the Hindu aim of community service is equivalent to that in American pop culture. This aim is intended for people to help others and that is how pop culture represents community service, by coming together and making a difference.