In popular culture, music is dead

As I scroll through my iTunes playlists I easily notice just how old the majority of my music is. That’s because music, at least what my interpretation of music is supposed to be, is dead and buried. I first started noticing this trend almost five years ago with the discovery of poetic wordsmith Soulja Boy Tell’em. I remember hearing “Crank That,” watching it climb the charts and pondering to myself if this was the future of music.

At that point, music was terminal and I was hoping for some miracle cure to save it. That cure never came. Now the Top 40 is riddled with nothing but garbage. It leaves me with a sense of fear that younger generations won’t be able to grow up with something that actually resembles music. Lady Gaga isn’t music. Drake isn’t music, nor is Katy Perry. If you need to be that much of an attention seeker or rely on auto-tune that much, you have no business being in the music industry.

I actually think Lady Gaga fans trick themselves into believing she’s actually talented to make up for the fact that they only pay attention to her to see what stunt she’ll pull next. Katy Perry is nothing more than a Proactiv-pimping, walking chest piece who, I’m told anyways, makes records. And Drake? Well, his talents are better suited for wheeling around the halls of Degrassi High, promoting the dangers of gang violence in schools. Forgive me, other artists that the kids like these days aren’t coming to mind right now, but I’m sure they suck too.

But then again, younger generations can just make their own music nowadays. The music industry received its version of Jack Kevorkian last month in the form of a 13-year-old girl and just like that the plug was pulled. I’m sure by now all of you have heard of Rebecca Black and her lyrical masterpiece “Friday” (seriously, which seat should she take?).

As funny as it is, and it is funny, this girl takes her song seriously. FYI, she’s going on tour so if you want to hear the sounds reminiscent of a cat being put through a meat grinder live and in person, check out one of her shows.

Rebecca Black is but one of the “talents” churned out by an “indie record label” by the name of ARK Music Factory. In a nutshell, if mommy and daddy are willing to pay for it, you too can have your very own song and music video created for you by the genius entrepreneurs behind this company.

The beauty of ARK is that it markets to all kinds of people, most notably parents who want to live out their deserted dreams through their children.

Think of what Usher did for Justin Bieber on steroids and you can start to develop a glimpse of the many, many horrible things this company is trying to do. Speaking of which, I was going to take some pot shots at the Biebs, but I think the one consensus we can all agree on is that the world would be a better place without his existence.

Back to Black, whether you like her or not, her brand and ARK’s brand is likely going to be the future of “music.” This is of course due to YouTube and the rise of other types of interconnected mediums. Just when I was starting to regain hope for the industry after Kanye’s last album, the announcement of a surprise Radiohead record (which really sucked, sadly) and the awesome “WTF” moment when an unheralded musician (yes, musician) named Esperanza Spalding shocked the world at the Grammy’s, the world had to be introduced to Rebecca Black.

I never thought someone could make me hate Friday so much, but now the day will be forever sullied. Music, as I know it, is dead and gone. Record companies wonder why no one actually pays for their products anymore. It’s because they suck and they should be paying us to listen to the shit they churn out these days.