5 Complaints About Modern Life (That Are Statistically B.S.)
#2.
"Crime Is Out of Control."
The Complaint:
"A member of Congress gets gunned down in yet another mass shooting. You can't turn on the news for five seconds without hearing of a child being abducted and mutilated, or a massive gang war along the Mexican border. Every city in America has one section that you wouldn't dare drive through at night. Now compare that to the 1950s, when nobody even locked their doors at night. What changed?"
More brigands?
The Reality:
There absolutely was a huge crime wave in the 1980s, thanks to the crack epidemic (this graph shows the spike in murders in L.A., for instance). But the numbers do not lie: Crime, property crime, theft and burglary have actually been dropping since about 1993. Dropping and dropping, below even where we were before drug violence skewed the stats upward.
If you look at the homicide rate per 100,000 people, which is one of the only crime stats reliably tracked through the 1900s and into today, you can see that not only is it the lowest since the 1950s, but that it's quite a lot lower than it was in the 1970s and even the 1930s. (And it's a scaling formula, meaning it isn't skewed by population.) Now why would the crime rate be so high in the 1930s?
Because Batman hadn't been invented yet, obviously.
When the economy is bad, people get desperate, and desperate people will do whatever they can to survive, right? And here we sit, 80 years later, with the worst economy since the Great Depression. How's the crime rate faring now? It's lower than it was before the recession. A few days ago, the FBI published its statistics for the first half of 2010, which show that crime has dropped further still.
What has not dropped is the number of TV shows and news features about crime, and newspapers' need to report on violence whenever it occurs. Therefore, the only thing about crime that seems to be going up is the perception of how bad it really is.
So, by the sheer numbers, you would be just as safe keeping your doors unlocked at night as your grandparents were back in "the good old days."
In other words, it's time to box up your mantraps.
#1.
"Today's Music Is All Derivative Trash."
The Complaint:
"Two words: 'Justin Bieber.' Turn on a classic rock station and you can listen for hours without hearing one bad song. Now turn on a Top 40 station and try not to gouge out your ears. Today's music is just a bland product mass-produced by corporations. Don't take my word for it -- ask any music critic. They'll tell you the stuff that sells today is generic garbage. Not the music back in the day, like Zeppelin, Elvis, The Beatles, Pink Floyd ... bands like that would never top the charts today."
The Reality:
There are two things that skew our cultural memory on things like music.
OK, three.
First of all, you have the fact that the crap from previous eras gets forgotten, leaving only the great stuff behind. Those songs on classic rock stations are obviously cherry-picked as the best and most indicative of an entire era; it's not a random sampling of all the music available at the time. Modern rock or pop stations, on the other hand, have to play whatever's come out in the past six months or so.
So there is a filter applied to the old stuff. Even most of the music in Mozart's day was bullshit. And because it was bullshit, nobody felt the need to keep copies. And what was preserved isn't played today. Because it's bullshit. So it's easy to look back at Mozart's era (or the 1960s, or whatever) and assume that because only the classics survive in our memory, everything made back then was a classic.
The other problem is we assume that what gets remembered over time is whatever was the most popular. Not true.
One day she will fade from history, and then man will finally know freedom.
For instance, what survives from the Vietnam era (thanks mostly to Vietnam movies) are songs like the badass protest song "Fortunate Son" by Creedence Clearwater Revival and "Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones. Both were released in 1969, after the war started going bad.
Now look at the Billboard year-end singles charts from 1946 to today. The top song in 1969? "Sugar, Sugar" by the Archies. Let us quote the entire lyrics of that song:
Sugar, ah honey honey
You are my candy girl
And you've got me wanting you.
Honey, ah sugar sugar
You are my candy girl
And you've got me wanting you.
I just can't believe the loveliness of loving you
(I just can't believe it's true)
I just can't believe the one to love this feeling to.
(I just can't believe it's true)
Ah sugar, ah honey honey
You are my candy girl
And you've got me wanting you.
Ah honey, ah sugar sugar
You are my candy girl
And you've got me wanting you.
When I kissed you, girl, I knew how sweet a kiss could be
(I know how sweet a kiss can be)
Like the summer sunshine pour your sweetness over me
(Pour your sweetness over me)
Sugar, pour a little sugar on it honey,
Pour a little sugar on it baby
I'm gonna make your life so sweet, yeah yeah yeah
Pour a little sugar on it oh yeah
Pour a little sugar on it honey,
Pour a little sugar on it baby
I'm gonna make your life so sweet, yeah yeah yeah
Pour a little sugar on it honey,
Ah sugar, ah honey honey
You are my candy girl
And you've got me wanting you.
Oh honey, honey, sugar sugar ..
You are my candy girl .
At least Britney Spears is most of a real person.
"Fortunate Son" got no higher than No. 14 on the charts. "Gimme Shelter"? It was never released as a single at all.
Go ahead, look down the list. There is some great music on there, but it's mixed in with a lot of stuff you've probably never even heard of. And do you know what you don't see on there? Queen, Led Zeppelin and a lot of other great musicians. Groups that are well-remembered now, when classic rock radio stations wouldn't be caught dead playing some of the shit that outsold them. Even Elvis and The Beatles are only on there twice, tying for the most No. 1 year-end singles with none other than George Michael.
And that's not even considering that, thanks to the Internet, we have far more access to all kinds of niche music genres and independent artists that we'd have never heard in the past.
And as for the critics, you have to keep in mind that there will always, always be critics who hate whatever the latest trend is. Rock music as a whole was blasted pretty harshly when it first got popular. Melody Maker called it "one of the most terrifying things to have ever happened to popular music." The Daily Mail decided to up the ante by mixing in some good old-fashioned racism: "[Rock music] is deplorable. It is tribal. And it is from America. It follows ragtime, blues, jazz, hot cha-cha and the boogie-woogie, which surely originated in the jungle. We sometimes wonder whether this is the negro's revenge."
Hell, even The Beatles weren't safe. The Daily Telegraph said that they were "something Hitler might find useful."
Holy shit, music critics of the 50s and 60s sound oddly like the Glenn Beck of today.
Why? Because it's easier to be negative. That part will never change.
When not writing comedy, Mark M dispenses bad philosophy and bad relationship advice. To read more of Ashe's work, check out weirdshitblog.com.
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I like "rejigger" in #4. I think I'll use that all the time now. Next time I change my oil... "I just rejiggered my car!"
ReplyBrilliant!
great. now i have "sugar sugar" in my head. damn it!
Reply"That's right, kids, I gutted that s**t myself."
ReplyLMAO!
Yea but even the indie scene in music is kinda lame. Are you telling me any 'indie' bands today will be remembered like the music scene from 66-74?
Reply"Any"? Statistically, at least one. Probably.
Hell, I couldn't tell you one now! The... uh... The Glowing Cabbage Collective? No, that's not right...
Ahem.
ReplyPart of the reason certain crime rates have gone down is because many crimes have been "redefined" or dropped off the books entirely...
Um, there have been more new laws written than those dropped. Also, the ones that have been dropped tend to be those that were not much enforced anyways. ie, no skirts above knees, men must wear hats in public, stuff like that.
Price of goods:
Replyyes, we have more shiny toys that didn't exist back whenever. Important point: TOYS. Not necessities.
The real "cost of living index" is that the spending power produced by one hour of labor at minimum wage 60 years ago was over $10. Today, minimum wage is $7. The actual spending power of the dollar has dropped, when you're talking milk,eggs and butter rather than Nintendo games.
And taxes consume approximately 30% of the average American's income. The average medieval peasant only paid 25%....
"The average medieval peasant only paid 25%...." to live in a hovel where you scratched in the dirt 24 hours a day? are you counting tithes? are you seriously saying that's comparable? we might want to review #4.
The best time for music was the 90's. I could turn on the radio and 9 times out of 10 hear a good song. I still have some of the cassette tapes I spent hours creating by sitting in front of the radio with my finger resting on top of the record button, waiting for the songs I wanted on my mix. Often times I'd be too late or early and have to start over. The radio went to s**t in the early 2000's when all the rock stations went hip hop. Now I spend hours sitting in front of my laptop searching youtube for new music. Thank jesus for youtube converter.
ReplyOh my. I thought I was the only one who did that back in the nineties >.
I agree with you....... but only because I grew up in the 90's as well. Oddly enough, not everyone who is alive now did. Congratulations on personifying #1 in this article and also sounding like the old man in the country who hates everything, "Damn kids these days and your hippity hop. Get off my lawn!"
Something #1 leaves out is the fact that the manufacturing of charting music is becoming easier and easier; radio stations base their playlists off of focus groups, and even then only choosing from a limited market based on what they can be paid the most to play; the lack of a modern, centralized cultural focus due to the variety of outlets for music; and a culture that wants more and more instant gratification, so we simultaneously have people with shorter attention spans along with markets that are more than happy to oblige them, leaving little to no chance for GOOD music to take hold, which almost always takes time to grow on someone. In the 50's, 60's, and 70's, success was built on quality of music, since music videos weren't much of a thing yet, and performance ability, since that was really the only way to see a musician perform.
ReplyYou can make the logically sound argument all day that "good" music from back then didn't rule the world the way we might think it did, but the fact remains that "good" music today is far more marginalized and shut out than "good" music was back then, and the stuff that is focused on is far more "fake" than even The Archies.
Yeah. One thing that HAS changed is that radio stations used to have DJs pick music--now artists PAY for spots...
#6. The Man Is Oppressing My Freedom Of Being A Complete f*****g Dicknozzle
ReplyGo Pittsfield!
ReplySugar Sugar was seriously the worst song to pick to make that point in the article. I'm pretty sure every single person in the entire world has heard it many, many times and knows if not the words at least the melody and chorus.
ReplyWow. I looked it up after seeing your comment, and...it isn't terrible. That's odd.
I think the point with Sugar Sugar is not that it's unknown by the public, but that this cheesy piece of generic pop beaten -in the charts- such anthems as the aforementioned Gimme Shelter and Fortunate Son
Now I really want to know what the Gimme Shelter and Fortunate Son of today will be in forty years.
ReplySo we're a nation of whiny butts and the corporations feed off that. ha..haha...hhaaaah
ReplyGive Spam a chance. That's all I have to say.
ReplyThere IS plenty to go around, even in the comment section.
The only thing to remember about music is that it is subjective. If you hate what is coming out (I do), you have mutes, dials, and niche radio broadcasts to keep you in your comfort zone. Keep right on listening to the sound you like. Someone out there likes the crap currently playing, and you're just coming off as the modern equivalent of our parents/grandparents shocked at that "horrible noise" we listened to.
ReplyNot that Justin Beiber isn't a twat. He sooooo is.
He's a twat, but his music is pretty damn catchy.
go away, Sean, nobody plays from the Kamigawa set anymore.
While it's true "that the crap from previous eras gets forgotten, leaving only the great stuff behind", it seems that crap charts more nowadays than "the great stuff". Case in point: Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew" went gold a short time after it was released in 1970. I honestly hope I'm wrong but I seriously doubt music as cutting-edge as that was during the 70s would chart today.
ReplyI'm only liking your comment to avoid being Exterminated.
...Mainly because it was cutting edge in the 70s, and what was cutting edge in the 70s is not relevant today.
idiocracy
ReplyI sincerely hope that in a decade or two, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and the rest of the awful pop singers will be as forgotten as "Sugar, Sugar." Damn, what WAS that monstrosity?
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesExcept that damned song gets played in commercials, mind-numbing romcoms, and other s**t ALL THE TIME. So it still isn't forgotten.
yeh, i knew sugar sugar like, my whole life. To be honest though, it doesnt piss me off nearly as much as gaga, bieber and kesha. And this one might be just me, but i cannot get passed kanyes douchiness. And even when i try, it just pisses me off that anyone can call that famous piece of mediocre a genius.
You don't have to wait.. Think back a mere 15 years ago. You forget who was HUGE in music? Backstreet Boys. Sugar Ray. Limp Bizkit. Terrible, terrible bands who people eventually forgot about, and realize were atrocious, even though popular at the time.
@thisisntleonard, People don't have perspective. It takes a lot more work to put something into to perspective than to simply b***h
I hate how everyone loves Taylor more than Kanye. At least Kanye's a real human being. All Taylor Swift can muster is an adorable smile and songs about love.
Here's the best piece of advice I've ever heard regarding music: "If you want to hear good modern music, STAY AWAY FROM THE MAINSTREAM" Sounds silly and hipster, but it's pretty true.
Reply Hide All See All 3 Repliesfrankly the only rule for music is "if you like it, you like it".
It's not hipster to look for good music from sources that aren't mainstream.
It IS hipster to avoid music for no other reason than being mainstream.
Not true. Look at the Rolling Stone Best Songs of the 2000s. Top Ten were all mainstream and are all brilliant. Everyone just loves being cynical.
I agree that crap music has always been popular,and Justin Beiber does not take away from the good music being produced now,like The Osmonds didnt take away from the good music done in the 70s.
ReplyThat being said,there usually is a Golden Age for everything,and even though there is still good music being made,it doesnt come near to what was made in the 60s/70s or even 80s.
one word: key-tar
One word: dub-step