Music and Moral Depravity by Guest Blogger Christian Bou Khater

Christian Bou Khater, better known as CBK, is a good friend of mine. He’s an engineering student at the American University of Beirut and has a breed of sarcasm I am very fond of. This is hopefully the first of many guest blog posts on Gino’s Blog.com =)

Recent music trends, as a friend of mine so clearly pointed out, are all seemingly geared toward themes of moral depravity. Hedonist and erotic themes dominate the pop charts and air on the radio with little or no real monitoring. Exhibit A: A song called S&M was number 1 a few weeks ago. For those who aren’t familiar with the song, or what S&M means, try googling it with google pictures. (if your parents are around or there are kids in the room, it is generally not advisable, even with safesearch on)

In any case, I’d like to think most if not all of us have thought of how our era is going to be defined in music. The 60s had the beatles, the 70s had the eagles and pink Floyd, the 80s had disco and the 90s had micheal Jackson. What do we have? Lady gaga? Rihanna? Pitbull?  Will our decade be defined by lyrics like “sticks and stones may break my bones but chains and whips excite me” and  simply “why don’t we just fuck?” . I mean, come on.

However, all hope may not be lost just yet. Historical evidence shows that the songs that last are not the ones that top the charts, but the ones that can apply whenever, wherever and to whomever. Lets travel back a few years. Im sure most of us remember the great summer hit “my neck, my back”. Back then, it was the most depraved piece of garbage we’ve yet to hear, and we ate it up! We all used to sing it, it was a classic. But come to think of it, where is it now? Is it played on the radio at all? Does anyone even still have it on his playlist? Where did it go? It just vanished. Or “its getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes”, the song which happened to top the 2002 charts. Yea I’ve a hard time remembering it aswell. But I think most of us would still listen to “by the way-Red hot chilli peppers” also released in 2002.

An even better example: We all know and love pink floyd’s the wall. It may not come as a shocker, but no it was not number one on the charts in 1980. Blondie’s “call me” was.

The main idea remains, that our so called depraved music is like eating junk food. It comes in as processed crap, we digest it, it leaves as twice processed crap and we forget about it after a week of explosive diherria, never to be heard of again. However, the songs with real substance, the ones that last, we may not hold in the highest regard now, but back in the day, even Shakespeare was made fun of. The human race will come around, trust me J

Till then, enjoy all the R-rated content the airwaves offer, before the Lebanese authorities figure out what most of the lyrics mean and eventually censor pretty much everything!