The Destruction of Western Culture Through Pop Music

"A chorus should be thirty two bars and that the range is limited to one octave and one note...standardization aims at standard reactions. Listening to popular music is manipulated not only by its promoters but, as it were by the inherent nature of this music itself, into a system of response mechanisms wholly antogonistic to the ideal of individuality in a free, liberal society." (practitioner of cultural Marxism, Theodor Adorno, 1941)

In the first of my pop music articles, Why Pop Music Is Bad For Your Brain, I discussed a coordinated scientific scheme in which popular music was standardized into a formula in which the main initiative was to remove individual thought and independent expression. As sensational as this may sound, it remains true that popular music is designed secondarily for entertainment purposes and primarily for the creation of a docile or acquiescent society. I've even offered primary source material and footnotes so as to encourage those in disbelief to verify such fantastic claims. Upon acquiring further evidence I have found that this scheme has largely been perpetrated out of a communist Marxist plot to destroy American culture (see The Answer to Your Question is Post Modernism, Now What's the Solution) and is funded by large foundations like that of John D. Rockefeller. As my research continues to gather evidence, there will be additional articles in which I will publicize all of my findings; however, in the meantime I offer - for the readers evaluation - a real-life example of just how these anti-western schemes are fabricated within a three minute, radio pop song. I encourage the reader to refer to my initial article prior to viewing this one so as to gain a greater context of the subject matter.

The following song combines two of the types of 'characters' existent within the standardized pop music industry; they are what Theodor Adorno called a 'nonsense song' and the 'lamenting a lost girl song' wrapped up into one dysfunctional package. This song was released in 1999 and was extremely popular, reaching number 17 on the billboard charts and number 1 on the alternative charts helping make the album, A Place in the Sun go platinum, selling 1.3 million copies. The song was put into heavy rotation on the FM radio stations and the majority of readers - if you listened to the radio even periodically during this time - would not have been able to avoid hearing it's catchy guitar riff. The band was called Lit and the song, My Own Enemy.

Can we forget about the things I said when I was drunk?

I didn't mean to call you that.

I can't remember what was said or what you threw at me.

Tell me, please tell me why..

[Chorus]

The car is in the front yard and I'm

Sleeping with my clothes on,

I came in through the window last night

and your gone...gone.

[Second verse]

Its no surprise to me I am my own worst enemy

Cause every now and then I kick the living shit out of me

The smoke alarm is going off and theres a cigarette still burning

Please tell me why...

[Chorus repeat]

The car is in the front yard and I'm

Sleeping with my clothes on,

I came in through the window last night

and your gone...gone.

Please tell me why...

The car is in the front yard and I'm

Sleeping with my clothes on

I came in through the window last night

and your gone...gone.

[Coda]

Its no surprise to me I am my own worst enemy

Cause every now and then I kick the living shit out of me

Can we forget about the things I said when I was drunk?

I didn't mean to call you that.

There are two key things to notice in the first eight bars of the song. 1) the intro guitar riff hooks the listeners imagination and emotion immediately and, 2) the song's tempo (105 beats per minute) is set so as to naturally encourage some form of mimetic physical reaction from the listener, whether that be simple toe-tapping or into a more involved form of dancing or moshing - the 'hook'. Within it's first eight bars, the song has already captured the body and mind into a coordinated magic spell that actually invites the listener to jump around the room as if possessed. In combination with these two aspects, a strongly syncopated back-beat locks the listener into a mindless, three minute, devil-may-care tromp. All of this combining to open the listener's mind to a certain level of suggestibility; allowing their subconscious to accept queues which are translated through the lyrical content. And when accompanied by it's video, My Own Worst Enemy successfully invokes an all-out sensory barrage of deep-seeded, sexually explicit behaviour, capitalizing on the humans irrationality reminiscent of techniques describes in Freudian psychoanalytics. The song, when taken in its entirety, inspires our inner deviant to come out and play; removes inhibitions and personal responsibility for our actions while promoting drunken debauchery, revelry and infidelity. The catchy, uplifting E major riff that ends with an unresolved B - A power chord drives the entire song and leaves the listener in a sense of suspended animation, insinuating that an end to the good times is inevitably right around the corner - preparing the listener for the hangover that arrives the next morning. The intro lasts eight bars as the intro riff is repeated four times in order to firmly establish the main hook. It is only interrupted when the hungover lead singer begins to piece together the details of what has resulted from a night of drunken chaos; all narrated in a melody and cadence that resembles an adolescent nursery rhyme.

As the fun-loving protagonist pleads forgiveness from his girlfriend it's interesting to note the dichotomy at play here. While the video certainly suggests several causes to why he is waking up alone; it fails to elaborate visually on any effect. In other words, while we are permitted to witness the good times from the night before, we are never granted access to the consequences of the morning after, those details are left to our imagination, only offered through the lyrics of the song itself and presented to the listener in a somewhat whimsical manner. While the singer does take a measure of responsibility in admitting he is his own worst enemy, he does blame it all on the fact that he was drunk, thus removing any personal responsibility for his own actions. He innocently asks his girl - and the viewer - for forgiveness and why wouldn't we forgive him, we have all been in a similar situation, we have all said or done something we regret while under the influence of alcohol. Therefore we end up sharing a certain feeling of camaraderie with him, we form a sympathetic relationship. We feel better about our own past transgressions while also forgiving ourselves from any that may arise in the future. It normalizes our own bad behaviour. This is why bands become popular - they relate to the everyday layman; and as soon as they reach a certain level of success and start writing about big mansions, expensive cars, beautiful girls, they are discarded by a fickle fan base that no longer relates to the troubles of an untouchable celebrity living behind gates and giant walls.

The song ends on the unresolved A - B chord signifying an end to the fun without a conclusion. Leaving the listener exactly in the same place as they were when the song began - resolving nothing. And, as Adorno points out, this is one of the critical aspects of the popular song. Furthermore to the scientists, the formula has been followed successfully if the song is repeated over and over again like a mantra inside the mind of the consumer. When the weekend comes around the work week has created enough despair within the listener that they can't wait to 'let loose' again. The resulting lifestyle, popularized by the music industry and celebrity is also the one endorsed by endless beer and alcohol commercials and has helped create a culture of irresponsibility, arrested development and the destruction of family values. A large section of the general working public, unhappy with their careers - or their lot in life - merely wish to escape reality at first opportunity by doing all of these self-destructive, dysfunctional activities again, weekend after weekend. In fact, when interviewed, the lead singer, A. Jay Popoff admits that "[My Own Worst Enemy] isn't about one particular night but many, many nights." In real life his band mates amuse themselves by watching A. Jay juggle three or four different girlfriends who show up at the same show. And this activity is parroted by ambitious men at every bar across America.

"The song isn't about one particular night but many, many nights." A. Jay Popoff

When we watch the video there is no crashed car in the front yard or angry girlfriend. There is no sign of a fight, no cigarette still burning or a smoke alarm going off. There appear no consequences, the only thing on display is the exquisite rapture of the irresponsibility of youth. And the overall message being that despite acting immorally, one can always attribute it all to excessive alcohol. As the lead singer wakes up at home alone, surrounded by chaos of his own invention, he can simply blame alcohol as the cause of all his less desirable actions - relieving himself of all responsibility. All of this leaves the viewer with many questions. Was this fight a result of the girlfriend witnessing her boyfriend crashing his car in their front yard? Or was it because he was driving drunk? Or was she upset because she caught him dancing with one of the girls that showed up at the bowling alley? Probably all three. But either way, she is gone...Gone.

Over the last several decades we have seen the slow evolution of the 'trouble-making bad boy' archetype first made popular by James Dean in movies like A Rebel Without a Cause. Only nowadays, we see a far more overt, pronounced example of sexual innuendo and a much more detailed depiction of the sordid actions of the pick-up artist. Where James Dean's character was understated and aloof, today's bad boy - like the lead singer of Lit - is overstated and bombastic. When we look at the progression of the bad boy image in society from one year to the next, the changes are imperceptible; the cool glasses and clothing get slightly updated and recycled; however, when this male sexual image is evaluated over a 60 year period, there is no comparison. When we step back, and look at this phenomenon on a macro level - taking into consideration a time beginning with James Dean and ending with the release of My Own Worst Enemy in 1999, we are witness to the progression discussed extensively within the pages of a 1974 Stanford Research Institute report called The Changing Images of Man. We are steered by non profit think tanks made up of social science professors and intellectuals who have been pulling the strings for decades. Ever since the first Macy Conferences and the Frankfurt School's move to Columbia University, society has been at the mercy of the myth, the image and the archetype. We see the steering or nudging of culture that Cass Sunstein writes about through incremental changes in the fad of fashion and fetish. We see an obvious alteration of the traditional values of Western culture. In the 1950's, we saw the advantages that capitalism held over socialism on display as the middle class and the nuclear family became a reality. Now we see the consequences of such social experimentation with an exploding number of single mothers, eighty-seven different genders and a huge population of fathers involuntarily participating in the mass incarceration industry. In the 1950's we had the strong, responsible male archetype depicted in Leave It To Beaver, and The Andy Griffith Show; today we have lazy, Ed Bundy, and an idiotic Homer Simpson. Where we once had Mike Brady - even with his melded family he was still responsible, and served as a role-model for a society in flux. Today, we have Walter White, a meth cooking school teacher and everyone loves him. James Lebowski, depicted as a hero who is also the "laziest man worldwide". And there seems to be no sign of stopping this movement any time soon as Hollywood, the music industry, politicians and the entertainment industry continue to nudge society in an anti-Western direction. When taken as a whole, there remains very little room for argument; even the most naive among us would have to agree that something is definitely happening. I'm here to tell you that this is not a natural, grass-roots progression of fashion and fad that we are witnessing, this de-evolution of culture is not being driven by the simple whimsical fetishes of a debauched society but society is being driven by it.

I dedicate this article to my cousin and friend, Dan Hartman.

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