Loud Music vs. Loud Lyrics (the Need of Parental Advisory)

Related Articles

Matyagang mangingisda sa ibabaw ng Bantyaw

March 17, 2021

Linggo ng Palaspas | Mahal na Araw 2019

April 23, 2019

Mt Gulugod Baboy at Anilao, Mabini, Batangas

January 26, 2017

They say men like songs more because of its beat or melody or whatever characterizes the music. Women like songs if after digesting the lyrics they find the lines so good as if they were written for them.

Music vs. lyrics. Loud music makes your grandma’s eardrum crack. Loud lyrics… is there such thing as loud lyrics? Continue reading below.

This is another contributed article from Erwin Badiola of Lipa City. Check out his first contribution about everything on earth becoming instant. 🙂

For Adults Only: the Real Noise amid Music

I’m not into loud, hardcore music. Really. But I enjoy occasionally listening to System of a Down, Cradle of Filth, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Silverstein and the likes when I’m in the mood for some heavy sound.

I was in this kind of mood when my mom saw me headbanging to the beat of Sum 41’s Still Waiting. It wasn’t that hardcore but my mom overreacted as if she caught me smoking crack. That may even be an understatement.

Of course I understood her when she related that kind of music to rebellion, drug addiction and the usual negative misconceptions towards it because people her age usually think that way – which was only natural. It did not even bother me when she stood that that was not music but destructive noise.

Actually, that remained the case until she heard my sister’s scandalously loud message alert tone and danced to the beat of Rihanna’s S and M. I nearly puked. Talk about real hardcore music, I thought.

Sticks and stones may break my bones but chains and whips excite me. That was a line from Rihanna’s hit which made my mother boogey, unmindful of its meaning. S and M. Sodomasochism. As if the title wasn’t obscene enough, Rihanna took the liberty of elaborating it further through its lyrics. Clearly explained, I must say.

Then, as if the words they sing of weren’t understandable enough, enter the artists who went pretty straightforward like Enrique Iglesias in his song Tonight (I’m F***ing You), Katy Perry in her debut hit, I Kissed a Girl and Kanye West in his rap part in a Katy Perry song, Extraterrestrial among a handful others. Sad but this is the kind of music you’ll hear more often over radio stations and music channels. You tell me. Aren’t these songs more alarming than those heavy metal songs your grandmother warned you about?

Despite our inherent ability to spot the negative sides of things, we seem to have this innate inability to hear the negative lines of some songs.

If you think this kind of songs only exist in the international music scene, you probably don’t listen to local FM stations. I could still recall this OPM song entitled Banana which was a parody of Akon’s year-old hit, Right Now (Na Na Na). Upon hearing its lines, you’d perfectly know that this didn’t really pertain to a long, yellow, tropical fruit but to something which Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) thought was malicious, enough reason for them to condemn it from hitting the airwaves for months. Long live CBCP.

I stand neither for the heavy metal rockstars, nor its sound. I stand for morality. I stand for awareness amongst listeners. I stand for the good of the younger audience.

With this kind of songs topping the charts these days, I worry morality will no longer hit the notes in the music scene. I hope not.