While out and about a few weekends ago, I encountered a room of people with their heads tilted as far back as humanly possible, and arms flopping at their sides as they all stumbled around to a beat. I stood at the doorway for a second, watching and wondering if I had just encountered perhaps some sort of strange fraternity ritual, or if the arms of everyone in the room had all simultaneously fallen asleep and I was just a witness to an elaborate setup to get their blood pumping again.
But then I was asked to join this "dance party," and the situation made a little more sense (but only a little). Apparently the newest dance craze is "Bernie"-ing, inspired by the film "Weekend at Bernie's," whose title character is a dead man being passed off as alive, hence the floppy arms and inability to hold their heads up.
Now, I'd like to consider myself a relatively decent dancer, but ISA's song "Movin' like Bernie" is just one of many moves that I just feel incredibly stupid doing. Also, whipping my hair at the urging of a nine-year-old girl hurts my neck and I'm sorry, Soulja Boy, but I never did learn to "Crank Dat."
I think the issue here isn't just the idea of doing weird dances, but rather a concern for the quality of music in general these days. With each new single released, I grow more concerned that perhaps the music industry has simply run out of ideas. Everything cool and creative has already been done, so now popular artists are repackaging the same beat over and over, and adding autotuned vocals to finish it off (I'm looking at you Ke$ha – no amount of editing can give you talent).
While these dope, fresh, sick and radical beats are fine for dancing around on the weekend, and even I enjoy running to mash-ups like Girl Talk, it really worries me when the top-selling singles worldwide are Far East Movement proclaiming how "slizzard" they are, or have choruses consisting of only the words "Baby, baby, baby oh."
I suppose my main question is "What went so wrong in the literary education of these artists in that they absolutely slaughter the very principle of similes?" How can T-Pain tell us with a straight face that the "shawty" he's "jonesin'" for is "hot like a toaster," and why does Katy Perry want to know if I feel "like a plastic bag"? Usher, did a woman's rear end literally punch you in the face? If not, please don't tell me she has a "booty like pow-pow-pow."
Thanks to the music of today, I now know that Travie McCoy wants to be a billionaire "so frickin' bad," but as the very desperate housewife of New York, Countess Luann, enumerates, "Money Can't Buy You Class." Even down to the messages they send us, these so-called artists have to contradict each other!
Perhaps I'm just nostalgic for my Beatles vinyl records back home, or even the days where TLC told me to stick to rivers and lakes that I'm used to. Well, Left-Eye, in your honor, I will stay with what I know, which is music that makes me feel something. These record companies push for terrible hits because they know they'll be just that--hits.
We as a community need to stop these songs before they get worse. When we're just hanging out, let's listen to jams by artists with real talent and fresh ideas. If we cast our vote this way, maybe the music industry will finally listen. In the meantime, I'd like to wish everyone a very happy belated "National Smang It Day"– I hope you celebrated in style!
— Bremer is a sophomore from Clarendon Hills, Ill., majoring in communications.
opinion@thedepauw.com