Music fuels the savage appetites

Isn't it amazing how much effect music has on us? I thought about this as I told my friend that I was laaaaaaaaaaaazy to do something - that made me think of that silly song that contains this line: "Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii'm thinkin' that I'm laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazy".

Music is so absolutely potent, and has the potential to dictate what we feel as we listen to it. Listening to Yo-yo Ma's rendition of Bach's cello suites can make you melancholy one moment and make your spirit soar the next. Popping in jazz can make you slump back and chill in a matter of seconds. Modern Talking can make your feet lead you reluctantly but irresistably to the dance floor (this is called a guilty pleasure). Sade's husky voice may well make you wanna pounce on your partner and start making out.

And Harry Connick Jr makes my skin tingle with his sexxxxxy voice!

When I'm out, I have this weird thing where I'm very aware of whatever music is playing...which is why I suffer for the 10 minutes that SIA airplanes take to taxi from the runway to the terminal - SIA insists on playing muzak while the plane is taxiing. Even in crowded, noisy eateries, I can always perk up when I hear a fave tune or suppress a barf reflex when I realise it's Michael Bolton's constipated exertions.

I have a theory, based on what I think I'm observing:

When I was a teenager, (teeny bopper boy bands aside,) the grunge movement was in full swing, and radiowaves were filled with the sounds of angsty bands talking of hurt, pain, anger, suicide, the dark side of human nature, and whatever made you listen and think, "OK, I think I'll go slit my wrists now." The result is as Bart Simpson so aptly put it: "Making teenagers depressed is like shooting fish in a barrel." Depression was the hallmark of being a teenager, slouches, pouts and all.

These days, the mainstream popular music that teenagers like is mostly R&B with their "gigolos", "ho's" and general boyd fest. And the way I see it, it seems to have coincided with the general sexualisation of youths these days. No longer do I see the genre of the angsty teenager moping about with their underwear showing. Now I see that showing as much skin as possible is the rage, and being as sexy as possible is the main preoccupation, at least compared to eras before (hmm....except maybe the Roaring 20s, and that never quite took place in full swing in Singapore).

On the plus side, the Ah Beng and Ah Lian subspecies seem to have died out, except for their cheesy techno-pop music that still plays in some stores - the last Ah Lian hold-outs, I reckon.

This is not to say teenagers aren't angsty or suffer from unhappy identity crises anymore, just that the emphasis has shifted according to tastes, and, I believe, music. Music has such effect on how people feel about themselves and the world, and surely affects general moods and perceptions. (By the way, I think that the 90s hoo-haa about subtle messages being played backwards in heavy metal music is a load of crock - talk to me backwards and see if I know what the hell you're saying.)

R&B is certainly not what it used to be. It was absolutely fab in the 60s and 70s with blues-type bands and groups that called themselves The-Somethings. It took a dip in the 80s with sappy, Lionel Richie-type crooning, but was still not too bad. It was almost fab again in the 90s with groups like En Vogue, Salt-n-Pepa, and the even the ballads were pretty good, or at least OK. These days, I'm not sure if they're singing or rapping about anything else except prostitutes, sex and guns. Whatever happened to classy divas like Sade? Bring back Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett!! If you can raise Ella from the dead, that'd be absolutely loverly...but that ain't really R&B anymore anyway.