Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: The Romantic Angst of Teen Pop
The first pop music I ever heard was Neil Diamond's—my dad's favorite. So when Neil's remake of The Jazz Singer came out in late 1980, I pestered my parents to buy me the soundtrack.
My favorite song was "Love on the Rocks," a ballad about a guy who drinks too much in the wake of a failed relationship. And at the ripe old age of 10, I related to its sentiments—the breakup part, anyway—even if the drinking double entendre in the title went over my head.
I also bought the single (a 45 record) and played it 'til the grooves were well worn. An octave above Neil's breathy tenor, I crooned about my own romantic woes: "Love on the rocks, ain't no big surprise/Just pour me a drink, and I'll tell you my lies." Bring it on, Neil! "Gave you my heart, gave you my soul/You left me alone here with nothin' to hold." I don't remember who it was I thought I'd given my heart to, but man did I feel Neil's pain.
Neil Diamond might have already been 39 when I began throwing back his sorrowful songs like so many shots. But he was the closest thing to teenybop pop that I knew about at the time. And so it was his songs about love and love lost that I pined away to and incorporated into my own personalized soundtrack. And I didn't even have an iPod!
So here it is: The music we identify with deeply shapes our perception of ourselves and of the world—especially when we're young. And just because adults might dismiss their kids' music as lightweight and hardly worth talking about doesn't mean tweens and teens aren't getting an earful—and a heart full.
Dropping the Hammer on ... Disney?
One of the things we think a lot about at Plugged In is the content of contemporary music. We work hard to pinpoint what's praiseworthy and what's problematic with the artists we evaluate.
Certain themes are so common that they've become clichés. Rock and rebellion have historically gone hand in hand. Metal musicians exhibit a penchant for alienation and nihilism. And many rap artists indulge an ongoing infatuation with excess (whether drugs, alcohol, violence or sex). These are generalizations, of course, but they're rooted in reality.
So when an artist comes along who doesn't go for the tried and true, it's a breath of fresh air for us—and for you. More often than not, these exceptions to the rule are young and cater to an even younger audience. Disney and American Idol stars in particular specialize in producing generally wholesome songs that eschew such things as licentiousness, obscenity and violence.
It is with some trepidation, then, that I've decided to write a column about the downside of teenybop pop. When I'm done, some of you will think I'm a nitpicking curmudgeon. Others will think I'm too old to possibly understand. (Who is Neil Diamond, anyway?!) But, hopefully, a few of you will begin to see the same issue I'm seeing as I plow through CD after CD from the likes of Jordin Sparks, Ashley Tisdale, Demi Lovato and the Jonas Brothers.
My gripe isn't about content, per se. Rather it's about worldview. Simply put, it's the idea that on these recordings, romance is everything. When you're lucky enough to have it, romance is imbued with something bordering on salvific power. And when it's gone (which is the case more often than not), life seems disorienting at best and barely worth living at worst.
I Love You, I Love You Not
In a typical teen pop release, one or two innocent songs celebrating love's goodness find their way into the mix. The rest emphasize romance, um, on the rocks. As I review them, I write summary notes such as, "8 of 12 tracks revolve around breakups," or when I get a little bored, just, "Another breakup song!"
Sometimes the breakups leave the subject feeling utterly devastated, such as when the Jonas Brothers sing, "Consider me destroyed" on the song "Paranoid." Things get so bad, in fact, that the poor guy in question turns to prescription medication to cope with life ("I'm takin' all the doc's meds"). On "Here We Go Again," Demi Lovato sings, "I throw all of your stuff away/ ... I tear you out of my heart." Colbie Caillat's "Breakin' at the Cracks" finds her pining, "I think you took my heart away/ ... Right now I'm hurting all over."
Sometimes someone responds more positively to life's little downers, such as when Jordin Sparks tells a guy she's tired of waiting for him on "It Takes More" ("No more waiting for you to change/ ... You're no longer worth waiting for"). Or when Colbie realizes that she never said the words her guy really needed to hear in order to stick around ("I never told you/What I should have said").
But regardless of whether things go great or somebody gets kicked to the curb, when it comes to the music that's playing at the mall and in earphones from coast to coast, romance is pretty much the only subject under consideration.
Don't Go Breakin' My Heart
In the movie High Fidelity, record store owner Rob Gordon ponders the influence of exactly this kind of music: "What came first," he asks, "the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"
The R-rated movie Rob occupies doesn't hit the bull's-eye. (It's chockfull of problems.) But Rob does. Maybe the misery of lost love predisposes teens to the cathartic outlet songs like these seem to offer. But I wonder if listening to "literally thousands of songs" like these also amplifies the misery, as Rob suggests.
And there's more to it than merely pouring gasoline on the fires of romantic angst. There are some pretty strong messages sent by effervescent, talented, self-assured artists who identify so intently with lost love. Here's the first thing average Kaitlyns and Mackenzies internalize: If Demi and Jordin and Miley can't get it right, how am I supposed to? The second: Romantic love is the only thing in life worth having. If I don't have romantic love, I don't have anything. Or—worse—if I don't have romantic love, I'm nothing.
The third thing may be the most complicated: Pop music tends to hit the highs and lows of love. But faithfulness to another person in a loving relationship—over the long haul—has amazing moments ... and a lot of mundane ones. On your iPod, the idea is that the fireworks will last forever. And if they don't? Well, then, it's all over, baby! I'm ripping up your picture, trashing that mix CD you made for me and settling in for a long, long, long cry.
These ideas simply don't prepare anyone to deal in a mature and healthy way with the day-to-day realities of long-term love.
I know that adolescence—and life in general—is sometimes hard. And when we get hurt, songs about hurt seem to satisfy something deep inside of us. But we're dealing with a level of quantity here that goes far beyond a temporary salve. If we chose to at least limit the influence of songs like these, might we expand our outlook on life and love? Might we more easily move beyond the false dichotomy of love as the source of never-ending bliss and as something that keeps us trapped in perpetual emotional purgatory?
In my case, I spent countless hours focused on my own mostly imagined "love on the rocks," and I wish someone would have lovingly suggested, "Adam, you're 10. Put down the Neil Diamond record before somebody gets hurt."