Pop Music Matters Speech

A professor of mine asked me to participate in an oratory competition. The prompt: Does Pop Music Matter?

Pop Music is fundamental to the continuation of the human race. Now I know what you’re thinking: “Listen, ya Turkey, there’s tons of species of animal that manage to procreate without rhythm and rhyme, the word and the beat. Turkeys for example.” It’s true, Turkeys do not need pop icons to connect and unite them. Yes, Turkeys do not need pop music because they do not have: awkwardness. 

If any of you have ever been to a club or bar, you know there needs to be music because otherwise you’de have to talk to people. Not that you don’t talk to people at those places, but you’d have to actually talklike about your life and what you believe in. Before you say I’m spiritual but I’m not religious, how about “I love this song.” “The bass is really loud.” “I can play this on guitar.” That last one makes you sound like a jerk, but you get my point. Newton’s Laws state that an object cannot move without force being applied to it. Yes, music gets the ball rolling, it’s an icebreaker, something that can be uniformly experienced, like the weather, and is thus very easy to use for starting conversations.

But the connecting power of music isn’t limited to local watering holes. No, the particular power of pop music is that its everywhere. It comes out of cellphones, It’s in elevators (one of the most awkward places to just be standing with someone), it’s in line at the supermarket, also a quietly soundtracked place. It’s inevitable you’ll form an opinion, so if you’re trying to connect with someone via their ringtone, the elevator music, or the supermarket radio play, well, there’s your prompt. 

And its not a ridiculous expectation to assume they’ve hearded places. The American chart-topper is almost always un-ignorable. Even in Oberlin, a bastion of indie and DIY and meh meh meh, I knew about Miley Cyrus’s “Party in the USA”. Look, guys we tried, I know we didn’t want Miley Cyrus to become a billionaire, but that song was just so infectious. Songs don’t often become hits by accident. And you couldn’t ignore it. It was at the club, it was at the bar, it was in line at the supermarket, in the elevators, it was coming out of cellphones. It even found its way into other popular culture. This may hit hipsters hard, but, yes, it was even on an episode of This American Life, so even they couldn’t avoid it.

We listen and consume pop songs the same way every time. So there’s the time when you talk about it, make friends over it. Make wives and husbands over it. Whether you loved it or hated it, wait a few months and get ready for the “this song gets overplayed conversation.” Pop music, like a politician, has the money to get to you over and over again. But all this is to do you a favor. Hearing an overplayed number one hit is like the wait line at the DMV. Everyone agrees its terrible, and when you’re sharing that wait line, everyone wants to say, “Man, waiting at the DMV is terrible.” its nice having certain things you can assume a person agrees with Pop songs offering fertile ground for conversations which could lead to marriages which could lead to procreation. In our constantly isolated yet connected generation, what with texts and facebook, its nice when to get a prompt.

People like to talk. People like to listen. People would talk and listen all day if you let them. Something needs to get people talking and listening. And like hearing the news that Michael Jackson died, “Where were you?” Almost everyone will hear eventually hear Lady Gaga’s new hit single. 

The comedian Demetri Martin has a great joke, “They say don’t talk to strangers, unless you want to meet anyone, ever.” Pop songs are the songs that strangers already share. Listen so that you can talk. 

I got second place.