Penniless Pop Stars?

[deguspice]

The theme for the crossword puzzle in Sunday's Boston Globe is pop songs from 2013. I don't listen to pop music any more, so I had no idea what any of them are. So when Ann and I found that the answer for the "#1 Billboard song in 2013" is the song "Thrift Shop", I pulled it up on my phone to listen to it.
Read more... )

Comments

[chanaleh]

I... hear there's been a bit of a recession on?

[deguspice]

I don't know which came first rap stars buying Cadilacs or them rapping about them, but now Caddys are cool.

There's a whole industry of marketing people providing high end products for free to rappers with the hope that they'll mention them in a song or use them in a song. But in Lorde's song "Royals" she's going against that trend.

"But every song's like gold teeth, grey goose, trippin' in the bathroom
Blood stains, ball gowns, trashin' the hotel room,
We don't care, we're driving Cadillacs in our dreams.
But everybody's like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece.
Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash.
We don't care, we aren't caught up in your love affair."

So why are these songs hitting #1 now and not five years ago?

[c1]

Art imitates life.
I can go on at length about what it feels like to have a panic attack in the supermarket when you're wondering if you can afford to buy food if you really need more than that.

[mrw42]

I don't thing it's new…

Dire Straits was "install[ing} microwave ovens" in 1985.
The Bare Naked Ladies were enjoying Kraft Dinner in 1993 and breaking in "to the old apartment" in 1997.

I'm sure there are more examples, but those were the first two to leap to mind.

[deguspice]

They both had Billboard #1 songs, but neither became the Billboard #1 song of the year.

The Bare Naked Ladies had one Billboard #1 song, "One Week", but that isn't a song about being broke.

Dire Straits' "Money For Nothing" became their only Billboard #1 song. While the song is from the point of view of a working class person (who's job is to "install microwave ovens"), the song is not about being broke.

[ladysprite]

It goes back earlier than that, too - Billy Joel, 'Uptown Girl,' 1983.

And even further - Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, 'Dawn,' 1964.
"Think what your family would say,
Think what you're throwing away,
Think what your future would be with a poor boy like me...."

[bedfull_o_books]

If the economy is in recession, then pop songs will reflect that.

"Brother, Can you Spare a Dime" was a popular song in the 1930s.

[aelf]

I think there's always been a good mix of topics. 9 to 5 is probably a classic in the genre of barely making it. I tend towards folk and country though, so I think of lack-of-money as being a standard song topic. Rhinestone Cowboy fits well, too, but it's more "poor dreaming of being rich."

Bad, Bad Leroy Brown drove an Eldorado so I'm guessing Cadillacs had some cache back then.