Do you ladies ever really like a song, but then get hung up on the lyrics? This happens to me sometimes, because there is such pervasive misogyny and sexism in so many songs. I used to really like Biggie Smalls' music, the beats and flow tend to be really good (he peaked on Shaq's "You Can't Stop the Reign"), but a lot of the lyrics demonstrate such a severe hatred of women that I can hardly stomach them sometimes, and so these days very rarely listen anything by him. "Friend of Mine" is a good example, where he degrades women as though they were disposable sex toys. The song opens with a dual perspective, where Lil' Kim argues her point about her male suitors having no money and being worthless, to come back soon again in the first verse saying, "Why you swear all bitches are so scandalous?" where she's aggressively dismissed immediately after (a consistent trend in both her life and career). I remember in the comments, a lot of males were saying, "he's just saying what we were all thinking at the time!" and yeah, it's this trend of androcentrism transitioning into phallocentrism (is there truly a difference?) in music that emboldens and reinforces such shitty male behavior. I had friends that internalized that sort of thing as jokes at first, but slowly went, "well he has a point..." as so many of the comments elucidated.

Worse is when you have rappers like Tupac get heady about women with songs like "Keep Ya Head Up", when he released songs like "I Get Around" (another song I really like, but hate the lyrical content of), and then gets arrested for rape and incarcerated on a plea for lesser charges. Then there's almost self-awareness with songs like "Never Call You Bitch Again" but fall short to actually make a point due to all the internal contradictions. And do you know how many Tupac shirts I see weekly on people? Tons. Funny enough they're almost all from Poetic Justice, but curiously never involve Janet, or any of the other women in the film. Whatever. Part of me just doesn't value the male perspective I've been conditioned my entire life to care about, it just means so little to me at this point. If I ever hear a male in any space say, "Well as a guy," I tend to zone out and lose interest. Because I've heard it all, and I think it's all horseshit.

On the lighter end of the scale, there's Missy Elliot and Beyonce's "Nothing out There for Me". I love it for the harmonies and bridge crooning, it's a really well structured song and Missy's parts have such a punctual zest to them in contrast to Bey's smooth vocals. But the way she talks about Jay, I just feel so gross. Not just because of what a gross loser he is in real life, but the predatory, controlling weirdo picture she constructs as loving--that him wanting her to have no social life and hates her friends because they're trying to change her... it's such a classic trope of having an abusive boyfriend. Missy's verses I can't really comment on because I'm a lesbian, so there's another layer of heterosexual songs being a bit alien to me as well.

Oh, and then there's classic rock. Sometimes things are so much more subtle. Whenever I hear Don McLean's "American Pie", I just think, "he really doesn't say much of anything at all about female musicians, does he? Everything's about men!" Or sometimes they're so much more explicit, like with "Hey Joe", covered by how many famous male bands and singers in the 60s? Most of the time, when it's less aggrandizing, I just ignore the meaning and enjoy the melody or whatever, but these thoughts always lurk in the back of my mind. And in this case, nagged me enough to make a post.