Success Aim and Liberation Aim

Success Aim:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95nVawDj0ew

Kevin Rudolf Ft. Birdman, Lil Wayne, and Jay Sean, “I Made It,” Rap, 2010.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E58qLXBfLrs

Kanye West, “Can’t Tell Me Nothing,” Rap, 2007.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vD7cWVDfV8

Jay Z, “Encoure,” Rap, 2003.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z5-P9v3F8w

Justin Bieber and Jaden Smith, “Never Say Never,” Pop/Rap, 2010.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5DySYu5Bfw

Drake and Trey Songz, “Successful,” Rap/R&B, 2009.

Liberation Aim:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5-yKhDd64s

Eminem, “Not Afraid,” Rap, 2010.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJIDq1QrQA8

Mark Wonder, “Liberation Song,” Reggae, 2009.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiBh_JinGbE

Outkast, “Liberation,” Rap, 1998.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVBcty3yM-A

Nas, “Heaven,” Rap, 2002.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roPQ_M3yJTA

Nelly Furtado, “I’m Like a Bird,” Pop, 2000.

For the success aim I chose the song “I Made It” by Kevin Rudolf and it features Birdman, Lil Wayne, and Jay Sean in it as well. This is the perfect song for the success aim in my opinion because it is all about making it in the music game and going for what you want in life. In class when we talked about success we were never really talked about having fortune and fame but that is considered success so overall I think that this song fits in very well with the third aim of Hinduism. I found this song because it was very popular last year and as soon as we talked about having this assignment in class this song immediately came to my mind. Overall the other songs for this aim were pretty easy to find which was expected because most artists who made it big have made a song about success and most that haven’t have made songs about wanting to be successful.

The song I chose for the final aim which is liberation was a bit of a stretch. I chose “Not Afraid” by Eminem because it is about liberation but it does not mean liberation in the same way as the aim in Hinduism. In the song Marshall Mathers is talking about being liberated from his addictions he had with many different drugs and staying sober therefore being able to see clearly and “liberated.” The aim in Hinduism differs because the aim is talking about liberation from this world and the life cycle which stops you from reincarnating once you have died. For this aim I had to look for a long time to find all of the songs. Until I thought about how this song could be fit into this aim (depending on your interpretation) I had to end up googling about songs about liberation and I got a lot of reggae songs but I could not understand them so had no idea what they were really about.

Overall I thought that these songs were good to compare today’s pop culture to the aims in Hinduism because of the fact that one fit perfectly and the other had to be stretched to relate to the aim.

Pleasure songs: the video is what some people would call R rated

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmP7TYtDVUU  

Wiz Khalifa Ft. Too Short, “On My Level,” Rap, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP6XpLQM2Cs

Kesha, “Tik Tok,” Pop, 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voFr9dtsGsw

Bei Maejor Ft. Trey Songz, “Drinks On Me,” Rap, 2010

http://vimeo.com/994777

Chromeo, “Bonafied Lovin,” Lovers' Funk, 2007

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekAXPCphKXQ

Trey Songz Ft. Nicki Minaj, “Bottoms Up,” Hip Hop, 2010

Community Service songs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km3polkFaWk

Bright Eyes, “Bowl of Oranges,” Indie, 2002

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyU7udQhBr8

Jonathan Boulet, “A Community Service Announcement,” Indie, 2009

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe4EK4HSPkI

MGMT, “KIDS,” Contemporary, 2007

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JDY1KvoQYk

Five For Fighting, “World,” Contemporary, 2006

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpYeekQkAdc

The Black Eyed Peas, “Where Is The Love,” Hip Hop, 2003

The first video is the song “On My Level” by Wiz Khalifa and Too Short and it is basically about partying and smoking weed. This relates to the pleasure aim in Hinduism. In class we talked about how the pleasure aim can be about intoxicants which is basically what this song is all about. For this song and video nothing really surprised me because if you have ever heard of Wiz Khalifa you have to know that weed is all the he is about.  I think that the major difference in the point of this song and the aim of Hinduism about pleasure is that the aim encourages that you gain pleasure intelligently and morally instead of just going and smoking up every chance you get. In the video it makes it seem like he is high all day every day and doesn’t really think about anything else (I am sure that is not true but the video portrays that kind of vibe). Overall I think that this would portray about half of what the pleasure aim was about.

The song I chose for the third aim was “Bowl of Oranges” by Bright Eyes. I am not familiar with this band and I found them by googling (typing into google) about a song that is about helping others but once I heard the song I knew that I was going to pick it for the one that represents the community service aim. The song is basically about a man who ran into a sick doctor on the street and the man not knowing anything about medicine says to the doctor that he cannot do anything to help him and the doctor replies by telling the man to just sit with him. After listening to the song I was surprised by how well this fit into the aim and it portrayed it very well (in my opinion). In class we talked about how it is considered a duty to help other and be committed to others and those are the two points that I feel that match this song really well.