Pleasure songs: the video is what some people would call R rated
Wiz Khalifa Ft. Too Short, “On My Level,” Rap, 2011
Kesha, “Tik Tok,” Pop, 2010
Bei Maejor Ft. Trey Songz, “Drinks On Me,” Rap, 2010
Chromeo, “Bonafied Lovin,” Lovers' Funk, 2007
Trey Songz Ft. Nicki Minaj, “Bottoms Up,” Hip Hop, 2010
Bright Eyes, “Bowl of Oranges,” Indie, 2002
Jonathan Boulet, “A Community Service Announcement,” Indie, 2009
MGMT, “KIDS,” Contemporary, 2007
Five For Fighting, “World,” Contemporary, 2006
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.
I really liked how you brought up the fact that the song "On My Level" doesn't really encourage people to pursue their pleasure intelligently. I think that a lot of the popular songs that are out right now, such as "Bottoms Up", don't really have any guidelines for the pursuit of pleasure, and rather just say that it's fine to party or smoke weed or do whatever you want all day every day. This goes against the aim of Hinduism. I think that it's interesting that the emphasis on excess is so present in our culture. When we pursue pleasure, we can't just have it in a moderate amount--we have to have it constantly. I guess that's just a part of the American society.
ReplyDeleteI definitely have to agree with you - American culture does not have the same emphasis on pursuing pleasure intelligently; in fact, I feel that most of the time it is the opposite.
ReplyDeleteI also thought that you chose so many genres! I actually did the same thing.
The Bright Eyes song was a perfect choice for the community service aim.