Assignment #2 - Success and Liberation

5 Songs Related to Success:
1) Drake Ft Trey Songz, "Successful," Rap (2010) *Explicit*
2) Pink Floyd, "Money," Rock N' Roll (1973) *Explixit*
3) Notorious B.I.G, "Mo' Money, Mo' Problems," Rap (1997) *Explicit*
4) Gang Starr, "Moment of Truth," Rap (1998)
5) Eric B. and Rakim, "Paid in Full," Rap (1987)

Video for Success:

5 Songs Related to Liberation:
1) The Beatles, "Revolution 1," Rock N' Roll (1968)
2) Bob Marley, "Redemption Songs," Reggae (1979)
3) Akon, "Freedom," R&B (2008)
4) Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, "I Won't Back Down," Rock N' Roll (1989)
5) Stevie Wonder, "Free," Pop (2009)

Video for Liberation:

Just like last weeks assignment one aim was considerably easier to find songs related to it and this week that aim was, success.  I found myself thinking of songs off the top of my head that I wanted to use for success.  Liberation, on the other hand, took a lot more time to find songs.  I do not know if this is because there are so little of them or that my personal knowledge of music in general is more limited than most.  It was challenging to find songs and artists you never heard of.  I found several songs by thinking of groups of people that had been recently liberated from oppression and searched by topic rather trying to think of specific artist.  There were a couple of things I noticed now that I can compare the two weeks against each other.   I noticed that some of the same artist that I found singing songs for community service last week were some of the same artist that I found songs for liberation.  An example of this is the two Bob Marley songs I chose.  Also I noticed that the songs having to deal with liberation the artist spoke of liberation differently.  Some spoke of literal meanings of being liberated or freed from some form of oppression and others spoke of liberation in more abstract ways.  It just showed me that there are varying ideas of what liberation is.   I believe that the biggest difference between the Hindus’ ideas of what success is is the materialistic aspect to American culture.  A vast majority of the time that a songs deals with success in popular American culture it usually involves getting money, power, cars, houses, etc.  This was exactly the case that I ran into when finding songs about success.  I believe this is due the power we give these inanimate objects in todays culture.  The current culture in America is that what we owe defines us and more importantly what we do not owe as a result drives us to fill a void that can never be filled.  But thats just my take, let me know what you think.

Assignment #1 - Pleasure and Community Service

5 Songs Related to Community Service:
1) USA for Africa "We Are The World"--Charity song done by supergroup USA for Africa (1985)
2) Ben Harper "With My Own Two Hands"--Reggae (2003)
3) Bob Marley "One Love"--Reggae (1965)
4) John Lennon "Imagine"--Rock 'n Roll (1971)
5) Toby Keith "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue"--Country (2002)

Video for Community Service:
John Lennon's "Imagine" (1971)

5 Songs Related to Pleasure:
1) David Lee Roth "California Girls"--Rock n Roll (1985)
2) Prince "1999"--Rock n Roll (1976)
3) Notorious BIG "Party and Bullshit"--Rap (1993)*Explicit*
4) Rick Ross "Magnificent"-- Rap (2009)*Explicit*
5) Slim Thug "So High"--Rap (2010)*Explicit*

Video for Pleasure
David Lee Roth's "California Girls" (1985)

Of these two aims, the more prominent of the two was definitely pleasure.  I noticed it was very easy to find songs that had to deal with pleasure and found myself having a hard time picking just because of too many choices.  For community service, there were far less examples.  I think the most obvious reason for this is peoples appeal to pleasure themselves than to perform community service.  And in popular culture the saying goes "Sex Sells" and all 5 of my songs in the pleasure aim mention beautiful women.  Also, drugs were very prevalent in the pleasure songs.  I did find more songs for community service than I originally thought but most were made for some charity function.  I was hoping to find artist that solely focused on social issues and community service and there was not much I found.  I did learn about some of the work Bono of U2 has done but there are not many others like him.  I also noticed with the songs dealing with pleasure they almost always-included sex, drugs and money.  I think the prevalence of this in today’s music is not because people’s idea of what pleasure is has changed but that societies ability and willingness to publicly express this has changed.  In the past, it was taboo to speak of sex in public but for some it’s a conversation visited daily and I think our music reflects this change.  Based on what the Hindu believe about community service, I believe that all though there are not many songs in quantity they do represent what the Hindu believe which is commitment to help others.  With pleasure however, I believe that American Pop culture does show how we seek pleasure it does not show how we do it intelligently.  Most examples of pleasure I found in popular culture showed complete excess with no self-control in place.  Although I think there are people out there that do not have self-control, many of us do know how to seek pleasure intelligently.  I do feel though as America has earned the title of the nation of excess.  Overall, I believe that there is just as much community service happening as pleasuring it is just popular culture focuses on what sells/entertains the best.