Robin Thicke’s song “Blurred Lines” belied violent messages, some argued.Bubble gum. Sugary. Popcorn. Danceable.
There are many words people use to describe pop music, but every once in a while, a song climbs the charts whose underlying message belies its upbeat trappings.
These are the music world’s will-o’-the-wisps and Delilahs, tracks whose catchy melodies and rhythms get our blood pumping, while their lyrics lead us down deceptively dark paths and secretly snip away at our moral locks.
For example, Robin Thicke, T.I. and Pharrell Williams hit a Billboard grand slam last year with “Blurred Lines,” which spent so long atop the Hot 100 chart after its March 26 release that Billboard dubbed it the “Song of the Summer.”
While “Blurred Lines” was riding a tidal wave of popularity, however, an increasingly vocal group alleged that the sexually charged song also promotes rape with lines such as “You know you want it” and “Do it like it hurt / What you don’t like work?” In response, about 20 British student unions banned the song at on-campus functions, including those at the universities of Edinburgh, Leeds and several colleges at Oxford.