The sacred and the profane

It is difficult to imagine the popular music continuum without a persistent push of the envelope. It’s been happening since the beginning of time, really – the Tree of Knowledge was there in the Garden, God said leave it alone, Adam and Eve didn’t, and here we are.

Over the past century, popular music has evolved from one buttonpushing genre to another: ragtime to jazz, rock ‘n’ roll to punk, rap to hiphop, and so on. All these styles went against the accepted music of their time, and eventually became part of the musical fabric of our culture.

The content was critiqued less than the genres themselves – blues and jazz, for example, were thought to lead to dancing (they did). Rock ‘n’ roll was said to bring out animalistic tendencies (that also happened). Generally, these changes were innocuous, and so were the things that might have been considered shocking at the time.

Plato, the Greek philosopher, wrote: “Forms and rhythms in music are never altered without producing changes in the entire fabric of society.”

An interesting point to ponder. In the 1920s, jazz music became popular, and was called a lot of names – yes, it came from places where people were drinking and dancing, but so did country music around that same time. And songwriters mastered the art of speaking directly to their subject while, well, speaking indirectly in that they used euphemism and double entendre to say what they were trying to get across.

Then, rock ‘n’ roll was born in the 1950s, the term itself African American slang for sexual intercourse. As the genre grew in popularity, it was called tribalistic, cannibalistic, evil, and everything else. Elvis Presley’s performance on the top-rated television show of the era, The Ed Sullivan Show, featured creative camerawork to avoid showing his gyrating bottom half, while Pat Boone re-recorded the wilder hits of Little Richard to get played on white radio stations.

Moving through the decades, nearly every new type of music that has come along has been called the devil at one time or another – sometimes, deservedly. Generally speaking, however, the capacity to shock has been one constant on the cultural continuum for as long as there has been a popular culture.

MICHAEL BIRD Columnist

I caught some of the VMA’s last week – the Video Music Awards show on MTV. Rather than finding excitement in the proceedings, they just seemed dark and depressing.

MTV hasn’t played a role in the music industry for nearly two decades, so many of today’s A-listers skip the proceedings. That leaves room for the performers who do show up to attempt to shake their tail, be as profane and out-there as possible, and make enough noise that social media will buzz about them the next day.

Sure, there was the force of nature known as Lizzo out there performing her heart out, and stoners Cheech & Chong as award presenters. The Red Hot Chili Peppers were honored, and Taylor Swift announced she had a new record coming out. But the evening’s Video Vanguard award was presented to Nicki Minaj, who unfortunately hasn’t ever made a good video.

That leads me to my next point, which is that while popular culture has always had to fight off the label of being demonic even when they weren’t, these days the way these tastemakers are trying to gain attention is by being demonic for real!

Nicki Minaj spent a large portion of the Grammys a few years ago as a possessed character named Roman, who was escorted to the festivities by someone impersonating the Pope. There was a giant exorcism on stage, complete with plenty of pyrotechnics. Katy Perry, the former contemporary Christian artist and current American Idol judge, also performed some kind of witchcraft ritual in which she was burned at the stake during her performance.

I remember rolling my eyes at the attempts to shock. “Whatever,” I thought.

And then, Lil Nas X ruined all the goodwill he had earned for himself by being the first black hip-hop artist to have a country number-one hit a couple of years ago. He decided to double down on the demonic imagery in a video and even sold repurposed

Nike shoes to include 666 and drops of blood.

Demi Lovato is the latest to, if not go all-in on devil stuff, to remake her image around shocking religious imagery. The child star of “Barney and Friends” and the Camp Rock franchise has been putting some rough edges on her smooth image for a while now – normal behavior for pop princesses going back to Britney Spears and beyond. In fact, Demi’s move toward rock out of the Disneyfied entertainment empire from whence she came has actually been a welcome development.

But Demi has added the religious component. Her new album is called “Holy F**k,” and the cover features Demi in bondage gear on a crossshaped bed. Provocative!

How about Danny DeVito’s new animated sitcom, “Little Demon”? This one definitely ain’t for the kids – it’s in the vein of “South Park” and other adult cartoons – but it seems to play the demonic bit for laughs as Satan’s illegitimate daughter copes with life as a teenager . . . and being the Antichrist.

I suppose the fact that people even notice that God or the Devil exists should be a winning point. It wasn’t so long ago that there would have been perhaps a little bit of commentary over the content of some of the TV shows and records being produced today, but our culture has been splintered into a gazillion pieces by streaming and downloading, so there’s no way to track much of anything – thus, performers have to be more and more outrageous to get attention.

Back to cussing. A recent survey of profanity in popular music has shown that yes, there are way more swear words in songs today than there ever have been. Like, unnecessarily placed swear words. The winners are:

Gwen Stefani, “Hollaback Girl” –38 uses of the word “s**t”

Fatboy Slim, “F***ing in Heaven” – 120 uses of the word “f**k”

Lil Jon, “Real N***az Roll Call” –295 cuss words

So, it’s always been there: the need to sell records or TV shows; the need to get attention; the desire to become famous by selling one’s body and soul to the entertainment complex. Fine, do what you want. But you didn’t have to drag us all with you.