photo: Sabrina Campagna/ BY-NC-SA

It seems as though a lot of current artists have run out of new ideas. Nowadays, you hear silly songs that rhyme about the simplest things and somehow make it big in the charts. A few years back, Lil Mama created a hip hop sensation with her single "Lip Gloss," which goes into the psychological depths of how her lip cosmetic of choice is so cool and how it will make all the boys chase her after school. Soulja Boy had tweens across the country singing about a comic book hero-inspired sexual act with his hit single, “Crank that (Soulja Boy).” And most recently, the New Boyz have got youth all over my neighborhood calling each other jerks with a track that they first recorded in a closet. A lot of people argue that what these songs lack in lyrics, they make up for in the toe-tapping beats and and hip-shaking dance moves that they introduce into youth culture. This phenomenon makes me wonder about what creates musical success: the song or the dance?

It seems that dancing is key and that the internet has something to do with it. Soulja Boy’s instructional dance video for “Crank That” is the most watched viral entertainment online, but is now vying against Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” for that spot. I think that only in the age of the internet, when anyone can be a star on YouTube, could the “King of Pop” have to compete with the jesters of that genre.
 

As a serious dancer who has studied hip-hop and belly dance, I cringe at the comparison between Michael Jackson and the likes of Soulja Boy. Unlike them, Michael Jackson wrote amazing music and lyrics and made the most complicated dance moves seem effortless and smooth. As a dancer, I can say that his moves are extremely difficult to execute. And a new generation of R&B artists like Justin Timberlake and Usher has done a pretty good job trying to emulate his style.  But, the dance moves that go along with the silly songs out today aren't that well thought out. It seems like the singers just come up with a weird move that requires the dancer to jump around at random. Maybe the internet has democratized dance itself by making it accessible to all?

I asked some teens what they thought of this genre of music that I think doesn't warrant a second, or even first, listen. Why do they think these melodies and beats dominate the minds and bodies of today's youth?

Mayra, 18, doesn’t really like this music and doesn’t think anyone else does either:
“I don’t really listen much to mainstream music nowadays because it seems to me that people tend to sing about random things that don’t make sense. Lil Mama’s song about lip gloss, there was no reason for that song just that her lip gloss was poppin. People don’t really like the songs, they just to listen to it because of the beats […] and they can dance to it.”

David, 16, wouldn’t say the songs are his favorites, but finds the music to be addictive:
“A lot of the times it’s the beat because the lyrics are a little bit dumb sometimes especially the one about the car and the candy bar. The thing that catches my attention is more the music than the dancing because the dancing changes from every song, but if the song is really good, and it has a nice beat, then you’ll listen to the song whether you like the dancing or not.”