Materialism in Music: Follow-up Research

Materialism in Music: Follow-up Research

I have decided to conduct a piece of follow-up research using similar procedures to that of my earlier investigation. This time, however, I will analyse only current music and that which is the most popular. Consequently, I will be investigating the actual level of materialism present in current popular music rather than an increase of materialism over time.

On the 11th of October 2009, the Official UK Top Ten Singles Chart according to http://www.mtv.co.uk/music/charts/official-uk-singles-chart reads as the following:

1. Taio Cruz − Break Your Heart
2. Jay-Z Ft Alicia Keys − Empire State Of Mind
3. David Guetta Ft Akon − Sexy Chick
4. Shakira − She Wolf
5. Black Eyed Peas − I Gotta Feeling
6. Jay-Z Ft Rihanna & Kanye West − Run This Town
7. Temper Trap − Sweet Disposition
8. Pixie Lott − Boys & Girls
9. Pitbull − Hotel Room Service
10. Dizzee Rascal − Dirtee Cash

Using the same list of materialism signifiers as in my previous investigation, I will rate the music videos of this top ten according to their materialism levels. By doing this, I will hopefully gain a broader spectrum of materialism in different genres, rather than just pop music as in the earlier research. This will also provide a detailed look at current popular music, as these ten songs are technically the most popular songs as I am writing this. A further interesting point to consider will be the materialism score for Shakira’s ‘She Wolf’, as Shakira was a major outlier in the previous research with very low materialism scores compared to other artists, will her latest song have increased in materialism?

Results

Artist	Song	Materialism Score According to the Checklist
Taio Cruz	Break Your Heart	10/ 14
Jay-Z Ft Alicia Keys	Empire State of Mind	9/ 14
David Guetta Ft Akon	Sexy Chick	10/14
Shakira	She Wolf	2/ 14
Black Eyed Peas	I Gotta Feeling	8/ 14
Jay-Z Ft Rihanna & Kanye West	Run This Town	7/14
Temper Trap	Sweet Disposition	0/ 14
Pixie Lott	Boys & Girls	7/ 14
Pitbull	Hotel Room Service	10/ 14
Mini Viva*	Left My Heart In Tokyo	3/ 14

*The video for Dizzee Rascal’s ‘Dirtee Money’ was unavailable on http://www.youtube.com/, therefore this song was analysed instead as it is no. 11 in the chart.


As we can see, there are three very obvious outliers (the songs by Shakira, Temper Trap and Mini Viva), whilst the other seven music videos all have reasonably high levels of materialism. The average materialism rating for all ten songs is 6.6/ 14. Considering that in my previous research the highest average score (the average score for the 1990s decade) was 4.6, whilst the highest score for more recent artists (2000 onwards) – which excluded the outlier that was Shakira – was 5.5, this is quite a high score. If we take out the three outliers, which isn’t so unjustifiable as, for one thing, Mini Viva were not in the original list and, by the sounds of it, ‘Dirtee Money’ may well have had a higher score, which would leave just two outliers – suggesting that 80% of today’s most popular music has a reasonably high level of materialism. The average materialism score for 7 of these songs (excluding Shakira, Temper Trap and Mini Viva) is 8.7/ 14. This is very high compared to my previous findings. Of course this is not to say that all modern music is materialistic and these findings cannot be generalised to the whole music scene, however what it does suggest is that, out of the music being produced at the moment, the more materialistic ones are the most popular ones. This is a very important point, but does this mean that the more materialistic a song is the more popular it will become? An interesting thing to consider is the role that the music video plays in the song’s popularity. There can be no question that these highly materialistic music videos are created for the sole purpose of selling the artist, but is this why they are popular, or is it for their music? Do music videos really have this amount of selling power?

Another important thing to consider is that there are several other important debates regarding representational issues in music videos. Perhaps the most important of these is the way in which females are represented in music videos. We can see that in terms of materialism Shakira had a very low score, making her one of the ‘good guys’, if you will. However, in terms of female representation, her video ‘She Wolf’ is quite shocking. My attention was brought to this by an interesting comment on the youtube page by ‘dannythekiller100’ who commented:

“i feel like i am getting violated watching this video. it does not feel good at all.”

Despite the unfortunate username, he has a point. I must admit that I too felt rather uncomfortable whilst watching the video, which may sound unusual coming from a 17 year old boy, but it really is that bad. Some may claim that it’s a message of female strength and freedom, and I can see the arguments for that (and in that sense it’s very effective), but it cannot be ignored that it is absolutely full of sexual implications and phallic symbols, from the wolf to the sucking of the fingers and the bursts of heavy, orgasmic breathing. In my opinion it simply does not provide a good message for young girls (and boys) who have no trouble whatsoever accessing it. Even though the message may have been intended as a positive one, and from a more mature perspective it can justifiably be regarded as that, but viewers under the age of 16, maybe even 17/ 18, will not understand this side of the video and only see the attractive woman breathing heavily in very revealing clothing. Therefore, although I had not originally intended to discuss female representation (but this video provided too much of an argument), it is clear that there are many other issues other than materialism regarding the debate of ‘what makes a good role model’, and as this video suggests that performing well in one area doesn’t absolve an artist of performing poorly in another area.

Back to the issue of materialism, however, perhaps the most important issue here is the idea of the music video selling the artist, which I touched upon very briefly earlier. This is important because if a video has the power the sell an artist, then it is simultaneously selling the ideologies and lifestyles portrayed in the video. And this is the essence of the problem; the ideologies in many of these music should (at least in my opinion) be regarded as immoral, yet it is quite possible that these videos are successfully selling immoral ideologies to viewers, judging by the fact that these songs represent the most popular songs at this moment and assuming that the music videos had something to with it. Because on this assumption, if they are buying the artist (which they are) they are also buying the negative ideologies. This is the worrying thing, and it is worrying that my findings support this.