I believe Foster the People does a great job of getting their message across, but they also have ways that do not get their message out. To begin with, by selling so many copies of "Pumped Up Kicks," they got their song out to the public. The YouTube video we watched had over 90 million views, and according to Wikipedia, they sold 3.84 million copies of "Pumped Up Kicks" in 2011. By doing this, they got their name out to the world and the possibility of people understanding the lyrics. By being a jingle writer, Mark Foster probably had an understanding of what beats people would find to be "catchy." The catchy beat of the song probably helped sell a lot of copies, and it also appealed to the "hipster" crowd that does a lot of blogging. This was a genius way to create a buzz about the song. However, I personally had no idea what the lyrics were until class this week, and I have had the song on my iPod since it first became popular in 2011. I feel like most people don't know the lyrics either. So I am not really sure they got their message out completely. I feel like the only way some people have any idea what the message of the song consists of, is because they saw something on the internet or someone told them.
Looking at the lyrics of the song, I think Foster the People is trying to address all of the recent massacre shootings that have occurred throughout the world. The lyrics have references of homicidal thoughts going through a troubled youth's mind. I believe the catchy beat of the song may represent how the kid looks and seems like on the outside to other people, but since the lyrics are kind of hard to understand and hidden, I think the lyrics may represent what the kid is thinking in his or her mind. This may be a hint that the writer, Mark Foster, has an understanding of these thoughts or he was possibly bullied as a kid. I believe the song was produced to possibly raise awareness to people about bullying. His Goal may be to show the public that some people may seem "normal" on the outside, but they may have something completely different going on in their mind. Overall, I think Foster the People does a pretty good job at getting their message out to the public, but it has taken a while to become more known.
David Sacre
(420 words)
Like you, I also believe that Foster and the people did a great job in getting their message acrossed. I like the way that they went about it and the things that they did to make sure the people listened to their song. I don't agree with you when you said that you don't think that most people know what the lyrics were or what the song is about however. I think that most of the people that regularly listen to this song know what it is about. But just because they know what it is about and understand the song and meaning does not mean that they are now willing to do something about bullying. So I'm not sure if this song did anything to help fix the situation. I do think that the catchy tune helped play a part in the fact that it had so many hits and so many people listening to it. I did not know until reading your blog that it has been listen to and viewed that many times though. I also didn't know that many copies of that song have been sold. I think that is amazing and hopefully everybody understands the meaning of this song and tries to do as much as they can about bullying.
ReplyDelete