The song, "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People, is a type of song that has an up-beat vibe to it, but when you really listen to what they are singing about, you wouldn't expect to hear those kind of lyrics from the band. Since the author Mark Foster is a jingle writer, you would typically hear this type of song in a commerical on T.V. When I first listened to it, I personally wasn't expecting the lyrics to have such a powerful meaning to them. The song talks about a kid basically loosing his mind and going mentally crazy. Some situations that can be relatable to the lyrics are school shootings, living in abusive homes, or even just not fitting in with your peers. Since the lyrics deal with issues going on in teenagers, the author's audience was aimed towards the youth. Bullying has been such a huge issue in our generation, and the suicide rate is just increasing more and more every year. Some kids are just cruel, and most of them don't undestand the emotional impact they leave on a kid. I believe that the author's message was very powerful and has the potential to raise awarness in bullying and youth violence, but maybe writing the song with an indie-pop style to it will be more difficult to get the message across towards the audience.
One of the reasons why this song is so popular is because of not only it's catchy beat, but the lyrics are very repetitive and the instrumental playing is very basic. Those types of songs with that type of musical flow get stuck in the listener's head easily. I think one of the reasons why the band wrote their song in that way is because they wanted their message to spread, and living in an society where the billboard top music chart is mostly contained with pop and rap music, it will be kinda difficult to compete with that and still attract a lot of listeners. The up-beat tone the song has could illustrate the disturbed kid's emotions and how he could pretend he is okay on the outside, but the powerful sad lyrics of the song could illustrate what he really feels on the inside. With that being a type of situation to the song is another example on what bullying really does to people. Whenever someone is bullied they just want to pretend like it doesn't bother them, when deep down it does. Overall, I think the author portrayed the awarness of bullying and the effects it has on the youth, and even using the indie-pop style to it can get your message across, but it probably won't get across too easily.
Emily Shouse
(452 words.)
I agree with everything you have to say. Bullying has become a huge problem in today's youth. Kids these days are becoming evil, and they seem like they will do whatever to feel as if they have a sense of power. I feel as if the ones who are doing the bullying are the ones who are insecure not the ones being bullied. All of the recent school shootings around the world are a great example of the impacts of bullying.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Foster the People does a great job at producing a song that has potential to become really popular. The catchy beat of the song does a very good job at getting stuck in the listener's head. The fact that it is a pop song relates to what most people are interested in too. The young audience is a good audience to intend a song for too. With all of the blogging and social networks used by the younger generation, music can be easily spread throughout the world.
Looking at the lyrics, we both agree that the up-beat tune could represent the kid's appearance to others, and the lyrics are the kid's true feelings on the inside. I also agree that Foster the People's message can kind of be hard to find, especially if the listener can't understand the lyrics.
David Sacre
(223 words)