Evolution of Music

This morning, I was in the shower listening to the radio and a Rhianna song came on, the one with the line “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but whips and chains excites me”. And I started thinking about the original saying and how much music has changed over the decades.
So I thought a comparison was in order. I looked up the top ten songs from 1971 and the top ten (according to the critics) of 2011 on Billboard.com.
Here are my findings (along with a line or two of the lyrics):

Number 10
1971
Knock Three Times – The Dawn
Lyrics: I can hear the music playing. I can feel your body swaying
2011
Rolling in the Deep - Adele
Lyrics: The scars of your love remind me of us. They keep me thinking that we almost had it all.

Number 9
1971
Just My Imagination Running Away With Me – The Temptations
Lyrics: I hear a tender rhapsody but in reality she doesn’t even know me
2011
Look at me now – Chris Brown featuring Busta Rhymes and Lil’ Wayne
Lyrics: Better cuff your chick if you with her, I can get her. And she accidentally slip and fall on
dick.

Number 8
1971
Take Me Home Country Roads – John Denver
Lyrics: All my memories gathered ‘round her, Miner’s lady, Stranger to blue water
2011
The Edge of Glory – Lady Gaga
Lyrics: I got a reason that you’re who should take me home tonight

Number 7
1971
Go Away Little Girl – Donny Osmond
Lyrics: I know your lips are sweet but our lips must never meet (on a side note, with the title,
These lyrics are a little “sex offenderish”….)
2011
Halocene – Bon Iver
Lyrics: We smoked the screen to make it what it was to be (What?)

Number 6
1971
Indian Reservation – The Raiders
Lyrics: They took the whole Cherokee nation and put us on this reservation, Took away our
ways of life
2011
Novacane – Frank Ocean
Lyrics: I feel like I’m Stanley Kubrick, This is some visionary shit

Number 5
1971
How Can You Mend a Broken Heart – Bee Gees
Lyrics: I can still feel the breeze that rustles through the trees and misty memories of days
gone by.
2011
Motivation – Kelly Rowland featuring Lil’Wayne
Lyrics: Oh lover, don’t you dare slow down, Go longer, You can last more rounds, Push
harder, You’re almost there now. Make Mama proud.

Number 4
1971
One Bad Apple – The Osmonds
Lyrics: I can tell you’ve been hurt by that look on your face, girl. Some guy brought sad into
your happy world.
2011
Niggas in Paris – JayZ and Kanye
Lyrics – I’m not even bothering

Number 3
1971
It’s Too Late – Carol King
Lyrics: There will be good times again for me and you. But we just can’t stay together. Don’t
you feel it too?
2011
Till the World Ends – Britney Spears
Lyrics: This kitten got your tong tied up in knots I see (That’s the 1st line of the song…)

Number 2
1971
Maggie May – Rod Stewart
Lyrics: The morning sun really shows your age. But that don’t worry me none. In my eyes
you’re everything.
2011
Someone Like You – Adele
Lyrics: Don’t forget me, I begged, I remember you said, sometimes it lasts in love, but
sometimes, it hurts instead

and

Number 1
1971
Joy to the World – Three Dog Night
Lyrics: If I were the king of the world, I tell you what I’d do. I’d throw away the cars and
the bars and the war and make sweet love to you
2011
Super Bass – Nicki Minaj
Lyrics: That’s the kind of dude I was lookin’ for
And yes you’ll get slapped you’re lookin’, ho.

Forty years of evolution in the music business. And that is what we get.

Thank God for Adele. That’s all I have to say about that…..