And I like it

It's a guilty pleasure. I really like "I Kissed a Girl" by Katie Perry. It has a really good beat. And it's kind of a fun, naughty song.

The problem is, I find myself singing it softly in the grocery store, in the airport security line, in Starbucks. Then I realize that I'm singing, and what I'm singing, and I look around frantically, to see if anyone has heard me and mistaken me for, er, a girl who kisses other girls...and likes it.

The funny thing is, this song would never have made it on the radio if the genders were reversed and if it was sung by a boy:

I kissed a boy and I liked it
The taste of his cherry chapstick
I kissed a boy and I liked it
I hope my girlfriend don't mind it

Why is that? Why can a girl sing about kissing another girl and we love it, but no one would ever - has ever - heard a song about a boy kissing another boy. I don't know whether I should be insulted from a feminist point of view (is it OK for a women to be an object, a plaything and not for a man?) or a social one (do we favor lesbians over homosexual men?). Maybe I'm reading too much into the song.

In the meantime, I'll continue singing it (softly) to myself and hope no one comes to conclusions about my feminist or social points of view, based on the song I'm singing.

It's all about the Benjamins' Benjamin

Have you ever noticed how 99.9% of all songs ever recorded are about relationships? It's either about falling in love, falling out of love, or wanting to fall in love. Basically, it's all about sex. Very few songs you listen to have to do with anything other than that. One that comes to mind is "Unwritten", but that's really about it. Of course, there is that 60's and 70's genre that dealt primarily with the war. But again, it was all about making love.

A quick peak at the iTunes Top Songs should help clarify the point:

1. Kiss Kiss
2. Apologize
3. Crank That
4. Bubbly
5. No One
6. How Far We've Come
7. Cyclone
8. Gimme More
9. Hate That I Love You
10. Stronger

Of these, only "Crank That" and "How Far We've Come" don't mention anything about the opposite sex. (And you could argue that "Crank That" ...see me bouncing on my toe...is just a veiled mating dance).

If you continue down rest of the popular iTunes list, you'll see just how obsessesed we are with relationships. Why is that? Could it be that, evolutionarily, that's our whole point of being (or one of them) and it's so ingrained in our being that it comes out in song? Or could it be that it's something that we all can relate to, in one way or another, and so makes the artist more marketable? Or maybe we just don't have anything better to sing about?

It's also strange that all songs have exactly the same format: verse - chorus - verse - chorus - bridge - chorus. Sometimes a song might start off with a chorus and then go to a verse. Or maybe it ends with two choruses. But listen next time. Every song is in exactly the same format. There is always a bridge (the part of the song that sounds just a little bit different, or is in a slightly different key).

Interesting. Perhaps we are a lot more predictable than we'd like to think.