This episode explores the connection between music and culture, examining how popular music reflects the values, experiences, and challenges of society. The discussion highlights how artists use their voices to share stories, represent diverse communities, and create connections through shared experiences.

Website: Social Science and Humanities Department at LCC

Welcome to the Sociological POV. This podcast emerged from some fascinating discussions in an introductory sociology course at Lansing Community College, where we attempt to gain insight into other people's perspectives, the good, the bad, and the world around us. We hope to mirror that concept with this podcast as we welcome a range of voices from diverse backgrounds to share their thoughts on a current event or topic that matters. So with that said, let's get into it and start gaining perspective.

All right, we are here today to talk about music, something everybody loves, and we've got some students here today.

My name is Guutama . I'm a student here at LCC.

Awesome. Thanks for joining us.

And I'm Keira, also a student at LCC.

Glad to be. Glad you're here, Keira. So the first question today is what does the current popular music say about our cultural beliefs and norms?

What do you guys think about that?

So I think like, the music I listen to typically is about coming up from, like, messed up situations, the things that they have to do, and also like celebrating their accomplishments and kind of kind of like, kind of like showing off, like, luxuriously how their lifestyle is. Which to me, and I know like a lot of the music I listen to is somewhat popular.

So to me that's kind of like it shows kind of like a culture that aims to maybe be that person or strive to do better or maybe even relate to like the kind of person that wants to go and get it in a way. So that's like one perspective that I could see.

Oh, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of that, I think, in music in American culture that pull yourself up kind of.

Yeah, pull yourself up. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I would agree with that. I definitely think it's. It's often taking music of a place of you're in the right and like, things have.

People have done you wrong in a sense of many music songs or songs. But sometimes it's like, good to take accountability, but we aren't seeing that much in society.

I don't know.

I get what you're saying because, you know, I think what really people are looking for is something that they can relate to and something that they can feel and something that's authentic, you know, so, like, if somebody's done you wrong, you know, you're gonna let it out,.

Putting it much better than I did.

I know what you're saying, though.

Yeah. So like, you. You used that phrase earlier. Like, that's real. Which is not something from my generation. It's more of a new thing. But.

But maybe that is that A trend in culture or popular music right now,.

Most of a response I will say is, like, that's real. Like, I understand where you're coming from. Like, maybe if. Even if I'm not in that situation, like, life's hard, dude. Like, you. You got to fight.

So. So you think that's an important thing we're seeing in music right now?

Absolutely, yeah.

People want something that they can connect to and feel connected to, and I think that also shows something about the culture because we lack connection. So if we can find something that makes us feel like we're part of something else, then that'll help improve our, you know, our standing. I don't know.

The way we look at ourselves, the way we feel about ourselves, and music can be, like, an avenue to do that.

Do you guys think that this music. I agree. I think it's connecting people to something. Is it connecting people to other people?

I definitely think it's a generational thing, because I think of. It doesn't always. It's not always a generational, generational thing. But when I think of, like, certain albums, like.

Like Chaperone for, like, gay people or for Kendrick Lamar's 30 for 30 versus, like, the black culture, like, I think it's very much going towards a certain group, but with the Internet and with streaming and everything, or like Bad Bunny in the super bowl, it's becoming. Many other cultures can view in and start dabbling in to connect, but from the creation, it's usually, I think, towards a certain collective.

I know that when I know that somebody listens to the same kind of music that I do, then it's almost an understanding that especially if we have some of the same favorite artists, then it's just something that you can bond over and connect over to.

You automatically know there's some shared personality.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Interesting. Well, so what you were just saying, like, I think of the super bowl that just happened, too, and how the music.

It was clearly more than just about music and the responses to it. It's a lot more than just about music. But, yeah, I was wondering after you said that about connection.

We aren't very connected today, and you can see that in the way we walk around with our earbuds in. Right. And yet music is. I mean, seems to be. And I think we refer to it as something that brings us together. And that super bowl is an example.

I think it did bring people together in some ways. And yet are people connecting individually with each other?

Like, when you walk around a space like LCC campus, are we more connected because something like that is out there or something like those albums you mentioned. Are individuals connecting more or is it just kind of like a feeling like I'm connecting, connected to that group on the TV or. You know what I mean?

Well, when you bring that up, I think of AirBuds, which is an app where you can, like, add friends and it connects to your streaming service so it shows what you're listening to. Okay, so that is a connection, but that's with connection of people you already know.

Okay, so for like, walking around LCC, that's not going to really help me. But I think also, like, social media, like, following people can help connect, but again, that's all online to, like, people you already know.

So creating a connection with a stranger is hard with music unless it's playing in a public space, in a space where it's like dancing or that kind of environment.

Do young people still do that? I don't know. Go out and dance and.

No, I mean, honestly, I don't see that happening all the time. I feel like young people are more into social media and that kind of connection, and that's not genuine to me. You know, it's shallow.

Less concerts and.

Yeah, like, less concerts. Concerts are more and more expensive and like, I don't know.

Yeah, it's hard to, you know, it's hard to make time for them when you're working and things like that. But. But I do recognize that that connection needs to be made. Like, there needs to be more and there's not enough of it.

And I don't think that, like, just because Bad Bunny performed, I don't think that it was enough to like, maybe influence everyday connection between other people. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, I was going to say, but it brought people already shared feeling, mainly like the political. The underlying political feelings going on.

I think if you were represented the way that he represented his culture, which is American culture, to be clear, then you did feel seen in that, you know, especially in the current political climate, that looking a certain way can get you persecuted. To have that represented in, like, the biggest game of the year is huge, especially of people of minority to see that.

Mm, yeah. Yes.

So maybe connected within that and maybe like introducing others to that culture a bit, which is American culture, but I don't know about necessarily the individual connection.

Yeah, I mean, it is. We have to. I was going to ask this later, but the technological changes that have happened, we can't, like, go back.

We are in a new world now where maybe that Is the future where our connections are all virtual.

And if you do interact with somebody you didn't know before, it's like a rarity compared to, you know, and so you're almost always in those groups and you have this kind of weird outside connection. There are other people out there that agree with me, but I.

Or disagree with me, you know, that it's just all out there, and you see it through these, you know, virtual spaces.

I mean, yeah, it's hard, I think, about how to make friends these days, and it's just so difficult. It doesn't even. I don't even know where to start.

I've definitely started to be more social. Like, yeah, this weekend I went to a Gray Wall hall. And so for, like, a dancing event.

Oh, nice.

You know, and there I used music. Like, there was a few songs where they're. I guess they're more millennial.

And, like, my friends and I were singing it, and there's only a few people around us who also know those songs. So it created a. Already, but also then it created the disconnection because I was like, why don't these other people know these songs?

Why aren't they dancing along like we are? But that's very few and far between. I think that was a very specific situation.

And, yeah, just social media and isolation has created, like, it's almost weird to, like, smile at people. And we live in the Midwest.

It's like,.

I feel like when I smile at people, they're often surprised that I'm so smiling at them.

They don't. And they don't know how to react. No. Yeah, yeah. It's very diff. Changing quickly. I agree. I was going to ask.

This is kind of related to what you were saying before, because I wanted to talk about music changing culture. How can it change culture? And how can it maintain things that already exist? Good. And the bad of it is kind of part of that.

But really, does it change or does it resist change? And, you know, you were kind of talking about the climbing up, you know, getting out of a situation you didn't want to be in.

And that makes me think of, like, our social classes. Right. Which we know we have existing social inequality in this country as in the rest of the world. And I think a lot of our culture comes.

Thinks about. We like to think about being socially mobile, being able to move out of your social class. Right. You know, nothing is guaranteed.

I have to work for where I am at. Does music challenge those ideas or does it maintain them? Because I would argue I'M going to throw this out there.

There might be some hypocrisy in some of the things that happen in our music. Music system when it comes to wealth and how people talk about becoming wealthy and use their wealth to sell more records, more music.

When you say that, obviously we can talk about songs and stuff, but I think of the actual artists to bring social media up again. It's very easy to find small artists now and build them up, but once those artists start getting bigger, it's almost like, well, I was here first.

Like, why are they, why are they blowing up? Like kind of a sense of gatekeeping.

And then you've seen you, you've seen.

This happen and then like they get successful and then maybe they start doing partnerships or deals where it's not, not associating. That original economic class that supported them no longer feels represented by them.

I think of like Charlie XCX when she did her H and M collab, which was. She's a very much like Gen Z forward, but that was H and M is a very unsustainable brand. Or like Rage against the Machine with Wake up during.

When they did the Matrix, they sold out to the Matrix, quote, unquote. So people got mad because they were like, you aren't representing what you're singing about. But the same question.

It's like they're just trying to get out of their social class as well.

Okay.

I think it's interesting how you said gatekeeping, because good term, when artists sign to major.

I'm talking about specifically, like, so I knew someone that just signed to Atlantic a few years ago, and while they were, you know, in the closet making music in there at home, their, their style was completely different than when they signed. So it was like the record label started like challenging them, this person to make a certain kind of music.

And it's like drill music, which is like Chicago, you know, gang culture, whatever music. And that's not, that's not who I knew. You know, maybe, maybe it was.

But I can see that his music taste or the way he, his music changed because as soon as he signed the label and that kind of shows, because maybe that kind of music is in that. This is just the thought that I had. That is a way that can, you know, hold someone down.

If you're only showcasing some like one kind of artist or what's in, then I don't lose my train of thought.

But like it, like if there's only one kind of artist getting represented, it kind of leads to like a stereotype and then if that artist is also glorifying some, I don't know, illegitimate ways to make money, then maybe that is a way to suppress the lower class.

So it's almost like artists can either.

They can either represent what they came from and continue to support those ideas, or if they do meld with kind of what you're saying, this person was kind of melding with what was expected in order to fit in, they could say, well, this is an example of how you can make it. Or it could be seen as. And I guess it's interpreted probably by the people that are going to pay for the music.

Because, I mean, it has to be interpreted by somebody. It could be interpreted as, yeah, you left us behind.

Selling out.

You're selling out. But I've heard some examples of artists that are like, no, I'm an example of somebody who came from there.

But, yes, I mean, this is the industry and I had to adjust. I had to adapt, but I came from. So there's that weird. I don't know. They're still using their class, but yeah,.

It's definitely a business still. Like the. As you're saying about the executives, like, they're just external factors on what is art to make it.

Turning art into a business or a business model.

Something that can sell you, which.

Yeah. Takes away from its. Takes away from what it was, like, created for.

Yeah. Interesting. Other things to think about. I'd like to hear your thoughts on does it perpetuate or can it change for the good?

Any ideas about racism, ideas about sexism, even political authority? Does it challenge any of that or does it maintain it? You guys have mentioned some artists so far, I think, that are good examples of that.

Yeah. I mean, when challenging political authority, I think of Rage against the Machine to bring them up again.

First and foremost, there's a lot of, like, angry rock rock out there, but also, I think, flowing into other genres. People are more and more likely to call out. I'm thinking in, like, the country and, like, folky industry.

Like Jason Isbell, like, he has a song called White Man's World and also Sturgill Simpson, another man. He's not also, like, trying to go against, like, racist country stereotypes, but also trying to fight the industry with, like, raising ticket prices.

Like, he has a program where, like, you can't resell your tickets so that it tries to avoid scalping to try to keep music accessible.

Right.

So that's what I think. Political Thor. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Good examples.

Yeah. I think. I think about, like, how, you know, kind of rap started, you know, as a way to express yourself for, like.

For a certain community of people that have gone through, like, oppression and how it's kind of spread into, like, a global thing really. It's like a global movement.

So in a way, maybe not specifically like, anti authority, but actually, you know, thinking about, like, slaves, actually when slaves used to sing and band together, they formed a community within that. So it might not be expressly like anti authority, but.

But it was like a way to connect with each other and band together, like, in a way that was anti authority. That makes any kind of sense.

Yeah. So you're saying it's still.

At least some of the artists and maybe even the genre of rap is still something people connect to as being anti authority. Being like, we connect on this level, at least we have each other. Yeah. I grew up with Alanis Morissette and Fiona Apple.

I mean, I listened to all kinds of stuff. Fugees were one of my favorites. A lot of deviant kind of lyrics and stuff. So I always thought that was.

It was interesting to think about, are they challenging or maintaining? And is it making a difference socially? Is it changing our cultural norms? Or maybe it's. Cultural norms are too big.

Maybe the technology of things changes the cultural norms. Like, we talk a lot about in class. I know, maybe the music just follows instead of.

Well, I think also, yeah, changing cultural norms.

Like, if you think about hip hop and how it spread all over the globe to K pop or to K hip hop, to like, you know, Latin, Latino, Afrobeats, it's not just with, like, social media too. It's not just the music. It's also like how you dress, like streetwear. It's almost like a lifestyle, a full lifestyle change. Or like, not.

I wouldn't say copying, but people are embracing, you know, and it's interesting how not just the music spreads, but also like, the attire, how people act slang, you know.

Well, see, that's where I wonder, is it. Does it become a cultural capital that is used then to be in groups? Like. And does it also, like, try and cover up that there are inequalities?

Because if everyone's wearing, like, the trends in clothing today are very dressed down, right? Very dressed down. More than I've ever heard of in this country, at least very dressed down. And it's almost like it's just covering it up.

It's like just a. I mean, we know that some of those sweatpants cost way more than some of the other sweatpants, but you know what I mean? Like, I'M saying, like there are clothing that.

It's like that's the right clothing that those people are wearing in their videos or that it's their line or whatever. And yet it's almost like it's covering up things to make it look like, yeah, we're all the same. See, I'm wealthy, but you wouldn't know it.

I dress like you.

Well, I definitely think that's like white people taking from black culture.

It's like the sweatpants.

Well, just like a lot of the fashion and like slang and everything is often originated in black or gay culture. And then once it spreads out, okay, when people will take that and make the sweatpants $100 because now that's the new goal.

But it's always related back to the cultures that created the meaning behind.

Okay, yeah, the athletic look like. That's what I see a lot of the sweatshirts and. No, sure.

I mean, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, I think it's. It's. Yeah. What is considered. And that kind of goes back to wealth.

Like what is considered wealthy doesn't have to look like it was like it's quality made or wealth or I don't know, an expression of wealth. Blatant expression of wealth. It's more subtle, but also. Yeah, it might.

And that's how music, you know, whoever's making this music is wearing those things and it just gets translated. But yeah, and a lot of times it does come from black hip hop culture.

And going back to it could be a way to connect another way. Clothing.

Absolutely.

What about globalization? Has that changed? I mean, we were just kind of talking about it, but globalization, seeing ourselves in a bigger world, do we see that through.

Through music changes right now?

I think when you bring that up, I think about streaming services.

So.

I have access to all this music in the world, but at the same time, the streaming service is creating an algorithm for me. So I'm seeing, yeah, I'm seeing similar.

I'm not really branching out from what is my normal music, music taste compared to like, if I was just talking to a friend and they're like, oh, you gotta check this out, like kind of thing. Cuz like, yeah, like bringing back to the super bowl, like Bad Bunny is like the biggest artist in the world, but in America he's not really.

I feel like, at least in my community, like, I just like didn't really know that much about him because, like I wasn't being served like any songs that weren't in English.

Interesting.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's a good point.

And it's just interesting how you can, like, be missing out on a whole side of culture or a whole world of culture, that because of what is right in front of you, because of what you're exposed to, and how, like, those algorithms change or don't change, and they keep you kind of in your own little bubble, even though we righteously have access to whatever we want. So it's not like. It's not like, you know, I don't know. I personally don't feel like the effects of others music just because of what I'm exposed to.

I like on a daily basis.

And maybe that's because I don't want to blame the algorithm, but maybe that's because I don't put enough effort to explore other things, you know, like independent artists. Or maybe it's because the artists that are marketed right now are only a certain, you know, type of artist or something like that.

I don't like. It's like the pond is so much bigger now.

The music that's in the storage of what we could access is so much bigger now because of globalization and technology. And yet we're still only in our little. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you could. But we could step out of that. I mean, there's like.

You're saying there's that potential for us to explore more, right?

It's like we got more choices, but we still can't. Like, the harder the. The more choices you have, the harder it is.

That's true. It's capitalism. Yeah. Let's end on this question. What about music is human? And what is bigger than being human? And I mean that in an evolutionary way.

Like, think about us as living things. Is music bigger than being human?

Well, I'll answer the first question first. What about music as human? I think human. Being human is wanting to connect to others.

I think being human is expressing yourself in other ways than just words. And I think. I think being human is, you know, or the way music does that is it allows us to do those things.

Good. Okay.

Yeah, I was just gonna say that I do think music, or like, being human is taking what you have and creating something bigger out of it. So if you look at music, it's basically just math and, like, science, okay.

But being able to take that and add artistic and melodic and meaningful lyrics to it can create something bigger.

Okay. So we naturally connect to each other. And music is something we do that through with these symbols of sound and melody and all that stuff.

It's a way for us, because I mean, there's a lot of biological response we have to music that I think is really interesting that I think would go beyond, like, us as humans and.

Look at other minor major keys, like a great basic example of that.

Or like when, you know, like dementia patients listen to music that triggers some kind of childhood memory or something or triggers them to come to life. I mean, that's. You know what I'm saying?

No, it's bigger than us. I think that at least what we understand, we don't understand the full weight of what music does to us. Yeah, for sure.

All right, well, great conversation and thank you guys both for joining us today so much.

You've been listening to the Sociological POV. Thank you for your time. This podcast is featured as a part of LCC Connect, a podcast network developed by Lansing Community College. To listen to this episode on demand or explore other LCC Connect podcasts, visit lccconnect.com. We hope you'll join us again on the Sociological POV, as we explore the good, the bad, and the world around us.