eZine 04.13.2010

Yesterday Jonathan blogged about the content behind some of the Top 10 songs on the charts right now. I think you’ll be surprised?

OverSexualized
Posted on Monday, April 12, 2010 4:27 PM

This past weekend I had the opportunity to preach about youth culture, then do a parenting workshop in a church in South Bend, IN. On the drive to the workshop, I decided to tune into a popular radio station to hear a sampling of what our kids were hearing, wondering if I’d hear many of the “Hot 100” songs I’d been researching. After all, I know the top 10 songs kids were downloading. iTune shows us that at a glance. But I was curious what the radio was playing.

This particular radio station seemed like it was playing right from the “Top 10” charts, because in the hour that I had the radio on, I heard almost every song that I had been studying.

After about an hour of listening… I felt like I needed to take a shower and wash off the filth.

Seriously. I study this stuff all the time, and yet I still am amazed how potent today’s music is with oversexualized lyrics. (Is oversexualized even a word? Nope. I just pasted it into WORD and it gave me a little red wiggly line.)

Let me give you a glimpse at some of these top songs I heard.

TELEPHONE
The first song I heard was the joint venture from Beyonce and Lady Gaga, Telephone. The song itself isn’t necessarily profane. It just comes from the perspective of a girl in a club who is getting a call from a recent boyfriend. Gotta love the mentality– the lyrics give you a glimpse:

The crazy thing about this song is the video, which is still number one on iTunes today. The 30-second preview on iTunes says it all. You’ll be amazed. I won’t go into too much more detail, I’ve already devoted an entire blog article to this video.

I actually talked about this video and showed some screenshots when I preached on Sunday. A teenager attending who liked Lady Gaga commented, “You shouldn’t pick on Lady Gaga. She’s Catholic.”

lol

In my parent seminar I couldn’t pass that comment up. After all, if I found out that the corner drug dealer was Baptist… does that make what he’s doing okay? Call him what you want. He’s selling our kids garbage.

The music industry is doing the same thing. And medical professionals are becoming very concerned with this kind of content. I devoted an entire Youth Culture Window article to this subject.

RUDE BOY
The second song I heard is the number one song on Billboard’s Hot 100, Rude Boy, by Rihanna, a song with the first line, “Come here rude boy, boy; can you get it up?”

It doesn’t get any better. Here’s a snippet:

Yes, that’s the number one song on Billboard’s Hot 100 right now, #4 on iTunes.

You gotta love what many of these songs are doing today. They are slippin under the radar and being deemed “clean” by the world’s standards (I addressed that fact in more detail in this blog about the Black Eyed Peas), when the lyrics are anything but clean. Yes, Rude Boy doesn’t have cuss words. So it’s clean, right? Let’s be honest. The whole song is about hooking up. But, hey… as long as they don’t cuss, right?

BEDROCK
The next song I heard was Bed Rock by a whole mess of young rappers including Lil Wayne, Drake, and a bunch of other thugs. I don’t need to say much about a song with the chorus, “Baby, my room is the G spot, call me Mr. Flintstone, I can make your bed rock.” Then they repeat that four more times, “I can make your bed rock.”

The song also features a female rapper, with this opening line:

In the “clean” version (as they call it) and the edited video…

Other Topics Jonathan Blogged about Recently:

In this episode, Jonathan interviews famed novelist Nicholas Sparks, author of popular works such as The Notebook, A Walk to Remember, and Nights in Rodanthe. But it’s his newest book-turned-movie, The Last Song, that dominates this conversation. Listen in as Nicholas shares how his life and faith impact his stories of people, love, and loss.

Listen to it now for free on iTunes! (CLICK HERE) Or, if you don’t have iTunes already… jump on Apple’s web page for a free download, then click on our podcast page.

Episode Highlights:

• Find out how close Jonathan grew up to Nicholas
• Learn what drives Nicholas as a writer
• Hear the author’s response to criticisms from Christians about some of his book’s elements/themes
• Discover why Nicholas thinks this book/movie (The Last Song) will attract a younger crowd

Last month I had several chances to speak and train, including my CONNECT workshop and my parenting workshop, both of which I’ll be doing again in NJ in May. I’m booking summer and fall dates right now!

Here’s a peek at my speaking/training schedule so far for this year:

January 8-9, 2010 (Nashville, TN)
CONNECT Training Workshop,
Our Savior Lutheran Church

January 16-17, 2010 (Beckley, WV)
Youth Ski Conference, CTI Group Adventures

February 5-7, 2010 (Dallas, PA)
Junior High Winterblast, Camp Orchard Hill

February 26- 28, 2010 (East Troy, WI)
Timberlee, WinterXtreme

March 6, 2010 (Oskaloosa, IA)
Volunteer Power Workshop

March 26-28, 2010 (Baltimore, MD)
Keynote Speaker, Impact 2010

April 10, 2010 (South Bend, IN)
Preach/Parent Workshop, Trinity EV FREE Church

April 17, 2010 (Saint Louis, MO)
Faithfest 2010, St. Louis network of churches

May 15-16, 2010 (Jackson, NJ)
Youth Rally, Preach, Parent/Youth Worker Workshop

July 11-16, 2010 (Hordville, NE)
Covenant Cedars Bible Camp, Summer Camp

October 2-4, 2010 (San Diego, CA)
Training Workshops, Youth Specialties National Youth Workers Convention

	“We have Jonathan do his training seminars at our National Youth Workers Convention every year and he always does a great job. Not only is Jonathan’s presentation dynamic, his information is extremely helpful to those in attendance. In fact, that’s why we publish his books.” Tic Long, President Youth Specialties Events

	“Jonathan is an incredible communicator. He has what it takes to get tough with this generation. He is funny, committed, challenging, and he speaks with an edge.” Jim Burns, Ph.D. President, Youth Builders

	“Jonathan is a very talented speaker!.” Ken Davis Dynamic Communicator’s Workshop