The ranks of singles being released recently hasn't been overwhelming, so I don't have a full roundup for you today, but there is one song I needed to talk about. It stirred up something I feel like I have to address.
Ocean Hills - A Separate Peace
Most of the time, this would pass by without a second thought. It's just another generic rock single from a band that is inoffensively fine, but not anything I would go out of my way to listen to. But as I give it that cursory listen, I too note of a line in the song that pissed me off to no end. I know few listeners of heavier music seem to care about lyrics, but I do, and this is a prime offender. The song was already a petty and bitter song about divorce, but I can deal with that. Raw feelings need an outlet too, but then there's exposing your disgusting side, which is where we go. Written with the conceit of a father talking to his son, the singer says "you'll probably like me new girl, she's about your age."
I almost don't know where to begin with this. First of all, why would anyone be proud enough of those actions to not only put them into a song, but in a way that sounds like bragging? Sleeping with someone young enough to be your own child is not something to celebrate. It's a rather disturbing psychological revelation, one that sadly is not as far out of the mainstream as it should be. There are the 'daddy issues' that come along with it, but I'm looking at it from a slightly different perspective; if you're sexually attracted to people the age of your own children, you're admitting to possibly being attracted to those very same children. At the very least you're saying it's fine if one of your own friends were to start dating your daughter, which I don't think many men would say they're good with.
As I said, this is sadly not an uncommon thought. No less than Donald Trump has mused previously about wanting to date his own daughter if he could, not to mention his admissions to walking in on half-dressed underage girls, so it's no wonder a band like this feels comfortable making such a public admission of their skeezy perversions.
But even if we leave those connotations aside, why would he be so proud of his actions? We have twisted the idea of what 'manhood' is in so many ways, and among them includes the idea that conquering younger women is somehow a display of power and virility. It's not. No one is a better man because their mate is younger than someone else's. No one is a bigger man because their girlfriend can't rent a car yet. For a grown-ass man to prefer the company of women he would have watched playing in the sandbox while his own kids were doing the same is not a normal marker of manhood.
Why do these attitudes become normalized? We could try to blame our hyper-sexualized society, but I feel like that's a cop-out. We can be highly sexual while sticking to people who are better suited for us. I am younger than the band in question (I assume), and already I find it creepy to think about 18 year-olds in a sexual manner. As I have matured, my sensibility has followed suit. So perhaps this guy is unwittedly admitting to an arrested development, getting stuck in a younger state because he can't accept where he is in life now. Or maybe he realizes he's a sad old man, and he thinks he can leech youth through his magical dong.
Whatever line of reasoning he wants to use, it's pathetic, and it's a reason why I'm always conflicted about calling myself a fan of rock/metal, rather than just a music fan in general. When the rock world doesn't bat an eye at this kind of thinking, and in fact the press materials tout the greatness of this group, I don't know what I'm supposed to think. Clearly they have very different values, both the artist and the label, than I do. For the band, the producer, and the label execs to all see nothing wrong with this gives me pause. I felt weird the very first time I heard the line. They lived with it for months and chose that very song to promote the record. They are proud of it. I'm ashamed to have heard it.
I said in a piece a while back that I was growing worried that being a music fan and being a good person were becoming incompatible. A song like this is why. I really don't know how to accept this being the way the world is. You can all go on dreaming about banging your daughters friends. I'm going to try to not be that wretched.
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