Meaning something.
Even though I grew up in the eighties, long after the advent of Psychedelia, Dylan, Abbey Road, etc., I think the expectation that pop songs had to mean something still hadn’t leached completely from the collective unconscious. I think it had been struck from the record, perhaps, but had yet to fade. It can take decades, centuries even, after the fact, for cultural beliefs to change, as David Bentley Hart’s Atheist Delusions contends so well.
But listening to Slowmotions today, I wonder if the approximately two decades since Slanted & Enchanted haven’t taken a big bite out of that expectation. Is it gone? Are we completely comfortable with good sounding nonsense coming out of our earbuds?
