3/30 Post Class

In class on 3/30 we contemplated the question what is postmodern about the billboard charts? This goes back to our Lyotard discussion on how our culture loves to rate everything from itunes ratings to yelp and other review sites. We are always looking for the best and newest releases of pop culture. I agree with scott's post when he says that train is at a postmodern point in their career because they made their big hit with "Drops of Juptiter" and "When I look to the Sky" and now their new song gives references to many songs that we as a culture have connected to in the previous decades. Going off of this it reminds me of how after John Mayer made it big and then came back later with his song "Waiting for the World to Change" where he gave a really strong statement about the media when he says, "and when you trust your television what you get is what you got cause when they own the information, oh they can bend it all they want " which is a critical media statement but in a pop hit song from John Mayer. Since our culture has such a fascination with ratings, he used this to his advantage and he brought what was going on in the world into a song that he knew was going to be on the billboard charts and give out a message. This relates to the quote we talked about, "The defrauded masses today cling to the myth of success still more ardently than the successful." I also enjoyed in this class the connection to my History of Radio and Television class, which is very interesting and important to know how media has evolved over the years. "The radio - democratically makes everyone equally into listeners." This medium created unity and the sameness that we were talking about and how it brought everyone together into the same routine and rhythm.