Just think about it: why do you know the lines to a song you can’t even say you like? What has kept those classic Beatles ballads fresh in your mind? Music is an outlet or is it a means of brainwashing? (Only kidding.) But as humans, very repetitive beings, we speak in phrases and inevitably in clichés. Some will cringe when your sentences never seem to veer from the overused turns-of-phrase and some will reply using another one of the thousand sentences we have as mundane arsenal. But some of the biggest celebrities are making millions using these detested and unoriginal snippets. In an effort to keep this brief I have selected the top five hits of 2013 published by Letssingit.com.
#1 Miley Cyrus Wrecking Ball
I fell under your spell…
I can’t live a lie,
running for my life
I never meant to start a war…
I will avoid sharing my personal opinions of Ms. Cyrus and instead introduce to you the #1 million dollar making string of clichés in 2013 and the most watched music video of the year. Although she used far fewer outdone phrases than I’d imagined for a number one track. These four tired lines have been used in countless hits long before Miley’s time (far too many for me to list here). I give it to her – following in the footsteps of the great artists before her can only earn her a top spot on the music charts. (It might also have something to do with her always-naked body which has a net worth of $150 million now. It all makes sense.)
#2 Eminem ft. Rihanna The Monster
The monster that’s under my bed
the voices inside of my head
Trying to save me
Beggars can’t be choosy
For wanting my cake and eat it too
Beginning to lose sleep
Ain’t much of a poet, seize the moment
you never know when it could all be over tomorrow
Save me from myself
don’t shoot the messenger
I have this vision
turning nothing into something
Falling $10 million bellow a much younger Ms. Cyrus here’s the body worth $140 million. He’s always managed to keep my respect even with his constantly crude lyrical style. Eminem, as any other great veteran rapper uses numerous clichés in nearly all of his songs. It gives listeners something to hold onto as we clumsily try to memorize his lines and stumbled through them at karaoke bars worldwide. I’ll give you a few bullet points to get you through:
From childhood terrors
to mental illness
self-abuse
to dead snippets of advice
and falsely quoted historical phrases (Marie Antoinette)
writerly excuses for poor craftsmanship
the biggest cliché of them all
to an excuse for spreading bad news
and Dr. King himself
the once, all American dream and motto
I’m not sure if he earned my respect through his resilience and his very own nothing into something success story or that he just terrifies me into devotion.
#3 Lorde Royals
live that fantasy
cracked the code
Lorde – (so new to the scene we have no net worth statistics, as of yet). I love the girl and at number three she uses the fewest clichés (in my opinion) compared to these other more- established artists. Maybe that’s it though – in the beginning you use your best stuff and it just happens to be more original – then you get lazy and just want to make money the fastest way you can; enters the over abundance of clichés in lyrics. Lorde dodges the cliché trap with lists full of proper nouns and by twisting turns-of-phrase. She will quickly win everyone’s heart and teach us some new songs while the rest just regurgitate drab, old clichés we’ve heard for far too long.
#4 Pitbull ft. Ke$ha Timber
it’s going down
the one you wont forget
the bigger they are the harder they fall
swing your partner round and round
it’s a bird, it’s a plane
At only $20 million net worth we can dissect number four quickly. A good bit of slang starts us off, used in songs across genres for decades (think Fall Out Boy, Linkin Park, Yung Joc, only to name a few). And my most loathed breakup line of the last 24 years of my life: the one you won’t forget. You’re right, you’re that loser using that worn out phrase to make some senseless and now moot point. Thank you. The line I hold near and dear – the one my mother told me during my dreaded years in high school – and they were always bigger than me and yes, they did fall pretty damn hard. Now Pitbull takes from dozens of classic dance moves, channeling my square-dancin’ roots too. Well played, way to reach a wider audience (while I doubt he thought that much about it; he simply needed a rhyme). Finally, he drives it home, with a 1966 Broadway classic: Superman! Pitbull goes across the globe for his clichés this time and I am sure it won’t be his last. (And Ke$ha gets a bit Miley too – you know what I mean.)
#5 One Republic Counting Stars
Lately I been losing sleep
Counting stars
Seek it out and ye shall find
Just doing what we’re told
I feel the love
Watch it burn
The lessons I learned
You’d think after such a heavily cliché title they’d have aimed a bit higher in the lyrics department, but One Republic let’s me down, once again. Snatching the phrase as is with the first line only to go into that nonsensical notion of being able to count stars (come on!). Then plunging into Biblical times, and back to a teenager’s way of survival, to a classic Elton John ballade, and the biggest breakup line, in my opinion, and the self-forgiving idea of learning from mistakes (aka, an excuse for making a poor decision). Thank you One Republic for pulling it all together for us and making millions at number five.
Clichés are catchy. People will memorize your song, scream it at you during concerts (none of those embarrassing audience has the mic moments… silence). Just like sex sells (thanks Miley) clichés seem to sell even more. I challenge you to listen in for those now-redundant phrases that pollute nearly every song on the radio today. (Oldies don’t count [previously mentioned Beatles] because they are the originals, the trailblazers, if I can keep the clichés going). As writers we edit out the tired sentences but sometimes, especially in dialog we toss them in because what more are humans but parrots with habits that are impossible to break? Now, if only writers could make millions with clichés like the musicians can, but I guess they need to rhyme and that whole melody thing – I guess I can’t know much about that dilemma.
photo credits go to mun2
One Coiled Spring 