Does Your Music Have Soul?

My Saturday playlist is typically filled with the unexceptional tripe that saturates our local airwaves.  As electronic beats blend into monotonous noise, it reflects the frenetic sense of stress behind my study habits.

Yet this weekend, rather than settling for the latest Eminem or Avicii, I sent Spotify deep into the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s to rediscover the smooth, soulful sounds of Motown.  Stevie Wonder and Sam Cooke sang with gusto, while the songs lent a foreign sense of calm to our apartment.  Life slowed to a mellow, thoroughly enjoyable pace.  The contrast was truly striking and, needless to say, the night resulted in a new 39-song playlist (available upon request).

“Why don’t we make music like this today?”  

I thought long about this, my roommates’ recurring question.  Many would agree that music is a fundamental expression of culture.  Furthermore, according to Christopher Dawson, each culture embodies a particular religious tradition.  By this logic, one may be able to discover society’s values through its to popular music.

If religious sentiments have shifted–if morals have decayed–we should only expect the vapid self-indulgence of Shakira and Cyrus.  Such music merely reflects a larger picture, wherein society has embraced empty secularism as its core operating principle.

Modern music is thus faced with a choice, whether to plant new roots in the face of self-destructive decadence.