Lately, I have avoided the radio whenever possible.

Whenever I do listen, I immediately have to switch the station, and then switch it again.

It’s like I’m in some movie with the theme song of a sex obsessed drug addict.

The music these days is not only trashy with countless references to sex and drugs, but it makes me feel trashy and uncultured just listening to it.

It’s like food poisoning, except it’s music poisoning: it leaves a bad taste in my mouth and makes my stomach hurt.

The way I see music, it should convey a message, inspire and audience, please our ears with creativity.

It should leave me with a hunger for more songs while filling me up with a message.

But I find new music to contain overused messages about flimsy successes of getting girls and/or money followed by a few easy bass drops and a mess of music.

It’s hard to wrap my head around that fact that people, even my friends, listen to lyrics like the song “Panda.”

Here’s a little taste of the song:

“I Got Broads In Atlanta

Twisting Dope, Lean, And S**t

Sipping Fanta

Credit Cards And The Scammers

Wake Up Versace S**t, Life Desiigner

Whole Buncha Lot of S**t

They Be Asking Round Town Who Be Clappin’ S**t

I Pullin Up Stuff In The Phantom Ship

I Got Plenty of Stuff Lf Bugatti Whip Look How I Try This S**t”

What does this even mean?

I think anyone can see the lack of lyrical genius. Seriously. 

Not all new music is like this, though. Mainly rap and some other party songs.

Recently, I have started helping friends write lyrics for their music. (I can’t play an instrument, but, hey, I can write.)

And while writing these lyrics, I can’t help but work meticulously and purposefully with every line and every word.

And then I realized…why in the world do these rap artists write such slimy, purposeless songs?

Like this excerpt from “2 Phones”:

“You just side yelling you not that important

Weight, shape her, I could pin you to the carpet

Smell like tarter, I’mma put you in the water

Conversation cause a lot of chips

She don’t really get a lot of this

Engagin’ where I’m gazin’ at her hips”

I mean they actually sat down and wrote disgusting, degrading lyrics about a girl who they objectified by judging her solely off of the way she smelled and how big her hips were, while saying she’s “not that important,” and thought, Yes. Perfect.

That’s messed up.

And more than that…why in the world do people choose to listen to these songs?

They, even girls, my friends, literally listened to these messages and chose to spend actual money on them.

That’s messed up, too.

Some of my best friends absolutely love artists like these while I couldn’t even name any.

I simply prefer to listen to music with a message; sometimes my friends will even say they feel uncomfortable playing their “trap music” around me. I always just respond with, “Good.”

Because it is good that I’m not associated with that kind of music with degrading messages that make me sick.

I also started to play my music around my friends. I play twenty one pilots and U2, The Piano Guys and Jon Bellion, Melanie Martinez and Glass Animals, Cage the Elephant and The Wombats, music that has a message and catchy tunes. Some even have raps with a message.

Crazy that people find better rhymes than ones that end in s**t.

Like this twenty one pilots rap from “Car Radio”:

“There are things we can do

But from the things that work there are only two

And from the two that we choose to do

Peace will win

And fear will lose

There’s faith and there’s sleep

We need to pick one please because

Faith is to be awake

And to be awake is for us to think

And for us to think is to be alive

And I will try with every rhyme

To come across like I am dying

To let you know you need to try to think”

And guess what? When I showed them my music, they loved it. One of my friends even told me that it’s hard to listen to her old music anymore because she notices the lack of a message and the lack of creative music.

That makes me happy.

I wholeheartedly believe that listening to music with purpose inspires me to live my life with a purpose.

Think about it: We wake up to music on our alarms, we drive around listening to music, we shower with music on, we dance to music at school dances, we listen to music with our earbuds during class and passing periods,  and we go out of our way to see music live at concerts.

It infiltrates our lives without us even realizing it.

So if we choose to fill this aspect of our everyday lives with bad songs I’m afraid we will desensitize ourselves to degrading, nasty and purposeless messages.

Furthermore, if we choose to promote bad songs by buying them, singing them and supporting their success, artists will make even more music with no substance simply because it sells.

As the iTunes top songs stand right now, 14 of the top 15 songs are trashy, rap music including “Panda” and “2 Phones.”

But we can change that by actually searching for artists that embrace the craft of music instead of just writing what sells.

Just like Tyler Joseph said in the “Car Radio” rap, I’m letting you know you need to try to think.

I refuse to be poisoned by music that fills me up with derogatory thoughts.

I refuse to hunger for music with true, artistic value.

I refuse to let “trap music” be the theme song of my generation.