The Grammys and Pop Literacy

It’s Grammy day!  And even though Pants on the Ground was released too late to be nominated, there will still be a lot of bumping and grinding (and maybe a little incidental singing) going on tonight.

While you wait, here’s a list of the Top Ten Grammy Moments to show your kids. They include a brief video from 1984, when Michael Jackson took home 8 awards and took off his sunglasses for Katharine Hepburn.

He’s Talking About What?

I was listening recently to Pandora, to some of the songs of my youth–1970s country. And I made a horrifying discovery: a very large percentage of those songs was about sex.

This is horrifying for a couple of reasons. First, I listened to those songs in the car with my parents right there next to me for many, many years. We probably even sang some of them together. The ickiness factor of that is very high.

Second, and I don’t want to offend you older adults among us, but people in that era were almost uniformly ugly. Have you looked at an album cover from that period? And those were the good-looking ones. I understand they were engaging  in reproductive activity, but I find it disturbing that they talked about it so openly, given the way they made themselves look.

Anyway, what does this have to do with pop literacy? Next time your kids come to you, acting like their generation invented hanky-panky, stuff the earbuds in their ears and make them listen to Conway Twitty’s “Lay You Down.” And make them stare at the album cover while they listen. They’ll never think sex is cool again.

Fashion Literate: Pants on the Ground

Sometimes, a new bit of pop culture is so relevant, so new, so now, that it speaks to our children in a way that the classics cannot. I’m speaking, in this case, of Pants on the Ground.

Since American Idol contestant General Larry Platt unveiled his anthem of fashion-crankiness last week, it has “gone viral,” as the kids say. And if you don’t believe me, watch the original performance (1.5 million views), then check out the 2nd video below, wherein Brett Favre leads the Minnesota Vikings in a bizarre pregame ritual, complete with the appropriate dance moves. I think General Larry Platt is the new William Hung.