In the book, Not-Two Is Peace, Adi Da Samraj writes that humankind is, “chronically depressed by the frustration of the ego-transcending deepest and most profound impulses that are the inherent characteristics at the heart and root of every living being. The ego- ‘I’, whether individual or collective, is eventually reduced to sorrow and despair (or chronic life-depression), because of (and as an experiential result of) the inability of life (in and of itself) to generate Happiness and Joy and Immortality.”

He continues: “Gross materialism (in science and politics) gives human beings no option in the mind except that of the trapped and threatened animal. Therefore, a fiery mood is abroad – full of gross desire, frustration, fear, despair, and aggressive reactivity.” Adi Da goes on to state the obvious, that the prevalence of this “fiery mood” could, quite possibly, lead to the destruction of the planet – if we do not create a profound shift in our individual and collective disposition.

For proof that our world is heading in a bad direction, there are many indicators we could cite: Mental health statistics, wealth disparity, tribalism and polarization, the (Internet-fueled) isolation and atomization of people, the state of the environment, the grotesque power of multi-national corporations…the list, sadly, goes on and on.

But personally, nothing makes me more frightened and depressed about the state of the world right now than the existence of modern corporate pop music. 

From early Spring to late Fall, I write outside at a neighborhood coffee shop that sits on the corner of a busy intersection. Cars waiting at the red light frequently have their windows open, music blaring. About 45% of the time, that music is hip hop, much of which I like. The other 45%, however, is modern corporate pop (the remaining 10% is “classic rock”). And the modern corporate pop fills me with unspeakable despair for humanity. 

Because this is the first time in history in which music is being made purely by corporate formulas and computer algorithms – algorithms that seem to be created by accountants who, one is forced to assume, were hated by their parents, and by all the other children their age, as well as by puppies, kittens, and large-eyed woodland creatures of every variety. 

This is the first time in history in which music is literally made by soulless douchebags in cheap suits – soulless douchebags who, just a couple of years ago, you know, for certain, were drunken, pink-faced, frat boys, roofying girls on Spring break at Florida beaches. In the music, you can almost hear the Rohypnol entering the bloodstream of the young women. You can almost hear the guardian angels and totem animals of these corporate frat boys swinging from the ropes – squeak, squeak, squeak – with which they, the guardian angels and totem animals, hung themselves. And now these same soulless douchebags churn out heinous computerized songs that sound like shitty plastic robots having fake orgasms inside the shrieking engines of Boeing 747s.

Warning: The next several paragraphs (4 to be exact) are just me ranting about what makes modern corporate pop music so ghastly, so you might want to skip to the last few paragraphs. I could not control myself.

For years I’ve been unable to describe what exactly is so hateful about this generic, dystopian, musical abomination, in technical terms. I’d just stand there, sputtering apoplectically. So I can’t begin to express how grateful I was when I discovered the YouTube station of Rick Beato. Rick Beato is a veteran record producer, and several of his videos go into deep dives about what it is – exactly – that makes modern corporate pop music so deeply hideous. 

First, of course, and probably foremost, there is the monstrosity of auto-tune – the software program that makes vocal tracks pitch-perfect, mathematically perfect, and simultaneously makes those vocal tracks sound like the inhuman crooning of whiny, pubescent androids trapped in the air ducts of a Berlin rave. 

But it’s not just that. The soulless corporate douchebags use similar technologies to also make the beats digitally perfect. Even if, on the rare occasion, they use a real, flesh and blood, mammalian drummer, playing actual, old-timey drums, they still, once the track is recorded, dive back into the homogenizing, pasteurizing computer and sync-up the drum track to a flawlessly computerized metronome. Beato explained (and showed, visibly, on the graph-thingy on his computer) that when real people play real drums, there are constant slight variations – “imperfections” – in the beat. Our unconscious picks those up and goes, “Ah! Human beings! Organic life!” just as it does with the human voice. 

Beato points out numerous other aspects of modern corporate pop music. The way that it rarely allows any space, any air, any pauses or silences in the vocal tracks. Every nano-second must be a concussive onslaught, packed with the bludgeoning assault of the auto-tuned teenage androids trapped in the air ducts, and always multiple-tracked for that full-on seizure-inducing effect. Beato also points out, that (perhaps needless to say) the chord progressions themselves are breathtakingly crude and devoid of even the faintest gesture toward originality – pretty much the same three or four chords, over and over and over. 

Here’s where I return to my more adorable and delightful and less-ranting bloggish self

But here’s the thing. It’s not the face-melting, soul-rotting, existential terribleness of the product itself that most frightens and depresses me. The peddlers of this stuff are, after all, inhuman corporations, and they’re just doing what inhuman corporations have always done, giving the customer what the customer wants. 

No, what frightens and depresses me is when I dare to imagine: What must be going on in the hearts and souls of the young people who actually, willingly listen to this stuff? 

What frightens and depresses me is when I wonder: How much emotional deadness, internal vacuousness, and sterility would have to be in a person for him or her to not just tolerate this music when it’s playing at Starbucks or Target wherever, but to actually seek it out?

I always blame human degeneration on egoity, plain and simple – the self-created and self-enforced illusion that we are separate from the Radiant Sea of Conscious Light. Adi Da Samraj once made a reference to human beings being “driven mad by mortality.” He was referring to the suffering and insanity that results from being cut-off (or rather, seemingly cut off) from our own Hearts, our own tangible Divine Reality. 

So plainly we must hurl ourselves urgently into the Great Odyssey of authentic Spiritual practice, so that, through the Unitive Field that binds us all, we can begin to Awaken our planet from its dark slumber of painful separative egoity, and, thereby, eliminate the scourge of modern corporate pop music.

Subscribing to this blog = supporting your Spiritual practice = ending the pestilence of modern corporate pop music. Just connecting the dots for you. Extra credit: leave a comment! Maybe you think modern corporate pop music is awesome, and no pink-faced frat boys roofying girls are ever involved at any stage of its creation! Let me know!