Eh, there's a thin line to how much an artist can contribute as a persona, especially when that artist is a musician. There's…well, there's a literal "blurred line" there, where hand waves are used to excuse shocking/offensive lyrics because "someone else said them!". Honestly, I prefer their shocking/offensive lyrics…

Hey, "Want Some More" is a great song!

I find the exact opposite; what charts on the pop charts for a long time just DOMINATES the airwaves. This means that there are relatively fewer songs really capturing the imagination. Hell, the radio still plays "Uptown Funk" CONSTANTLY. Justin Bieber has two (at one point three!) songs in the Top 10. The songs are…

I honestly don't know which pop radio stations you listen to, but they still play "Get Lucky" from time to time on the Eastern Iowa radio stations, and I don't think we're out of loop.

If only they had directed that hatred towards the Chicken Dance…

According to "Move That Dope", Pharrell's "Gandalf hat" gets him laid, so I don't know, I can't really fault the guy's fashion taste in this case.

There's a double standard for (non black) female pop artists, where they can be "sexual" to a degree, but only within certain bounds IF they want to be treated as a pop star. In Gomez's case, she followed/still follows a relatively well trodden trajectory, moving from Disney Channel star, to young pop star, to young…

The unspoken idea about Miley Cyrus is that, because she was a teenage pop star (with a young fanbase), then it was "bad" that she was so sexual. The hypocrisy is interesting, because look at someone like Nicki Minaj. Here's someone who is sexually voracious (if not more so) and has a young fan base, but because we…

If Grinding on Miley Cyrus is akin to grinding up against a gremlin, just call me Mrs. Deagle

Yeah, I was a huge fan of Iggy as well-she was charting in the UK well before she got big in the US, and I remember telling my wife, "If I could buy stock in a pop star, I would buy it all in Iggy". And fuck, I still like "Work" and especially "Change Your Life".

Well, "Work" charted, although it only got to #54; she's solo on that one.

Are you upset that Pharrell is a huge pop star and had the #1 song of 2014 with Happy? His career seems to be going great, yet he wrote a song that ripped of Marvin Gaye and that contains horrific pro rape lyrics!

Well, that would require a degree of analysis that I don't know if people want/are willing to make.

Are you aware of the hit song, "Only", by Nicki Minaj? The idea of a "bad girl" is very popular in hip hop, especially the idea of someone who is sexual voracious, independent, and demanding to her partner (e.g. "give me this or you won't get that!") while still being a traditional heterosexual female. So I think that…

Are you aware of who Two Live Crew is?

If someone accuses a piece of art of a meaning that the artist insists is not true, then what, if anything, should be done? Does the artist need to make concessions to the public? Or can the public be incorrect? If this issue is, "Some may take this the wrong way!", why is that a concern for art? Business, oh for…

One of the answers is that people, in general, are quite myopic. We only see things when we a.) seek them out (which, as a collective, we are not going to do) or b.) have it presented to us. Is "Hungry like the Wolf" bad? "How should I know, I've never even heard of Duran Duran!" The argument here is that because they…

I imagine that if you listened to Danny Brown, your head would explode.

Not to be a pedant, but Thicke has charted on Billboard Hot 100 only 7 times (not counting Blurred Lines), 3 of those times since Blurred Lines charted. So maybe you should say, "He'll never have a hit as big as Blurred Lines", which is most likely true.

Oh, race is definitely an issue at play here (although it probably isn't the only issue at play; strafication of pop culture is a bigger issue). To use just one obvious example, take a look at Rick Ross' infamous line from UOENO: