Life In A. Minor: Please, Stop Believing

By Broadside Style Columnist Andy Minor

The tradition of the sing-a-long is one that goes back quite a long time. I suppose it started with early folk songs and drinking tunes, then moved on up into the age of radio and eventually found its way to the thousands of us who sing along with our iPods as we roll around Fairfax in our wonderful cars. Singing along to a song helps you create stronger connections with friends who sing along with you, and it also can make fond memories. Singing along helps you learn the song better and internalize it, making it a part of you. It strengthens your connection to the artist and takes you to a whole other world than just plain listening can. I encourage singing along in almost every situation, whether in your car, at the grocery store, in restaurants or even at the movies, depending on how you’d fare in a fight with fellow moviegoers.

As far as exceptions go to my singing along passions, I’d like to point to one genre in particular: ‘80s arena rock classics, specifically Journey, specifically “Don't Stop Believin’.” I get irked every time this song comes on and droves of 20-somethings begin to link arms and sway to its malignant half-time thump. It is almost as if this has become a generational anthem for those of us now breaching the age of 20, when really it should have stayed in the ‘80s where it belongs. Its lyrics are petty, its harmonic content barely passes for catchy and worst of all, it’s over-played.

What does my generation see in “Don't Stop Believin’,” anyway? I will openly admit that I kind of liked this song when I was in middle and high school, but as time went on, I got sick of hearing it just as my peers began to discover it. Every time it comes on, people freak out and get so excited they have to jump up and dance.

Even today on iTunes, “Believin’” is 83rd on the Top Songs list, surrounded by other artists who seem ultimately more contemporary. Among Ludacris, Pink, Lil Wayne, T-Pain, High School Musical and Britney Spears we find Journey: dated, boring, yet somehow still relevant, Journey. Nothing by the Beatles, Elvis, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, or any artist who carries truckloads more influence than any arena rock band. What does this say about the current generation? It says they value Journey more than the Beatles. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who agrees with that statement, but it seems iTunes does.

Perhaps a metaphor would enlighten my point a little better: if the Beatles were organically grown, seedless watermelons from the best soil, Journey would be roughly equivalent to a watermelon-flavored Now and Later, which you let melt in your pocket and become infused with its wax paper covering. When you put it in your mouth, not only would you get bits of hot, watermelon infused sugar stuck in your molars, you’d constantly be picking shards of wet wax paper out of your teeth all day. My point here is that Journey is processed, musical drivel, containing about as much artistic worth as a lump of dry toothpaste. Journey was bought, sold and chewed up by the music industry in 1981 when “Believin’” was a hit — not even a number one — and even today we are giving it much more credit than it deserves.

I will resign, however, and say that I probably would not be complaining so much if I didn’t have to hear “Believin’” as much as I do. It’s an odd phenomenon, the over playing of a song, and perhaps I'm fascinated as to why it's happening twenty-seven years after the release of a song. We’re used to songs being overplayed within a matter of months following their release; why has it taken so long for Journey to do this one? At the same rate, maybe the song was just popular all along and I have simply grown pretentious a little too early. Whatever it is, I still urge everyone to press pause on their ‘80s hits CD and perhaps explore something with a little more artistic worth and a little less industry manufacturing. Perhaps the next great sing-a-long is right around the corner.