A Sirius Education

     I recently got a new car with three months of free XM radio.  I don't know if I'll subscribe at the end of the three month trial, but it's been interesting so far.  If I feel nostalgic for a particular decade, I can select a radio station dedicated only to those ten years.  Need a laugh?  There are multiple comedy stations.  Need a bigger laugh?  Tune into one of the polical stations.  There's a station for any musical style.  I think my favorite channel is Z100 - NY.  They play the latest hits.
  
     My father was stuck in the Lawrence Welk era.  He made me a bet in 1966 that the Beatles would be washed up in five years.  My mother, on the other hand, loved popular music.  She must have developed a taste for it during the hours she sat in front of the radio taking down lyrics in shorthand.  I begged her to do this, so I could study the words and learn them faster.  Like Mom, I enjoy the Top 40.

     The melodies of the latest songs stick in my head and I'll give a song a "98" if you can dance to it.  Lyrics, on the other hand, are occasionally puzzling and at times troubling.  Here's a sample of what I've had to look up on Urban Dictionary ( http://www.urbandictionary.com/):

Pumped Up Kicks - Expensive shoes.

Too School for Cool - Preferring education over popularity

G - A gangster

305 - An area code on Florida, "the ghetto-est place in Florida"

Drive By - A one night stand

2-ply - Urban Dictionary doesn't list this one, but context tells me it has something to do with two people as close as layers of a Kleenex

Hefty Bag - A really big condom

Moves Like Jagger - Style in the way one presents oneself

Goin' Gorilla - Nothing in Urban dictionary on this one either, but I'm guessing it's the same as the old school "ape-sh**"

Lots of this music glorifies heavy drinking and hard partying.  It goes far beyond expressing a desire to hold hands.  I don't get too worked up about it, though.  In every generation there will be some tainted lifestyle out there calling to kids.  We had hippies.  Now, there are gangstahs.  Besides, it's not all bad, like this one by the Black Eyed Peas - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EICNm-Ow0ms