The Chainsmokers
Depth always has a shallow surface. This may come as a relief to many baby boomers and even some millennials themselves as they anticipate the future by the look of where it’s heading. We have tweeting presidents, teens who would rather spend their time photographing their lives than living them, and babies mastering smart phones. While these all seem very detrimental and counteractive to everything the earlier generations attempted to teach us about the path to happiness, that might just not be the case. The millennials are having an awakening, according to trends in popular music. DJ duo, Andrew Taggart and Alex Pall who joined together to form the Chainsmokers, had a breakthrough with the release of the 2014 international hit single “#selfie”
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(Buli). The song went viral, capturing a moment in time of change and evolution. It presents our technology addicted culture as something we can admit guilty of being apart of, accept the oddness of and laugh at ourselves for adapting to. Their joking approach eased acceptance of such criticism to a new, uncommon trend. This acceptance of uncommon trends manifested further into our culture with the approval of same sex marriages, legalized soon after in June of 2015. Music has the ability to revolutionize society. The Chainsmokers discovered this with the explosion of their first success single and continued to use this to their advantage with the release of the 2017 international hit, ‘Paris’. With expectations to continue shifting society’s belief system, this piece calls out our generation for day dreaming about a false life, rather than living in the moment and accepting reality. For this, our society is being branded as shallow, ignorant, and unoriginal. This song is a call to action, motivating this culture of dreamers to go out and achieve those ‘#goals’ that everyone is so quick to declare, yet too distracted to achieve. As with the title and surface level analysis of the song ‘Paris’, artists demonstrates the importance of digging deeper before drawing conclusions or making assumptions.
The Chainsmokers represents the illusion our society has been sucked into as ‘paris’, defined in the beginning of the lyrical music video as “1: a sentimental yearning for a reality that isn’t genuine 2: an irrecoverable condition that evokes nostalgia or daydreams.” Today, technology is making it easier and easier to falsify reality, resulting in a distorted understanding of happiness. This stands true with addictions, depression, or any other situations that evoke a desired escape. This message in unclear until looking solely at the sounds and melody and how it is used to amplify desired lyrical messages. The song begins with a slow build up of withheld piano chords. This simple beat is intensified with the addition of a steady base that stands as the foundation for the tempo of the song. Gradually, more uncomplicated tapping and background melodic sounds are added to exaggerate the lyrics that follow which read, ‘if we go down then we go down together’. This is meant to represent the voices of other generations ridiculing our society and showing hopelessness in our future. The sounds strip down to a basic guitar buildup meant to increasingly magnifies the lyrics, ‘let's show them we are better’, which is followed by a sucking or drawback of sound, then a sudden pause. Rests are often used in music as an indicator of importance before the unleashing of the more active, energetic and upbeat melody used in the chorus. This shift demonstrates hope where society is saying there is none. By keeping melody upbeat, the audience is able to accept their defaults with an attitude of innovation rather than self-pity. The lyrics ‘let's show them we are better’ is inducing an intrinsic motivator of proving the earlier generations of judgemental critics wrong about their accusations of being unrightfully
proud. The deliberate use of instagram star and teen idol, Alexis Ren, as the center focus of the music video verifies previously stated intentions of the song ‘Paris’. 19-year-old bikini model initially gained her fame from social media posts that received a great deal of attention. In an interview with reporter of the New York magazine, The Cut, Alexis tells about how quick viewers are to assume her body is photoshopped and challenge her authenticity (Jones). However, societal icon argues that she has been financially self-sufficient since she was 14 and wouldn’t be where she is today without hard work, independence and determination. ‘Paris’ suggests that our culture is overlooking the work that is required to be put in to achieve the life they imagine and see is possible through role models like Alexis. I believe this quick to judge mentality is due to our society's lack of authenticity. Therefore, we doubt hard work and accredit this perfection as deception.
While this hit single is a wake up call to millennials values and priorities, the approach is hopeful enough to initiate a desire for change rather than settling with regret. Regret is a healthy emotion, however, when undealt with, can have a relapsing effect on your desire to reengage with life. If you are constantly comparing yourself to others picture perfect life, you will time and time again judge yourself and regret not being as good as other is perceived to be. Our society is infatuated with this image of perfection, however, too blind by our arrogance to see the necessary steps taken to achieve such goals. Our society has a problem and that problem is the tendency to overlook things. This is not our fault, and the Chainsmokers see this. They realize these are merily the effects of our shift in learning styles. We have grown so accustomed to skimming and scanning rather than engaging due to social media and easily accessible information that we have lost the ability to focus. That is why bringing the Chainsmokers breakthrough single, ‘#selfie’ was so eye opening and impactful on our society. Technology has been an excuse to not pay attention, and the more we fail to do so, the more we are digging ourselves deeper and deeper into the slippery slope of arrogance. This song’s popularity shows a societal awakening to our shallowness. Rather than regretting the past, ‘Paris’ suggests to ‘show them we are better’ by delving into achieving your goals with a thirsty heart and mind.
(Buli). The song went viral, capturing a moment in time of change and evolution. It presents our technology addicted culture as something we can admit guilty of being apart of, accept the oddness of and laugh at ourselves for adapting to. Their joking approach eased acceptance of such criticism to a new, uncommon trend. This acceptance of uncommon trends manifested further into our culture with the approval of same sex marriages, legalized soon after in June of 2015. Music has the ability to revolutionize society. The Chainsmokers discovered this with the explosion of their first success single and continued to use this to their advantage with the release of the 2017 international hit, ‘Paris’. With expectations to continue shifting society’s belief system, this piece calls out our generation for day dreaming about a false life, rather than living in the moment and accepting reality. For this, our society is being branded as shallow, ignorant, and unoriginal. This song is a call to action, motivating this culture of dreamers to go out and achieve those ‘#goals’ that everyone is so quick to declare, yet too distracted to achieve. As with the title and surface level analysis of the song ‘Paris’, artists demonstrates the importance of digging deeper before drawing conclusions or making assumptions.
The Chainsmokers represents the illusion our society has been sucked into as ‘paris’, defined in the beginning of the lyrical music video as “1: a sentimental yearning for a reality that isn’t genuine 2: an irrecoverable condition that evokes nostalgia or daydreams.” Today, technology is making it easier and easier to falsify reality, resulting in a distorted understanding of happiness. This stands true with addictions, depression, or any other situations that evoke a desired escape. This message in unclear until looking solely at the sounds and melody and how it is used to amplify desired lyrical messages. The song begins with a slow build up of withheld piano chords. This simple beat is intensified with the addition of a steady base that stands as the foundation for the tempo of the song. Gradually, more uncomplicated tapping and background melodic sounds are added to exaggerate the lyrics that follow which read, ‘if we go down then we go down together’. This is meant to represent the voices of other generations ridiculing our society and showing hopelessness in our future. The sounds strip down to a basic guitar buildup meant to increasingly magnifies the lyrics, ‘let's show them we are better’, which is followed by a sucking or drawback of sound, then a sudden pause. Rests are often used in music as an indicator of importance before the unleashing of the more active, energetic and upbeat melody used in the chorus. This shift demonstrates hope where society is saying there is none. By keeping melody upbeat, the audience is able to accept their defaults with an attitude of innovation rather than self-pity. The lyrics ‘let's show them we are better’ is inducing an intrinsic motivator of proving the earlier generations of judgemental critics wrong about their accusations of being unrightfully
proud. The deliberate use of instagram star and teen idol, Alexis Ren, as the center focus of the music video verifies previously stated intentions of the song ‘Paris’. 19-year-old bikini model initially gained her fame from social media posts that received a great deal of attention. In an interview with reporter of the New York magazine, The Cut, Alexis tells about how quick viewers are to assume her body is photoshopped and challenge her authenticity (Jones). However, societal icon argues that she has been financially self-sufficient since she was 14 and wouldn’t be where she is today without hard work, independence and determination. ‘Paris’ suggests that our culture is overlooking the work that is required to be put in to achieve the life they imagine and see is possible through role models like Alexis. I believe this quick to judge mentality is due to our society's lack of authenticity. Therefore, we doubt hard work and accredit this perfection as deception.
While this hit single is a wake up call to millennials values and priorities, the approach is hopeful enough to initiate a desire for change rather than settling with regret. Regret is a healthy emotion, however, when undealt with, can have a relapsing effect on your desire to reengage with life. If you are constantly comparing yourself to others picture perfect life, you will time and time again judge yourself and regret not being as good as other is perceived to be. Our society is infatuated with this image of perfection, however, too blind by our arrogance to see the necessary steps taken to achieve such goals. Our society has a problem and that problem is the tendency to overlook things. This is not our fault, and the Chainsmokers see this. They realize these are merily the effects of our shift in learning styles. We have grown so accustomed to skimming and scanning rather than engaging due to social media and easily accessible information that we have lost the ability to focus. That is why bringing the Chainsmokers breakthrough single, ‘#selfie’ was so eye opening and impactful on our society. Technology has been an excuse to not pay attention, and the more we fail to do so, the more we are digging ourselves deeper and deeper into the slippery slope of arrogance. This song’s popularity shows a societal awakening to our shallowness. Rather than regretting the past, ‘Paris’ suggests to ‘show them we are better’ by delving into achieving your goals with a thirsty heart and mind.