“‘Who you callin’ a b***h?’” The opening line of Queen Latifah’s song “U.N.I.T.Y.” from her 1993 album, Black Reign was a direct response to the way male rappers at the time used derogatory terms to refer to women.
 

The 90s were the first time women rappers had ever emerged in the music industry without being brushed off as a joke; they demanded respect, equality and showed no shame in expressing their opinions loud and proud through their music.
 

Artists and groups such as Destiny’s Child (Beyoncé Knowles, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams), Salt n’ Pepa (Cheryl James, Sandra Denton and Deidra Roper), TLC (Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes and Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas), Lil Kim’ and MC Lyte created a strong foundation for female musicians.
 

Unfortunately, the next generation including Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Ke$ha and the Pussycat Dolls (Nicole Scherzinger, Melody Thornton, Ashley Roberts, Jessica Sutta, Kimberly Wyatt and Carmit Bachar) have torn down this strong  foundation with lyrics like “‘Tonight I’mma let you be the captain, Tonight I’mma let you do your thing, yeah, Tonight I’mma let you be a rider’” from Rihanna’s hit “Rude Boy.”
 

Lyrics such as these degrade women down to nothing more than an object, thereby destroying the respect-demanding foundations women artists’ of the 90’s built for their successors.
 

Today, the music industry attempts to reach out to its audiences’ by giving listeners what they want. And as disappointing as it may be, what most listeners want to listen to is sex-laden lyrics with hardly or no depth.
 

“With the economy in a funk and record sales down for three years running, even established artists are sexing it up—no doubt encouraged by edgy industry executives,”  CNN.com said.
 

It’s unfortunate, but confirmed by CNN.com, that nowadays, sex sells. The artists who wear the most revealing outfits, have the hottest music videos and catchiest choruses are the ones who end up being successful.
 

As a result, almost every song heard on the radio today has some explicit reference to sex incorporated into it.
 

Quality of music was once measured by meaningful lyrics, overall message, skill, technique, the amount of sweat, blood and tears that were poured into it by the artist.
 

Unfortunately, this simply no longer seems to be the case. Producers today measure success by quantity, not quality.
 

How many views does does a song have on YouTube? Is it at the top of the charts on iTunes?
 

These are the things that matter to them, not that an important message be portrayed to the listener. Somewhere along the road a colossal tragedy struck the hip-hop genre, since then it has ceased to provide anything but degrading beats.
 

Label recruiters stopped looking for real talent, and started looking for who would turn out the most hits.
 

To achieve the maximum number of hits, auto-tune software is used on most artist’s voices to make every note sound perfect and polished. If you have a pretty face and producers like your “image” you are more likely to make it in the music industry compared to someone with an angelic voice but an unappealing appearance.
 

“When social and economic times are more threatening and pessimistic, we actually prefer others with more mature facial, body and personality characteristics,” Terry Pettijohn, a Ph.D. social psychologist at Mercyhurst College, said.
 

This is why an artist’s popularity today is solely based on their looks, who they are in a relationship with and how many times they tweet.
 

“Many of the lyrics have no real depth to them anymore either. Lots of mainstream artists don’t even write their own lyrics. The music is repetitive, and the lyrics sometimes involve swearing and the same typical situations, like ‘going to a club tonight’, ‘let’s get this party started,’” magazine, website, and book series Teen Ink contributor Gianna A. said.
 

As unfortunate as it is, music has drastically gone downhill since its peak in the eighties and nineties.
 

It is not fair to say that there is no good music out there today, however hardly any of it is recognized on the radio.
 

Any artist or group who actually attempts to get a message across through their lyrics is either not signed with a label or not popular enough to get their important stance heard.
 

Most people buying music today don’t want to listen to songs about broken hearts, pain and happiness. People want to listen to what everybody else is listening to: sex.
Steadily declining towards a point of no return, music needs to make a severe u-turn back to music that possesses actual meaning, or soon enough people will be singing about whips and costumes. Oh wait, Rihanna already did that in her 2011 song “S&M”.

By Pauline Na