At my gym (where I found myself pretty much everyday last year), they keep the radio set on a local station that plays a ceaseless stream of top-20 commercial tunes, on repeat. I usually bring my headphones to spare my ears the anguish of the full-frontal radio candy assault. However, I occasionally forget my headphones or don’t use them (because I failed to charge my iPod battery or something like that). On the occasions where I’m subjected to the “gym songs,” I have to fight against a small part of myself…a part of me that starts wondering, “Why do the masses spend their time listening to this rubbish when there’s an endless supply of incredible, original music coming out every week?” I actually told one of the guys who works at the gym that I was going to start wearing a t-shirt that says, “Why are the same whack-ass tunes always playing at this gym?” …of course, I realize these thoughts are not coming from a good place in me; it’s just hard to suppress them sometimes. Fortunately, I can vent about this to you, my fellow lovers of real, quality tunes
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In addition to just wanting to vent a bit, I mention all of the above to describe the context in which I heard David Guetta’s song “Sexy Chick” (real title, “Sexy Bitch”), featuring Akon. I started hearing this song in the gym, and it struck me because it’s dance music (though the folks at my gym don’t realize it). (You can check out the video for the song below.)

My reaction to hearing this song was one of mixed feelings. On the one hand, it was just another gym song in my mind. On the other hand, I was happy to hear dance music being foisted upon the masses. In writing this post, I ended up listening to the song a few times, and my final take on it is that I’m cool with it I think it’s good overall to have dance music (in whatever form) reaching stations like the one my gym plays.
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On a slightly different note, I’ve always found it interesting to observe and study the evolution of musical forms…jazz, classical music, hip hop, and dance music. While hip hop and pop still seem to have a stronghold on the American psyche at the moment, dance music is certainly making an impact on these genres in interesting ways…often in subtle ways that the masses are missing.
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EB