Airplanes by B.O.B.

First impressions: Bob wants to pretend that airplanes are like shooting stars, because he wants to make a wish. Very superstitious, Robert wants to ensure that his wish is not wasted, and that the superstition gods approve of his substituting a shooting star with an airplane. Personally, I'd find a dandelion, wait until 11:11 or 12:21, or wait for my birthday. Seems more clear cut than a wish that may not even come true;. Those other ones are sure things. Oh shit, I forgot find a genie lamp. Good thing B.O.B. remembered for me. That's another really easy way to get a sure fire, high quality wish. None of these imported, knockoff wishes that might not even be compatible with your dreams.

It seems that Robbie wants a wish to turn back time, because the newfound fame and fortune has only brought pain. Obviously the only way to get rid of fame and fortune is to turn back time. It's really hard to get the public to forget about you. Just ask Paula Abdul. Also, money also lasts forever because stuff is just so cheap these days. There's nothing for a rich, young kid to blow his money on. Tyson knows what I'm saying. Bobby also says that he's staring at his phone hoping people don't call him back. I swear to Jesus if one more "artist" makes a song about how they cannot figure how to turn their go**am phone off I'm going to take away phone from our generation. If you can't use it, you're gonna lose it. Also, I am now unsure as to what he will use his hard-earned wish for. Maybe tech support?

The next verse talks about more specific reasons why the Bobster wants to go back in time. He no longer wants to get paid for making music. Then give away your CDs. Moving on. He then says that he's rapping to stay relevant. But he wants to be irrelevant. Thus, stop rapping (Please do this) and then you won't need a wish. These problems are beginning to look like they can all be solved relatively easily, thus eliminating the need for wishes and airplanes. He also says he wants to change the rap game and end the seemingly endless politics in said game. It seems that a career change into, say, politics would help him. What better way to waste all his money than finance a futile campaign for president. This would also make him irrelevant, as he would definitely lose. Afterall, who would vote for an incompetent, whiny rich boy with little political experience? That'll be the day that some guy becomes president for some less than legit reason...like his dad was president or something crazy like that. On second thought, he should find a wish. That'd be less dangerous for the future of America.

This is the ballad of a tortured Cobain-esque artist who now feels the pressures of fame and fortune. He thought he'd get into the game, make a lot of money, not be treated any differently, not have a phone that he has to answer all the time, and all would be good. And who can blame him? Rap feuds so rarely turn ugly and/or dangerous. He now wants to find a way to fade from public view, lose his money, break his phone, and change the politics of the rap game. The answer: wishing at airplanes. Obviously.

Words that now Rhyme

Usually I comment on specific songs, but this time I'd like to comment on songs as a whole. Listening to songs from the last decade or so has made me have a new appreciation for the ability to rhyme. At first I thought the artists of my generation lacked this ability, because they constantly wrote songs that were either not even close to rhyming or were just far enough off to not be close. Then I did some esearch (It's like the research old people used to do, but on the world wide web internets). I soon came to learn that since the time when I learned to rhyme, in 3rd grade, there have been new exceptions to the rhyming rules. To understand the way we now rhyme, let's begin with the new exceptions to the traditional rules. The following pairs of words now rhyme. I have also included the name of the researcher who discovered the rhyme, and the paper in which they discuss their discovery.

Ke$ha is the first major contributer, with these:

clock & stop

i.e Tick tock on the clock/And the party don't stop (Ke$ha, Tik Tok)

pop & up

i.e. Don't stop, make it pop/DJ blow my speakers up (Ke$ha, Tik Tok)

out & down

i.e. We go until they kick us out/Or the police shut us down (Ke$ha, Tik Tok)

find & time

i.e. What you got boy is hard to find/I think about it all the time (Ke$ha, Your Love is my Drug)

fried & mind

i.e. I'm all strung out my heart is fried/I just can't get you off my mind (Ke$ha, Your Love is my Drug)

me & away

i.e. I get so high when you're with me/But crash and crave you when you are away (Ke$ha, Your Love is my Drug)

As we can, anyone not familiar with the new rules would think that none of Kesha's songs were rhyming. Under the new exceptions, though, these are all acceptable rhymes.

Lil Wayne is also among the cornerstone figures in this new rhyme movement. Here are several of his contributions:

bad & ass

i.e. She got that good good, she Michael Jackson bad/I'm attracted to her, for her attractive ass

time & shine

i.e. And now we murderers, cuz we kill time/Knock her lights out, and she still shine

leave & team

i.e. I hate to see her go, but I love to watch her leave/But I keep her running back and forth like a soccer team

bad & bag

i.e. She don't even wonder cuz she know she bad/and I got her, nigga, grocery bag

G spot & bedrock

i.e. My room is the G-spot/Call me Mr Flinstone I can make your bed rock

bike & whites

i.e. I'm so pretty like, me on my pedal bike/He on my low scrunch, he on my echo whites

lobby & anybody

i.e. I'm at the W but I can't meet you in the lobby/Girl I gotta watch my back, cuz I'm not just anybody

conscious is & ESPN

i.e. She says I'm caged in, I think her conscious is/She watching that Oxygen, I'm watchin ESPN

B.O.B. is relatively new on the scene, but he has contributed several key amendments to the rhyming consitution. They include:

Girls & World

i.e. Beautiful girls, all over the world

Chasing & Wasted

i.e. I could be chasing, but my time would be wasted

Package & taxes & plastic

i.e. Baby, you the whole package, plus you pay your taxes/And you keep it real while them others stay plastic

These exceptions, though, are not enough to warrant the complete ovberhaul of the rhyming rules that bhas occured over the past 10 years. Just like how the amendments do not rewrite the contitution, these exceptions are not enough. That being said, there are several basic changes to rhyming which, when taken together, completely throw the traditional rules out the window. Here are a few new rules to follow when trying to make a song rhyme:

1) Repetition of the same word at the end of every line is now an acceptable method of rhyming. If all the words are the same, then they have to rhyme!

2) If you cannot find a word to rhyme with a previous line, distort the pronunciations of words until they rhyme

EX: Toddler and More did not rhyme, but Nicki Minaj made them rhyme by pronouncing "toddler" like "todd-lore." This makes them sound like they rhyme without having to actually rhyme.

3) You can also simply make the words of your song unintelligible. Most people are naive and will assume they rhyme.

4) If you have two words that do rhyme but you cannot find a way to put them at the end of the lines, then you may change the emphasis onto words that do rhyme, but are not at the end of the line.

EX: "And i don't wanna sound redundant/But i was wondering if there was something that you wanna know" [for an explanation of why these two words rhyme, see rule 7 below].

5) Don't be afraid of not rhyming. If you have something to say just say it! Don't even attempt to rhyme. Just say a line, then pause for 8 beats, then start again with 2 lines that do rhyme.

5.1) Don't attempt to rhyme, but don't skip lines. Just put lines together that clearly do not even come close to rhyming, and hope/pray/sacrifice a virgin to ensure that no one can hear the words over the beat. Be like Shontelle and don't even try to rhyme for the whole song and hope no one notices (I did).

6) Fake it. If you really can't figure out how to make to words rhyme, and you drank too much to find a thesaurus to find another word, then just play it off like it rhymes. Just move right a long to the next line, and no one will ever think twice about it. Fake it until you make it.

7) The newest rhyming rule is that the last syllables of the rhyming words no longer have to rhyme. I know this may seem crazy, but hear me out. It is now sufficient to have some syllable within the words rhyme. For example, Gucci Mane says "Girls are like buses/miss one next 15 one comin." Buses and Coming do not rhyme by the traditional rules of rhyming. But the middle syllables do, so, now, this is an acceptable rhyme.

To demonstrate how far rhyming has come, I have written a short rap, expressing my views on the subject of rhymes. Here goes:

Way back when words used to rhyme

Now there's new rules about what rhyme

Let's say you can't think of a line

Have no worries, it'll be alright

Rhyming is no longer an exact science

Lots of rhymes must be deciphered

You may think you can't rhyme with silver

But I can, because I'm iller

This new wave of songs is so creative

It's not a sign that we're all retarded

We're way to busy to try and rhyme

To check a thesaurus takes lots of effort

I used to think rappers were just lazy

I made a stink and complained daily

But now I see how foolish I was

To demand quality from glorified thugs

Writing raps is so very difficult

I realize now it's not their fault

Standards have fallen, now the bar's low

And this rap got me a record deal, so I gotsta go

That literally took me 7 minutes to write. Now, if we extrapolate that data, it means that an entire song would take well over an hour to write, and an album would take almost two full days of work, assuming 8-hour workdays.