When the Miley song is on: analyzing the poppiest of intrigues

I have a tendency to take things too seriously. I think that's a prerequisite for being such a prick about something as fickle as music. I devolve existential prerogatives out of mundane pop lyrics and deconstruct melodies to be valued by their parts.

And boy oh boy does it get me into trouble. What is it about Destiny's Child's "Say My Name" that so perfectly summarizes the human condition of loneliness? In other words, what pretentious taboo can I ascribe to the song to forgive my dancing wildly to it at the Plaza Friday night?

The way I see it, there are two key differences between radio-friendly pop music people admit to liking and the kind of pop music you can't put on the stereo without getting smacked.

The first is easy: presentation. Destiny's Child weren't exactly nuns, but all their coordinated outfits those first few years were tailored to a mother's eye (literally-Beyonc�'s mom drew them up). But even as their clothes got more revealing, they loosely fit the themes of their songs (camouflage for "Survivor," etc.). The music remained the priority.
It runs deeper, too. So long as we're pretending to care about what the message in music is saying, we can easily delineate between a self-empowered riot on quest for the world to bend around you (remember the album Annie-mal?) and a weak-kneed admission that you desperately need acceptance (see: Miley Cyrus' "Party In the U.S.A."). Under some demented conception of higher-order morals, we conclude that Miley Cyrus is inadvertently stunting the individual development of our youth's individual spirits by showing insecurity in a foreign environment, while Annie is barking motivational truths steeped in self-empowered autonomy by showing power in vulnerable situations.

But I'm already losing traction. How is the lonely anxiety portrayed in "Party in the U.S.A." any less legitimate than the version I just championed in "Say My Name"? Why is it that Beyonc� is able to cut her Boy Scouts uniform in half to appear at an awards show, but Miley Cyrus can't so much as throw on a tank-top without drawing ire? Remember, Destiny's Child were underage when they first made it big, too. The difference is: so were we.