A riposte to homophobia from the poppy end of hip-hop may be the most profound song either genre has produced

I was never one of those “I’m, like, so cool I listen to bands that haven’t even formed yet” types.

It was pop all the way – camp, often ridiculous and always cheesy. This left me open to mockery, but I was too busy belting out Spice Up Your Life or perfecting the moves to Vogue to care.

The time has come for me to stick up for pop. Previously, he was the pimply child I was waiting to mature before I publicly declared my pride. Now he has grown up, he’s handsome, he’s charismatic and I want you all to meet him properly.

Same Love by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis (featuring Mary Lambert) is the poppy end of hip-hop. It may well be the most profound ditty either genre has ever produced.

The duo reached No 1 on both sides of the planet – with the funny and timely Thrift Shop in the UK and Same Love in Australia. Same Love is a rapped riposte to hip-hop’s homophobia. It takes in equal marriage (“No freedom till we’re equal – damn right I support it”), religious bigotry (“God loves all his children is somehow forgotten/But we paraphrase a book written thirty-five hundred years ago”) and hip-hop’s solidarity gap (“If I was gay, I’d think hip-hop hates me … A culture founded in oppression/Yet we still don’t have acceptance for ’em”).

Mary Lambert provides that elusive quality, lesbian visibility, in the beautifully simple chorus where she sings about her love who keeps her warm. This demonstrates refreshing integrity. I remember when Will Young’s cover of Light My Fire refused to change the gender pronoun from “she” to “he” (even though Dame Shirley Bassey did so in her cover of the same song).

Ben Haggerty (AKA Macklemore) raps for “the day my uncles can be united by law”. If this doesn’t move you, the final powerfully poignant 30 seconds of the video will crack even the hardest of hearts.

It’s a far cry from the cheese-fest that usually puts commercial interest first, tenuous rhyming couplets second and poignancy last. I concede that pop is littered with perfunctory, stale aphorisms, fed to the mouths of One Direction/Westlife the minute they’re shoddily composed. Case in point: Rebecca Black – the YouTube pop “sensation” whose lyrics for her debut, Friday, include a heated introspective debate about whether she’ll sit in the front or back seat of her friend’s car. Surely the ultimate first world problem. It was the most inane lyrical transport example since Katie Melua’s opening lines to Nine Million Bicycles: “There are nine million bicycles in Beijing/That’s a fact – it’s a thing we can’t deny. [Thanks for clarifying what a fact is – helpful.] Just like the fact that I will love you till I die.”

It’s a sign of the times that Beyoncé’s lyrics contain more feminist polemic than Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. “My persuasion can build a nation” is the ultimate riposte to the patriarchy in Run the World (Girls.) “Strong enough to bear the children – then get back to business” is a bold comment on flexible working post-maternity leave. Anyone in doubt of this strength just needs to watch the Queen B’s recent Super Bowl performance.

There are times when pop stunts causes. Katy Perry’s UR So Gay does the opposite of Same Love and makes “gay synonymous with the lesser”, in Macklemore’s words.

Mel C’s entirely well-meaning If That Were Me tries so hard to be profound, it makes “zig-a-zig-ah” sound articulate: “Could you forgive my self-pity/When you’ve got nothing and you’re living on the streets of the city?/I couldn’t live without my phone/But you don’t even have a home.”

Naff lyrics are a comfort zone for repeat offenders Shakira and Madonna. Shakira is “starting to feel just a little bit abused – like a coffee machine in an office” (She Wolf). When Orwell advised us to use fresh similes, perhaps he didn’t realise it would come to this. Meanwhile, apparently it’s lucky that her breasts are small and humble so we don’t confuse them with mountains (Whenever, Wherever). Lucky indeed – that could have got awkward.

Despite giving us two of pop’s best simple similes (Like a Virgin/Prayer), Madge is responsible for some shockers. Her foray into quasi-rap in American Life produced: “I’m drinking a soy latte. I get a double shottie … I drive my Mini Cooper and I’m feeling super-duper.” And from her Confessions on the Dancefloor album, one of her mind-blowing “confessions” was: “I don’t like cities but I like New York/Other places make me feel like a dork.” Cringe.

Pop is in its element when it ditches earnest attempts at poignancy in favour of ironically naff lyrics, delivered with a knowing wink. And I’m not talking about Alanis Morisette’s erroneous idea of irony. I’m talking about Lily Allen rhyming Tesco with al-fresco in LDN, or this gem of ludicrousness from Kate Nash: “Birds can fly so high or they can shit on your head/Yeah they can almost fly into your eye and make you feel so scared/But when you look at them, and you see that they’re beautiful – that’s how I feel about you.” Or, an enduring favourite, Des’ree’s Life: “I don’t wanna see a ghost/It’s the sight that I fear most/I’d rather have a piece of toast.”

Bob Dylan can rest easy. Pop has finally taken up the good fight. Sort of. The times they are a-changin’.

via Media: Mind your language | theguardian.com http://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2013/mar/01/mind-your-language-same-love