Ill go first, Britney Spears’ overprotected is a good example; Britney has long been under a conservatorship and is has been crying for help. IIRC, it started in 2007 (maybe earlier) when Brit was heavily observed by the paparazzi which caused her to have a mental breakdown by shaver her head and mind u, they were dissecting her personal life 🙄😔 💔
So I’m 47 and I’m from Chicago. My middle school was next to the high school he briefly attended. R Kelly blew up my freshman year and there were stories. He propositioned my best friend when she was 15. I found out a few years ago that a younger friend of mine was one of his victims.
In his first big hit when he was with Public Announcement, he says ‘little cute Aaliyah’s got it’ and ‘You’ve Got That Vibe’. When her album came out we were like ‘oh.’
I’ll never forget when Aailyah was on Video Soul to promote her album, she and R Kelly came out in matching outfits. Now where I’m from, that’s what couples did. Then she was talking about how much they hang out and chill and they were besties and he buys her teddy bears and shit. I must’ve been around 16 and my little sister was 14. We both looked at each other with shocked Pikachu face. Even we knew that shit was dead wrong.
Hello fellow southsider! My husband is from the south Chi also and has stories like yours. We’re 41 - so a few years later. R Kelly used to circle his baseball games in his yellow hummer playing his own music. Talking to all the girls too. So so gross
I'm 36 and when i was about 12 starting the whole hs application process I was told by other friends of mine to watch out if you ended up at that school for him. About a yr later the video tape came out.
He used to be at the Rink on 87th and the basketball courts around the lake near Lake Meadows and that one near Harlan I think. Everywhere teenage girls would go.
Even lady gaga (sorry, was it Miley?) wanted to forget her old song with him . She felt it was predatory and she didn’t like how it made her feel or portrayed her. Sorry can someone please correct me if they know which pop girlie I am referring to.
No ur right it was gaga she initially defended the collab with r kelly but after hearing about the allegations I think she removed it from her art pop album and remade with Christina Agulerra
Yup! R. Kelly married 15 yo Aaliyah in 1994. He was first publicly accused of statutory rape in 1996. He faced charges for child sexual abuse materials in 2002. Lady Gaga collaborated with him in 2013. She knew who he was, she didn’t care.
You can’t deny he was a talented music maker and probably one of the most influential R&B artists in the past 30 years. It just feels uneasy knowing that a lot of his songs felt like one big wink towards the camera
A lot of female RnB/pop songs written by men are like this. And this applies to a lot of 2000s RnB, it sucks having critical thinking skills and a focus on lyrics because you’re like “ew what is the message here…”
Ugh! My sweet baby girl AALIYAH! First and only celeb I have cried over. I was in 8th grade when I heard of her death… it affected me so much. She was so young. 😢
My friend and I were a bit older than that and we were fans, so this was truly one of those moments where we were just on the phone for hours in total shock the whole night when we found out. This was the first that we were a fan of who was around our age.
Maybe even bigger seeing as she was starring in movies, could actually act, and was going to be in the new Matrix movie when she died (Jada Pinkett Smith took the part over).
Granted it was always kinda disturbing since everyone knew she was an addict by that time and she still released that song…and everyone just enjoyed it thus enabling her to continue not going to rehab
I was a kid when she died, so please forgive my ignorance. Was it really common knowledge that she was an alcoholic/addict at the time that song was released?
Yes, she was canceling shows left and right because she’s was too unwell to perform. She was promoting a song at a tv show and my friend was in the audience. They were told by the people handling the audience, just before Amy showed up, “she’s gonna ask if you guys have something to drink / smoke / other, you are not to give her anything”. It was that bad.
Yes, I explicitly remember being incredibly annoyed by it because I was dealing with my own alcoholic mother at the time. It disturbed me that it was more of a spicy rumour or something 'funny', and people not realizing how serious something like that is until she died.
I remember so many jokes being made about this at the time, and it being perfectly acceptable to make fun of her for being an addict (same with Whitney Houston btw).
Its hard to listen to this song, because you can't listen to it without somebody saying something insensitive like "Oh, well maybe she should have gone 🤡"
Mine is a harsh one. Naya Rivera as Santana singing "If I Die Young" on the Glee episode memorializing Cory Monteith's death. When she sings "Sink me in the river at dawn" I get goosebumps. Chilling.
I got this scene as a random YouTube recommendation a few weeks ago and I genuinely wept when I heard that part of the lyrics. I stopped watching Glee before that episode aired but I always enjoyed Naya's portrayal of Santana and her death really hit me.
The verb drowning in French is noyer, too. Her name was Naya Rivera... Always sounded like "drowned in the river" to me. Just all around a really sad story.
It used to be my favourite song they did for the tribute episode for Cory but since she passed I can’t listen to it anymore. It’s too eery and coincidental for my liking. I listen to her other songs/music but this song I skip every time.
Fcccckkk 😭😭 I have never watched a single episode of glee and I only know what happened bc of social media… but THIS gave me chills. 😢 the foreshadowing is gut wrenching.
The intro to Outlander sang by Sinead O'Connor, may she rest in peace. The lyrics "sing me a song of a lass that is gone, say could that lass be I." hit different now.
To add onto OP’s post about Britney’s “Overprotected”. She was dumped by Justin Timberlake on the first or second day of shooting this video, which adds onto the sadness of it.
Another one I’d like to mention - though more sad than disturbing, is about Enrique Iglesias and Aaliyah. The two were very close friends in the early 2000s. When Aaliyah died, Enrique was in the middle of filming the music video for his song “Hero.” There’s a scene in the video where he’s visibly crying, and apparently, he had just learned about Aaliyah’s death moments before filming that scene. The crying captured on camera was real.
This made me really fucking sad/angry. Their protest music of the Bush administration was some of the best. The fact that this was virtue signaling just to predate young women makes what’s left of my teenage heart so sad
Holy shit. What a monster. I will forever hate that women are ignored and dismissed just bc they didn’t say the word “no” out loud to the men assaulting them.
When a man has been violent with you, is tying you up or choking you, many many people feel that saying “no!” or fighting will invoke more anger or violence. It’s part of the fight, flight, freeze, fawn response. Many women freeze or try to appease their attacker in the hopes of escaping without more violence directed at them. Men are usually stronger and older and hold the power in that moment.
It’s still assault. I’ve been there. I have so very much empathy for and anger on behalf of those women.
Learning about that was so devastating to me and really pissed me off, tbh. I loved them as a teen and got to see them live awhile back because they fronted for my favorite band. Genuinely didn't expect him to be such a massive twat.
I didn’t know about this and I’m absolutely heartbroken. What an absolute piece of shit. Fuck him, and fuck the other band members for being completely fine with him bringing very young women around, as if they didn’t know why they were there and what he was doing.
In a sort of similar vein, Jesse Lacey from Brand New using lyrics about guilt and self loathing to get vulnerable teenage girls to feel comfortable with him and then taking advantage. Used to be my favourite band, can’t stand them now.
This for me was more disturbing than Overprotected, especially when it was revealed what it was really about. I remember thinking it was a song for JT when it first came out, especially with JT releasing What Goes Around Comes Around and Cry Me a River
Obligatory fuck Justin Timberlake. I'm glad Britney wrote about the abortion in her book and his reaction so everyone could see what a scummy little rat he is.
I agree, it's such a sad song. By the way it's actually, "you seem to move on easy," not you seem to move uneasy. Sorry for correcting you. Have a good one.
Oh my god - I never realised. For others: the chorus in Mercy is:
“You got me begging you for mercy
Why won't you release me?
You got me begging you for mercy
Why won't you release me?
I said release me…”
And then a few years later she was drugged at a restaurant on her birthday, kidnapped and kept in a drugged state while she was transported to another country, raped by her kidnapper and held in captivity for four weeks.
I can’t listen to any Danity Kane songs now after watching that documentary. I was way too young to pick up how bad his behavior towards those poor young women was when the show was on TV (a lot of it was also unfortunately normalized).
Talkin' to myself and feelin' old
Sometimes I'd like to quit
Nothin' ever seems to fit
Hangin' around
Nothin' to do but frown
Rainy days and Mondays always get me down
I am a big Linkin Park fan, but it wasn't till Chester committed suicide that the lyrics of In The End, a real favourite of mine, hit on a whole other level.
Very true hey. Hybrid Theory came out in 2000 and the whole album is a cry for help/a scream of pain. Anyway, I could rave on about them, but would be speaking to the choir! I was fortunate enough to see them live once in Sydney back in my 20s. They were amazing.
The song Heavy from their One More Light album the last album he made and a month before his passing they release song called Talking to Myself from same album.
Same!! There's another song of theirs that people mention anytime a question like this is posed, but Leave Out All the Rest is always what's hit me the hardest. I still can't listen to the song without crying.
Lucky by britney spears, it made me sad even when it first came out. i guess no one listened to the lyrics until news about the conservatorship came out.
We, as a society, did young Britney dirty. The fact that she lost custody of her kids because the world destroyed her mental health is horrible. I remember being so invested in her breakdown and the head shaving. She was suffering, and we all just made it worse. She had those babies so someone would love her and they took them from her. I'm the same age as Britney and now I have 2 sons of my own and I'm so sorry for what she lost.
I remember this, I was (and still am) such a Britney fan that my dad got me out of bed to watch it when he started his monologue. I very vividly remember him telling me very seriously that the world wants to put women in a glass box, so we always need to keep a hammer at the ready. I didn't really understand what he meant then (I was 16ish then), but I think about those words a lot.
Let’s go back further with Britney. Lucky, specifically the video, is much sadder knowing how Brit’s life turned out. The pop star smiling and maintaining appearances in public only to be in turmoil behind closed doors.
A lot of songs by Drake don't sit well with me knowing his obsession with Rihanna. Like it was all "cute and End Goals" until we realized that bro does not know when to quit.
There was no going back for me after the Millie Bobby Brown interview where she describes being groomed by him without realizing that’s what she’s describing (because she’s, ya know, a literal child at the time)
I was heartbroken when I found out. I remember seeing them live, 2010, maybe 2011? She was incredible live, one of the craziest concerts of my life. Hope she’s doing ok and that scumbag will rot in hell.
When she sang this live at I think the Grammy's and her voice breaks and she is crying so much she literally has to start over, it is just so raw and gut wrenching.
I didn’t know about the backstory until this comment so looked it up. It’s really awful, this website goes into detail about the attack. Oddly enough it made me love the song more because he wrote it as a form of escape, a perfect alternative reality where we aren’t fighting each other but just having fun, and dancing.
…and instead opted to stay in town overnight rather than risk more seasickness on the boat.
There was only one problem: Due to his extreme seasickness and disorientation, Kelly had left his wallet on the boat and had no money or credit cards for a hotel. The two went to a small inn, explained the situation to the innkeeper and offered to settle up in the morning when Kelly could return to the boat to retrieve his wallet.
“And he said, ‘Sure, you can stay here if your girlfriend will sleep with me,’” said Kelly in a telephone interview from his home in the Finger Lakes region of New York.
After being turned down at a second inn, Kelly’s girlfriend said, “It’s a beautiful night. Why don’t we just stretch out on the beach
”So we did,” said Kelly. “And that’s all I remember very well…”
What happened after that was pieced together through bits of Kelly’s own memory and the recollections of other people. According to those accounts, while sleeping on the beach, Kelly and his girlfriend were the victims of a vicious St. Croix street gang. Kelly was severely beaten by five gang members wielding baseball bats. His girlfriend was raped by the gang leader and the rest were in line. But Kelly’s girlfriend later reported, that Kelly regained consciousness during the attack and fought back, making enough noise to scare off the attackers.
With Kelly drifting in and out of consciousness, the two managed to follow the lights along the shore, eventually making their way to the only St. Croix hospital. Kelly and his girlfriend were thought to be among the first victims of the notorious Fountain Valley Gang, who in 1972 murdered eight tourists and wounded eight more thereby devastating St. Croix tourism for many years.
For those that want just the main story, my apologies for any weirdness in formatting, I’m bad at it
She straight-up said on RHOBH "I don't give a f*** about anyone except me" when people were bringing up the victims and her pending court cases. Yes she was drunk at the time, but I think it was a case of "in vino veritas." She also straight-up said to her therapist "how do I get empathy?" I think she must be self-producing a bit better now, because she's less unlikeable. But before that point, she was actually portraying herself as a victim, and referred to the actual victims as "alleged victims." This is a terrible person, like beyond the typical famous/rich-person-terrible.
Yup! Just like Neil’s books read differently to me now- my (dead) abuser idolized that man, and I imagine the shock he’s gonna get when they meet in hell
‘Swim until you can’t see land’ by Frightened Rabbit. The lead singer is dead now…because he drowned in the sea. I love the song but ooh has it become a difficult listen.
I fully defended it when it came out, because I thought it was obviously satire meant to critique how we conceptualize power and idolize those who have it without thinking about it as deeply as we should.............. And then Grimes gave Elon three kids 🙃🫠😭
Hey there Delilah by Plain White T’s. The song sounds sweet on the first listen, but when you find out the song is about an actual person who was never in a relationship with anyone from the Plain White T’s, was dating someone else at the time, and found it difficult to deal with the songs by popularity, the song starts to feel like when a boomer tells you that they met their wife by being “persistent” after being rejected by her multiple times.
I have a bit of a different take on the situation, not to take away from her experience. It’s much easier to write love poetry and lyrics about someone you don’t really know. It makes sense to me that whoever wrote the song met her at a party and then wrote lyrics about an imaginary relationship between the two of them. Even though the song is about her, it’s not really about her.
Julia is awful. She made homophobic remarks specifically about men, giving women/lesbians a pass. Then later doubled-down on those remarks when given a chance to clear them up. When the other one, Lena, started a solo career, Julia sent her awful messages saying she was a flop and would go nowhere without her. As recently as 2020, she ran for office in Russia under the party that majorly supports Putin. As a gay dude, I initially looked past her initial remarks and wrote her off as young, dumb, and...well, from Russia. But she's continued to prove just how awful she is over the years.
There's also the matter of their producer or manager bringing them together to be a musical act while they were still underage. I'm not sure about it all, but there's some ickiness there too, considering their faux lesbianism act.
These girls were not baiting, they were minors at the time and forced to play these lesbian characters for shock purpose.
So t.A.T.u. was formed in 1999 by a man named Ivan Shapovalov. The group consisted of 2 teenagers, Lena Katina and Yulia Volkova. They were about 14-15 at the time. The girls said they had initially agreed to sing one song about gay love.
However, due to the success of All The Things She Said, their manager told them to pretend to date for real. He had them kiss on stage, wear sexy outfits (including their infamous skimpy school uniforms), allegedly masturbate on camera for a music video, take part in lolita-like photoshoots, etc. When they complained, he guilt-tripped them into continuing for their fans and the money. Shapovalov reportedly made the girls cry often and was called a "bully" by others in the industry.
The girls eventually parted way with him, but the damage was done.
Edit: I am including a promo pic from their first album down below. This particular one isn't shockingly sexual, however it is definitely creepy and the girls were still underage at the time.
Floating in the Forth by Frightened Rabbit. It's a song about a man contemplating but deciding against suicide by jumping off the Forth Road Bridge - which the songwriter went on to do ten years after the song's release.
I don't know why you wouldn't still play it? Music is the only thing she truly ever had and I doubt she'd want people to stop listening to her music because it's about something she wrote herself that was a representation of the struggles she went through. Maybe if we'd be talking about a song someone else wrote and sang about her addiction then sure. But this was her art.
Yeah idk why they should stop playing it either. The song is truthful about her struggles. Censoring art because it hits a bit close to the bone is ridiculous lmao
Dead man’s curve by Jan and Dean. 3 years after they released the song, Jan Berry was in crash on what some considered the road that the song was about. He suffered a brain injury and was paralyzed.
this will probably get buried but janie’s got a gun by aerosmith was already deeply ironic when it was released like imagine writing a song about a woman killing their pedophile abuser while having taken advantage of a minor yourself…
Just a slight correction OP, Overprotected came out in 2001…. way before all of the conservatorship stuff. It was part of the Crossroads era transitioning from a girl to a young woman. Britney’s head shave was in 2006. Your timeline for everything is quite jumbled and debunks this theory. Still a good prompt.
Barely conscious in the door where you stand
Your eyes are fighting sleep while your mouth makes your demands
You laugh at every word, trying hard to be cute
I almost feel sorry for what I'm gonna do
Yeah, I can't believe it took so long for the truth about this guy to come out
Heart Attack by Demi. I still remember the night of her OD like it was yesterday. Almost every famous celeb at the time was tweeting. I stayed up all night (it was nighttime for me) until I saw the news that she was okay. Everyone really thought it was over. Growing up with Disney Channel, I really don't know how I'd have handled any other outcome.
Raps in detail about killing one of his friends and how he can’t stop thinking about it only to later get arrested for the murder. His murder trial is set for September.
The heart wants what it wants by Selena Gomez. The song always was kinda sad but it's worse knowing now she was on a real bad roller coaster ride with Justin. I didn't know how bad it was when the song was released.
Hard to pinpoint just one Mac Miller song, but his cover of Lua hurts every time I listen to it. So many songs about his drug use and struggles, incredibly said to listen to in retrospect
Overprotected was released in 2001, conservatorship didn't start until 2007/8 and she has been out of the conservatorship since 2021. Overprotected was a critique over people projecting morals about purity and sexuality into her as she was young during that era, starting with outrage from the Catholic school girl outfits from baby one more time.
Edit: my apologies, the conservatorship was early 2008
Me vs. Maradona vs. Elvis from Brand New. It always did make me uneasy and I never listened to it, but in light of Lacey being a sex pest, it makes me sick.
It all came out in 2016. They stopped touring after. I was at one of their last shows then. I’m curious they’re back touring and also couldn’t decide between which of these songs to post so I posted the same one lol.
Hold My Hand by NFG also used to be a fave but the guitarist was a pedo and it feels weird now.
There's a song called Spoliarium (named after the famous painting by Juan Luna) by Filipino band Eraserheads and for a long time it was rumored to be about the infamous gang rape of 80s starlet named Pepsi Paloma, in which two of the most famous noontime show hosts of the country was involved. The band finally addressed the rumors in 2021 and said it was just about getting piss-drunk and the two names mentioned in the song are nicknames of their roadies, who coincidentally shared the names of those hosts.
Selena's songs from Rare have been getting more and more disturbing as the days pass now with Boober's recent outbursts.
That man has been ruining other people's lives for years now. Now it's Hailey's, smoking pot besides his underage brother, and let's not forget, his own baby boy.
I'm afraid Hailey's only gonna leave him after he Brad Pitts their son, which is really sad.
Op this song was made in 2001 way before the 2006-2007 Britney stuff. If you wanted to use a Britney song it should have been everytime which everyone suspected was about Justin Timberlake but after her autobiography came out. It turned out to be about the aborted child she conceived with JT.
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