PCG's Joel Hilliker Denounces Pop Singers as "Fools" with "Pathetic Fans"

Recently PCG's Joel Hilliker wrote an article discussing popular music. It is entitled "The Song of Fools".

(Out of respect for copyright law I shall not quote any of the lyrics quoted in Hilliker's article.)

First Hilliker talks about how alluring popular music is.

Pop music grabs your ear and draws you in. The catchy tune, the enchanting vocal, the clever lyric, the sweet beat—the radio dial is full of these: songs crafted to captivate you and stick in your mind. And now here you are, humming along to that mesmerizing hook. But wait—what are these rich, glamorous people singing about?

Hilliker tries to incite envy by calling these singers rich and glamorous. While certainly this is true of the more popular singers out there in fact most singers are not so fortunate. Many singers who are not with the major labels struggle to make a living.

Have you looked at the lyrics of the top pop songs? Pick any hit, read the words, and you quickly see how stupid it is. Or vulgar. Or self-indulgent and vain. Or immoral and perverse. Or dangerous and sick.

Hilliker devalues popular music in order to alienate PCG's followers away from mainstream culture so that they become socially dependent upon the PCG group. Condemning the world outside of PCG makes PCG look like a haven from the alleged rottenness of mainstream society.

It is basically a celebration of the singer’s own awesomeness and of the glamour of lascivious city life. ... This is a theme in a lot of these songs: [Hilliker then quotes some lyrics and then sarcastically declares that he does not understand the lyrics.] Excuse me, what?

Careful, Hilliker. Clearly he does not understand the lyrics. If he is unaware of what they mean and wants to understand then he should humbly educate himself instead of expressing scorn for colloquial language.

Also such "criticism" could accidentally fall into racism. If he is even unaware of what these colloquial lyrics say he may very well be unaware that it may be associated with an ethnic minority. Where we are unsure about something we should search out for knowledge instead of covering ignorance with scorn.

This was the biggest song for most of 2015. It might have been the most “uplifting” of the handful of hits I looked at. Every one of them was terrible. Gross, lustful, boastful, angry, depressing, brutal, violent, disgusting, nasty. Far worse than I expected! Sampling these lyrics requires skipping over most of them because they are so explicit and profane, if they even make sense at all.

It is strange to see Hilliker complaining that these popular songs as being so unbearably awful for him that he has to keep his mind from even looking at the lyrics. So often he talks about serious affairs and about things that are wrong in the world but suddenly he finds himself filled with shocked disgust at lyrics he disapproves of?

Of course who knows? Maybe he really was filled with such horror and disgust reading those popular song lyrics for this article. Maybe he can feel this way about song lyrics while at the same time so often talking about serious affairs in his other articles and radio broadcasts. It is still hard to buy it though.

Hilliker then associates this supposedly vile behavior expressed within popular music with sadness and pain. He also calls the pop singers "fools" and denigrate their fans as "pathetic". But he offers to potential recruits the lure of not being like these despised people. This creates an artificial sense of elitism.

Unsurprisingly, equally popular to these anthems of immorality are the ballads of the brokenhearted. ... These fools followed their hearts into disastrous relationships, and pathetic fans are now grooving on their depressing confessions. Do you really want to absorb yourself in that miserable world?

We live in the world that is. Many terrible things happen in the world that is.

Does Hilliker think that people want to hear music that tells people that all is well, happy and good?

Also listening to popular music is a way for us to find connections with one another.

But if one follows which is insinuated in this article and stop listening to popular songs that PCG disapproves of then he or she will be isolated from mainstream society. It will be harder for such a person to connect with people using these popular songs. This is not accidental. The goal is vilifying mainstream culture in this way is to make readers socially dependent upon the PCG group. We must be aware of what talk like this is designed to do.

The peddlers of these songs are attractive—or certainly fascinating, even in bizarre ways. But theirs is the seduction of the “strange woman” of Proverbs 5 and 7. They often live debauched lives. Their views are twisted; their morals are sick. The most popular among them openly advocate rank materialism, illegal drug use, sexual license and perversion. They are miserable—often openly, proudly so! Yet millions of young people listen, watch, hum along, absorb and allow these pop stars to shape their thinking.

2 Corinthians 6:17 tells us to come out from the world and be separate. Hear the rebuke of the wise! It’s so much better than getting caught humming the song of fools.

Back in 1856 Gustave Flaubert wrote the novel, Madame Bovary. It describes a woman who falls into a rut and ends up having an adulterous affair and things go wrong. Some people thought he was promoting adultery. He was even forced to go through a trial about his novel. But he explained that he was merely describing her situation without judging it. Instead the reader is allowed to decide how he or she should view the events described. Hilliker does not appear to have yet learned that convention of modern culture.

It is strange how in this article there seems to be no awareness that often other people write lyrics, not the singers themselves.

This article is terrible. He calls singers and their fans "fools" and "pathetic". This article is designed to make people socially dependent upon PCG. Elsewhere he so often talks about frightening things but here he dramatically insists that he has to look away from the lyrics of popular songs because they are so disgusting and abhorrent to him. Ignorance is covered by scorn and invective. It even borders on racism by denigrating colloquial language even while he admits that he is ignorant of what such lyrics mean.

The purpose of this article is too get people to join PCG. One of the requirements of PCG membership is to pay three tithes and extra offerings to PCG for the rest of one's life. That is how Hilliker can live in a house like this.