Painters, illustrators and sculptors rarely come forth and outright explain the meaning of their art, so why are musicians doing it so often?
Annotating every song under the sun seems to be the mission of Genius, a digital media company based in the United States. It was founded in 2009 primarily for rap music and functions as a crowdsourced lyric-annotating encyclopedia. In essence, the site uses an editorial board and various volunteer contributors to collectively determine the meaning of lyrics and songs in general.
Since its founding, Genius has expanded to videos as well with its most popular show, Genius Verified, beginning in 2016. This YouTube series features artists explaining the lyrics of their most popular songs against a bright yellow backdrop. The Genius YouTube channel boasts an impressive 11.7 million subscribers, with notable artists like Billie Eilish, Lil Nas X and Pop Smoke appearing on it.
While Genius appears as a resource for fans to improve their knowledge of songs they love, it is fatally flawed. Art is rarely explained by the artist — for good reason. One of the most important aspects of interacting with art is grappling with its meaning. When an artist explains the meaning of their art, it discourages listeners from interpreting the lyrics themselves, which would enhance critical thinking and creativity as well as strengthen the connection between the artist and the listener.
Coming to a conclusion on your own about a piece of art is priceless. Genius undermines this impact by making listeners feel as if their interpretations are invalid because the “right” answer can be found with a few clicks.
In addition to their videos, the Genius website is also immensely popular, receiving nearly 288 million visits in January 2024 alone. In contrast to Genius Verified, where artists explain their own music, the Genius website allows anyone to annotate song lyrics. The site is a forum for listeners to share their interpretations of their favorite songs, but it has the same fatal flaw as the Genius Verified series.
Ultimately, these annotations breaking down the meaning of songs are from the minds of listeners rather than the mouths of artists. This is inherently a problem, because the Genius website treats these listener-made annotations as fact. While many annotations — especially for popular songs — have more than one contributor and are edited, reviewed and fact-checked by the Genius Editorial Board, most annotations do not. Annotations that go unchecked by the editorial board are stated as “unreviewed,” implying that the ones that go through this process are based in fact. Reviewed or not, this does not change that these annotations are merely interpretations, not objective truth.
There is no guarantee that these interpretations are right, yet they are presented as such. Additionally, annotators often shoehorn in meaning where there is none, delving much deeper into the lyrics than even the artist likely did. While the Genius website should be commended for pushing people to interpret the art they love, it goes about it in the wrong way. Emphasis should be placed on reaching your own conclusion about meaning rather than finding a supposedly correct answer on the internet.
Rather than trying to reach a consensus regarding song lyrics, Genius should prioritize discourse. To achieve this, not having an annotation review system that presents reviewed lyrics as fact would be a good first step. Like reading a difficult piece for an English class, trying to make sense of any art will enhance one’s critical thinking skills and creativity by making them use reasoning to craft a conclusion. This process of interpretation enhances media literacy when it comes to art and allows music to continue playing a vital role in society.
