Is it just me or is there a lot more hostility in pop music these days? I haven't been paying much attention until just recently, and while there are still a lot of love songs, there are a crop of songs, especially in the adult alternative genre, like Maroon 5's "Misery;" Sara Bareilles' "King of Anything;" Christina Perri's "Jar of Hearts;" John Mayer's "Heartbreak Warfare" from an album titled Battle Studies. Leona Lewis sings "You cut me open and I/ Keep bleeding, keep, keep bleeding love;" in way that makes love sound pathological, like hemophilia.

Bareilles' and Perri's songs are extended put downs seething with resentment and accusation, which is not to say that the men to whom they're addressed don't deserve it. Rob Thomas' "Mocking Bird" has the lines, "I don't want to love you now, if you'll just leave someday; I don't want to turn around, if you'll just walk away." I compiled this list from listening to The Pulse and Spectrum channels on SiriusXM. They're catchy tunes, performed well and seemingly quite popular.

There's a strong current of music that sounds like people think of love as just a source of pain and misery, something to fear and avoid. Lovesick yearning has always been around and people have written songs about it. There are a number of old folk songs about famous murders resulting from love affairs, but they seemed to be more cautionary tales of historical events. These current ones seem especially bleak, bitter and resentful, as if the switchblades are out.

It all reminds me of a book called Human Intimacy by Victor Brown which says that two things are required for true emotional intimacy, risk and commitment. In other words, intimacy is a process of learning how to be hurt and still stick with it, but that means that both partners need to be committed enough to do that.

Update: check out Theory of A Deadman (Not Meant To Be) There are are still a lot of traditional love songs (consider The Only Exception by Paramore), but I don't recall so many what just make relationships sound hopeless. Young people seem to have become pessimistic and negative about working out problems.