Bring Back That Lovin’ Feelin’

When Music Reached for Something Higher

I was in Fort Lauderdale over the weekend, driving to meet friends for dinner, when Make It Real by The Jets came on. A favorite of mine. A ballad so tender, so earnestly romantic, it now felt like a message from another time. The melody was simple, the harmonies pure, the lyrics unafraid of sentiment. It carried a longing that was unmistakably human—the kind of song that once filled the airwaves but now feels like a relic, something we lost without ever realizing it was slipping away.

And then, One Moment in Time by Whitney Houston. The strings swelled, the percussion built like a heartbeat racing toward something bigger than itself, and Whitney’s voice—strong, clear, full of purpose—rose to meet it. My eyes welled up. I was struck by the sheer beauty of it, by how the words weren’t just heard but felt, how they reached into you, held you there, and refused to let go.

That’s when it hit me: Why aren’t we having more of these songs today?

Where are the ballads that move the soul? Where are the songs that take their time, that build, that lift? Where are the melodies that feel like they were written for something more than a fleeting moment of attention?

I don’t ask this as an exercise in nostalgia, but as a real question about what has happened to our culture. Because music isn’t just entertainment; Music shapes us. It imprints on us. It teaches us what to feel, how to love, what to value.

And when music changes, we change.

When Music Inspired

There was a time when music—especially mainstream music—had a certain kind of dignity. It wasn’t perfect, and every era had its excesses, but the dominant force in popular music was always, at its core, something refined. Songs had melodies you could hum, lyrics you could understand, messages you could carry with you long after the music stopped playing.

The celebrated ballads of the ‘60s and ‘70s—Unchained Melody, The Way We Were, Bridge Over Troubled Water—were not just songs, they were messages, reminders of what it meant to be human, to love, to struggle, to endure. They weren’t written to shock or titillate; they were written to inspire, to beautify, to ennoble.

In the ‘80s, power ballads ruled. Making Love Out of Nothing at All by Air Supply, Open Arms by Journey, Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler—songs that made you feel, that called you to something greater than yourself. Even pop anthems, like Madonna’s Like a Prayer, had depth, had meaning. They were more than beats and marketing gimmicks; they were crafted with intention.

By the ‘90s, the heart of music still beat strong. I Will Always Love You was a worldwide sensation, My Heart Will Go On captured a generation’s belief in romance, I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing by Aerosmith made even rock fans sentimental. Hip-hop and R&B, which had a rebellious edge, still found ways to mix toughness with introspection—Lauryn Hill’s Ex-Factor, Tupac’s Dear Mama, and Biggie’s Juicy were all about something more than ego.

Music that inspires has not disappeared. Every so often, a song emerges that reminds us of what once was. Adele’s Hello was one of those songs—big, dramatic, aching, beautifully written. All of Me by John Legend was another—tender, intimate, a declaration of love without irony. And just last year, Die With a Smile by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars became the biggest song in the world, proving that there is still a deep hunger for music that uplifts, that tells a story, that connects.

But these songs are now the exception, not the rule.

The Descent into the Vulgar

I remember when Doggystyle by Snoop Dogg was a phenomenon. I was a Freshman in college and I loved it. It was controversial, but it was also an outlier, something that felt like a rebellion rather than the rule. Back then, rap and hip-hop were still diverse—there was Gangsta’s Paradise by Coolio, a cautionary tale, Changes by Tupac, which wrestled with injustice. But over time, the rebellion became the mainstream. The crudeness became expected. The vulgar became the default.

Fast forward to today, and Doggystyle seems almost tame. What was once the exception is now the rule.

Look at what tops the charts now: WAP by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, a song so explicit that it would have been unthinkable even in the hedonistic days of ‘80s rock. Pound Town by Sexyy Red, a song so lewd it barely qualifies as music at all. These aren’t underground tracks—they are mainstream, celebrated, awarded.

Even artists who once represented elegance and talent have had to degrade their work just to compete in this circus of debauchery.

Beyoncé, who once sang Halo—a luminous, almost spiritual love song—has leaned more heavily into brash, aggressive, and sometimes explicit themes in recent years. While she remains one of the most talented vocalists of her generation, the mainstream rewards spectacle over soul, dominance over devotion, and defiance over dignity. The quiet, sweeping ballads that once defined pop music have become rarer, even among its greatest artists.

Christina Aguilera, who once soared through Beautiful, a song about self-acceptance, turned to raunchy, guttural gimmicks to stay relevant. Her powerhouse voice, capable of delivering hits with grace and depth, now fights for attention in an industry that values provocation over melody.

Even worse, music has turned into a forum for pettiness, for feuds so trivial they would be laughable if they weren’t taken so seriously. Kendrick Lamar’s They Not Like Us, a song entirely devoted to tearing down another artist—Drake—became a cultural event, dissected like it was some grand artistic achievement. But it wasn’t. It was a schoolyard taunt put to a beat.

Imagine if Sinatra had written a song dissing Tony Bennett. Imagine if Whitney Houston had recorded a track savaging Mariah Carey. The very idea is absurd. They were competitors, perhaps, but they were artists first. They understood that music is bigger than ego, bigger than the petty grievances of the moment.

Music Shapes Us—For Better or Worse

Music is more than entertainment—it works its way into us, down to the cellular level. The U.S. military understood this when they blasted Bodies by Drowning Pool and Enter Sandman by Metallica through the walls of Abu Ghraib, using sound as a weapon, pounding prisoners with relentless, unyielding noise. Why? Because music isn’t just sound. It can agitate, unsettle, unmoor. There is a type of music that torments. There is a type of music that breaks the spirit.

And yet, we subject ourselves to this type of music daily.

It is not that music that nurture the soul has vanished—it still emerges, here and there, fighting for space in a crowded landscape of noise. Die With a Smile was proof of this. But where once songs like this ruled the charts, today they are the exception.

We have moved from a world where beauty was the default and ugliness the outlier, to a world where the reverse is true.

Can We Go Back?

I was almost at my destination when the last song of my drive came on. The Greatest Love of All. Whitney’s voice, strong and clear, rose through the speakers.

I turned it up.

“Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.”

The words landed differently this time. Not as a lyric, but as a truth we once understood. Love is rooted in respect—respect for oneself, for others, for something higher. And respect is not given; it is earned.

You cannot be respected if you are not respectable.

We knew this once.

We lived it.

We can again.