Electronica/
Death Cab for Cutie: Sound of Settling Indie/, Gym Class Heroes: Viva La White Girl Hip Hop/, Fergie: Glamorous, Pop/, Atmosphere: Saves the Day Hip Hop/
Liberation:
Cary Brothers: "Ride" Indie/Pop
Christina Millian: Say I Pop/
These two elements focused on the aims of liberation and worldly success. While worldly success was easier to find, the difference between these two was not as great the difficulty between pleasure and community service. I feel like our version of worldly success with the Hindu depiction is not inherently dissimilar. Both focus around wealth, fame, and power; both Hinduism as well as American culture see this option of worldly success as one of their "aims". However, in the Hindu tradition, they recognize this goal and aspiration of worldly success as a fleeting, unfuliflling thing, while I feel that American culture finds its ultimate fulfillment in material goods and the longing for posh lifestyles. America is saturated with media focusing on these quests of luxury cars, dream homes, botox to paralyze your facial muscles, and surgeries for, literally, everything. These things are glamorized from so many different directions; from the brilliances of "The Real Housewives" to the "Kardashians", or favorite pop icons. This is not what Hinduism meant by the aim of worldly success. It is understood that you go through these aims, but that they are fleeting; it is understood that the ultimate purpose is liberation (Moksha). Yet, in American society, we seek after these things until we no longer, physically, can. Hinduism says to let it go, they are just things; it preaches to go find your soul,true self, that you may reach liberation. American culture's idea of this liberation is, in this sense, a complete reverse. Liberation or moksha, in Hinduism, means a release of your soul from samsara, that you may be released from reincarnation into the world, over and over again. What I found in searching for songs that depicted our liberation, is that liberation tends to be a release, often times, from some significant other, or a job. Some songs, such as "Ride" depict more of the freedom of leaving behind past ghosts, while "Say I" is more explanatory of the idea that liberation is allowing yourself to behave however you like. Regardless, I feel that American culture's viewpoint of liberation is consistently more shallow, shown through fleeting moments of self-declaration, rather than Hindu's eternal liberation.
I agree that these two categories were more closely matched as far as finding songs to fit into each. With Pleasure and Community Service, it was sooo much easier to find songs for the Pleasure category. You made a good point about how Pleasure/Worldly success are considered ultimate goals in American culture while in Hinduism, the higher goals are Community Service and Liberation.
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