Did you know teenagers listen to an average of 2.5 hours of music per day? That’s according to the New York Times. So what exactly are teenagers and today’s society in general listening to? As stated by Billboard.com the top five songs are currently “All About That Bass” by Meghan Trainor, “Shake It Off” by Taylor Swift, “Bang Bang” by Jessie J, Ariana Grande, and Nicki Minaj, “Anaconda” by Nicki Minaj, and “Black Widow” by Iggy Azalea featuring Rita Ora. What exactly is the sole purpose and meaning of these songs? A couple of the artists explain the story behind them here.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly singer and songwriter Meghan Trainor said she wrote “All About That Bass” originally just as a “great song for the world”, mentioning that it was “terrifying putting herself as well as her song out front like she did” and suggested that it was a “fake it till you make it” kind of thing. “Shake It Off” by Taylor Swift was a song she claimed to have wrote from her own experiences with “takedown culture”. She added that “People will find anything about you and twist it to where it’s weird or wrong or annoying or strange or bad. You have to not only live your life in spite of people who don’t understand you; you have to have more fun than they do” and that was the main influence for her song she told Good Morning America. Concluding Nicki Minaj’s new hit single “Anaconda” is a song that she proclaimed to have wrote because she wanted to have “fun” and added on that she wanted a song girls could dance to in a club she told On Air with Ryan Seacrest.