Is music, music anymore?

[Nemu]

Oh god. If you get your examples of todays music from the pop charts which it looks like you did then youre not getting a real idea.

Yes pop is music. Despite the fact you don't consider them so in technical terms and in the opinions of other it is

You like Hendrix but can you honestly say that back in the day when he was first coming out there weren't people saying the EXACT same thing about him you are saying about Gaga and such.



To each his own. You might want to consider that. Everybody likes what they like. Just because you do not like it does not mean that its "shit".

I basically agree with this.

I am of the opinion that most of the popular music out there is utter crap--rock, rap, country, all of it. And as much as I detest that stuff, I don't begrudge anyone else for liking it.

I just put my headphones on, and sing along to my own music--which makes me look odd as hell when it's a foreign band/artist.

 

[mchoueiri]

Every generation has there shitty music like ours does. It all comes down to what you like for example I think pop music like lady gaga is just noise.

 

[Warforger]

For every person who likes Jurassic 5 and The Roots there's probably ten people who don't perceive them any differently to how they perceive 50 Cent and consider it all (heaven forbid) "not music" simply because it's rap, and for no other reason. Believe it or not, very few people who hate rap actually get picky about the "old school/new school" sonic delineation that is important to a lot of people who grew up with rap in the 1990s and prior.

pffffft. Rap is repeating itself, during the early 80's most gangsta rap had more to do with socio-economic problems and politics, then the NWA just talked about Gangsta shit, then came the 90's when the resulting rappers started making songs about a hard life, then by the end it came back to just gangster shit and party mix, now its starting to recede back to 70's rap since white people pretty much are the only ones who buy albums anymore and the gangsta image is starting to decline (look at B.o.B.).

 

[Nadlice]

Pop artists generally have some talent. Know why they don't show it? Talent isn't marketable.

Music isn't getting worse, the wall between unoriginal and original music is growing larger and larger. Don't whine, simply remind others to expose themselves to as much music as possible.

I'd say talented and creative music is doing better then ever, as technology allows many teenagers to develop amazing skills, and pop shows them how not to use them.

When I say pop, I mean mass produced pop, not something like Micheal Jackson. Dear god he had... soul I suppose.

 

[BonsaiK]

For every person who likes Jurassic 5 and The Roots there's probably ten people who don't perceive them any differently to how they perceive 50 Cent and consider it all (heaven forbid) "not music" simply because it's rap, and for no other reason. Believe it or not, very few people who hate rap actually get picky about the "old school/new school" sonic delineation that is important to a lot of people who grew up with rap in the 1990s and prior.

pffffft. Rap is repeating itself, during the early 80's most gangsta rap had more to do with socio-economic problems and politics, then the NWA just talked about Gangsta shit, then came the 90's when the resulting rappers started making songs about a hard life, then by the end it came back to just gangster shit and party mix, now its starting to recede back to 70's rap since white people pretty much are the only ones who buy albums anymore and the gangsta image is starting to decline (look at B.o.B.).

Lyrical content is a slightly different issue to what this thread is about, but it's probably worth discussing.

WARNING: tl;dr from a music industry person which will bore non-rap fans approaching.

The real roots of rap music lies in not in American ghetto youth but in the Jamaican dancehall culture, which is where the term "MC" comes from. The original MC, or "Master of Ceremonies" was nothing more than a spruiker, there to advertise the services of the club and the club DJ. These MCs just used to say things to passers by such as "come into the club, we have the best sound system" etc (much like spruikers still do these days outside department stores, except they may be advertising the price of socks instead of the quality of their speakers), and they would compete with each other to get punters into the clubs, as obviously the more people coming into your club, the more money the club makes and the more financially viable the whole operation is. Of course, the club across the street might have a similar spruiker too, so you have to compete with that person and their club. So MCs on the same block started making up little rhymes, saying outlandish things and basically doing whatever it took to talk up their club and DJ and make it sound like the best possible time in the world was happening inside their club, and not the other club. Eventually the idea of the MC performing over what the DJ was doing evolved (initially once again as an attention-grabbing gimmick), and hence rap music took its most important evolutionary step. This is the original culture that was then imported to the US by Jamaican immigrants, and if you look at rap music, both then and now, in that cultural context, it certainly explains a lot about how rap music has evolved lyrically. That's why "me and my DJ are the best, all you other MCs is wack" type rhymes have always been a staple of rap music to this day, and it also explains rap music's penchant for shock value lyrics, as the more wild the speech of the MC, the more likely he would be able to turn heads and grab attention away from what someone else was saying. It also explains why "MC battles" are such a staple of the culture, as a "verbal battle" is exactly what would happen. People tend to big-note the political stuff and denigrate the more commercially-driven rapping, but the fact is that commercially-driven rap lyrics are far closer to the true roots of rap music, which initially evolved purely to promote a commercial enterprise. The political stuff came later, when college-educated people who were interested in hip-hop culture saw rap music as a potential platform to express their political ideas (the prime example here being Public Enemy, but there were others) or just talk about the state of their community and lifestyle (which is where "gangster rap" comes from, almost all of which has a deep moralism and social message hiding under the surface amorality) or a combination of these elements, however, this political/socially conscious trend waxed and waned and rap music these days is mostly still fairly true to its roots, at least lyrically.

 

[zen5887]

Awesomeness.

I heard this somewhere but instead of clubs I heard they were hyping up their backyard parties. Same kind of thing, I guess something got lost in translation.

So how come the gangster thing is still around (is it?)? I would think that it's a lot less relevant than it was in the 80s (feel free to correct me, this is coming from a middle class white 19 year old). I guess its still selling so why change what works.

Knowledge is awesome!

 

[Scumpernickle]

Its just all a personal prefrence. Pop, rap, and things even remotely lelated to that I can't stand.

 

[xDarc]

You know what this thread reminded me of? Fiona Apple at an award show in 1997. Referring to the music industry: This world is bullshit. Google it.

The whole thing was off the cuff and very clunky and awkward. Pretty much killed her career. She was a 20 year old dope without the ability to say what she meant to say.

 

[BonsaiK]

Awesomeness.

I heard this somewhere but instead of clubs I heard they were hyping up their backyard parties. Same kind of thing, I guess something got lost in translation.

So how come the gangster thing is still around (is it?)? I would think that it's a lot less relevant than it was in the 80s (feel free to correct me, this is coming from a middle class white 19 year old). I guess its still selling so why change what works.

Knowledge is awesome!

In Jamaica the difference between a "club" and "backyard party" can be somewhat ambiguous, especially when certain districts host repeat parties, start serving illict home-mix booze, set up big sound systems, etc...

The gangster rap thing still exists because as a lyrical device, shock value works. Culturally it's against the norm in terms of what parents and teachers deem "responsible behaviour" etc so it's appealing to kids who doesn't feel like they fit into regular society, or who feel that society as a whole doesn't really have a place for them. Lyrically it's very powerful and violent but also extremely self-affirming music for someone who feels alienated (because lyrically it values the individual above society), so it appeals to young people who don't have a lot of power in their real lives, who can use the music to live fantasies of power vicariously. In other words, it appeals fairly broadly to disenfranchised people for similar reasons that heavy metal appeals, and thus, like heavy metal, it will probably continue to evolve in different directions musically but always exist in one form or another.

Of course, the majority of people who make this music are not gangsters themselves, they're usually the lucky ones who were articulate and brainy enough to escape the worst pitfalls of poverty (after all you have to be fairly schooled in English skills to be any good at rapping in the first place). However they usually have friends who might sell drugs or be involved in violent situations and they see this lifestyle happening around them, so they write about it. Wherever there are a bunch of people living in generally pretty awful conditions, there is usually a lot of creativity happening in some form (music, dance, art) as talented young people with limited access to social services and infrastructure improvise their own methods of entertaining themselves and their peers. Poor neighbourhoods are therefore often an explosion of creativity, such as with hip-hop culture which encompasses not only MCing and DJing but also graffiti art and certain forms of dance, all things fairly easily accessible to poor people who may be bored as fuck and looking to entertain themselves in ways which are creatively meaningful but don't necessarily involve the illicit behaviour of their peers.