(no subject)
I believe that you can't really love music unless you can listen to anything and find something to appreciate about it. Growing up, however, this certainly wasn't my philosophy, so when my brother would sit in his room nodding back and forth to whatever black people were singing on MTV, I would have none of it. No way. I'm not some pussy listening to whatever's popular. I listened to that hard rocking, underground stuff. Like Pearl Jam.
As I grew older, I found myself appreciating the genre more and more. My love affair with hip hop however, has its limits. Outkast, for example, is pretty cool, but you know what? It's just innocuous party music. I can't take any music seriously that would be played at a middle school jamboree. It's like a low-fat muffin. Sure it tastes sweet, but after you're done, your stomach feels strange and your mouth tastes of fake sugar. Modern hip hop retains the bluster that has always been a distinctive aspect of the genre, but now it has a patina of slickness that comes from the overproduction of any music. What it no longer has for me is a sense of something real; instead it's the de facto pop music of our time. There was a time you could write a hip hop song about anything, and while people still write songs like that, I can't recall the last time I heard a popular hip hop song that moved beyond the vapid troika of money, bitches, and vast superiority to other rappers. Hip hop has become a joke being continuously played on itself.
I think a lot of that has to do with hip hop growing up, establishing itself, and becoming an industry. Instead of music though, hip hop is an adjective, it's a label, it's a marketing tool. You can spend your money on Sean John jackets, G Unit shoes, or any number of movies. I mean, where was Chuck D's vitamin water? Where was the Atari UTFO video game? The only thing really lacking in the hip hop industry is a theme park, replete with low rider rollercoasters and one-handed versions of that shoot-the-target-with-a-watergun game. What other musical genre has been able to package itself as a lifestyle to this extent? Buying a FRANKIE SAYS RELAX t-shirt might make me look white and ironic, but it comes no where near the immersion that is provided by the "urban" lifestyle industry. The strategy has even been copied by other genres to some extent, á la Good Charlotte's short-lived MADE clothing label.
When I think of the richness of early hip hop albums, what stands out to me is the overwhelming use of samples in albums like De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising, Beastie Boy's Paul's Boutique, or Ice Cube's Death Certificate. People gave hip hop a lot of crap for sampling music, but it's what made hip hop, well, hip hop. It was paying homage to the great music of the past, fitting in together, and making something beautiful. Or at least it was, until lawyers got involved. Modern hip hop isn't able to make use of the samples legally, so albums that were once rich and complex with songs using several samples per track have been reduced to a drum machine and whatever samples they can get the rights for. Think of the manipulative sentimentality of Sean Comb's "I'll Be Missing You." The creativity required for fitting together a dozen samples was reduced to a monotonous thievery of The Police. It's that way with everything now, and the genre is worse off for it.
As I grew older, I found myself appreciating the genre more and more. My love affair with hip hop however, has its limits. Outkast, for example, is pretty cool, but you know what? It's just innocuous party music. I can't take any music seriously that would be played at a middle school jamboree. It's like a low-fat muffin. Sure it tastes sweet, but after you're done, your stomach feels strange and your mouth tastes of fake sugar. Modern hip hop retains the bluster that has always been a distinctive aspect of the genre, but now it has a patina of slickness that comes from the overproduction of any music. What it no longer has for me is a sense of something real; instead it's the de facto pop music of our time. There was a time you could write a hip hop song about anything, and while people still write songs like that, I can't recall the last time I heard a popular hip hop song that moved beyond the vapid troika of money, bitches, and vast superiority to other rappers. Hip hop has become a joke being continuously played on itself.
I think a lot of that has to do with hip hop growing up, establishing itself, and becoming an industry. Instead of music though, hip hop is an adjective, it's a label, it's a marketing tool. You can spend your money on Sean John jackets, G Unit shoes, or any number of movies. I mean, where was Chuck D's vitamin water? Where was the Atari UTFO video game? The only thing really lacking in the hip hop industry is a theme park, replete with low rider rollercoasters and one-handed versions of that shoot-the-target-with-a-watergun game. What other musical genre has been able to package itself as a lifestyle to this extent? Buying a FRANKIE SAYS RELAX t-shirt might make me look white and ironic, but it comes no where near the immersion that is provided by the "urban" lifestyle industry. The strategy has even been copied by other genres to some extent, á la Good Charlotte's short-lived MADE clothing label.
When I think of the richness of early hip hop albums, what stands out to me is the overwhelming use of samples in albums like De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising, Beastie Boy's Paul's Boutique, or Ice Cube's Death Certificate. People gave hip hop a lot of crap for sampling music, but it's what made hip hop, well, hip hop. It was paying homage to the great music of the past, fitting in together, and making something beautiful. Or at least it was, until lawyers got involved. Modern hip hop isn't able to make use of the samples legally, so albums that were once rich and complex with songs using several samples per track have been reduced to a drum machine and whatever samples they can get the rights for. Think of the manipulative sentimentality of Sean Comb's "I'll Be Missing You." The creativity required for fitting together a dozen samples was reduced to a monotonous thievery of The Police. It's that way with everything now, and the genre is worse off for it.