Music

[sorryIkilledU]

Craw, is it not spelt Kylie Minogue?

[detroit_red]

Rap is just...
R'n'B is not bad, but not good.

Them's fightin' words...

[Trouble]

What, music debate?

I'll venture into dangerous waters and say that it doesn't take a whole lot of talent to rap, or to get noticed as a rap artist.


Let's see where that brings us.

[TheCraw]

Craw, is it not spelt Kylie Minogue?

Sorry. Fixed it.

[detroit_red]

...I'll venture into dangerous waters and say that it doesn't take a whole lot of talent to rap, or to get noticed as a rap artist...

Fine, I'll take the bait.

I want to call this a goddamn lie, but in the interest of civility, I think I'll just call it... shortsighted. With any art, remember Sturgeons's rule: "90% of everything is crap." And don't confuse the Hollywood/MTV/Clear Channel Radio rap with the real thing. Sure, Soulja Boy is absurdly popular--but Kenny G is the best-selling jazz instrumentalist of all time. And nobody says jazz sucks because Kenny G sucks.

I'd say in any kind of pop music--be it rap or rock or whatever--it doesn't take a whole lot of talent to attract the notice of major labels. They're not interested in talent--or even music--just reproducible marketability. The mixtapes of gifted aspiring rappers are as often doomed to obscurity as the demos of great unknown rock bands...

I'll agree it doesn't require a lot of talent to rap inasmuch as it doesn't require a lot of talent to play the guitar. Anyone can recite rhyming couplets, just like anyone can be handed a guitar and learn to slam power chords in about 10 seconds. But to be any damn good at either rapping or playing the guitar, it requires talent and skill and effort and practice.

You can't take anyone off the street without an ounce of talent or skill and expect them to play a guitar solo on par with "Maggot Brain" or "Eruption" any more than you can grab someone off the street without an ounce of skill or talent and have them rap 16 bars with the shapeshifting cadence, elaborate wordplay, internal rhymes, and lush imagery that an MC like Rakim will give you extemporaneously.

[unfunfunt]

Anyone listen to post-rock? GY!BE or anything else?

Only all the time. Do you by any chance listen to Isis? It's sort of like GY!BE but heavy. I'm also into king crimson, the Mars Volta, Sigur Ros and the like. Plus obvious ones like radiohead, metric, Imogen Heap, Zepplin, Floyd, Jeff Buckley, and Jethro Tull. It's always good to find someone else who knows what GY!BE stands for. Potentially interesting personal anecdote: I've been to the building they rehearsed in. It was pretty boring...

[Master Radishes]

What detroit_red said.

Rap is not my favourite genre of music. That's a personal choice, however. Just as how I don't like classical or electronica or folk music. Etc. (And actually, I prefer it more than those listed - it's actually a pretty cool thing, rapping. I wish I was more into it, kind of.)

But to imply it takes less talent? That is, indeed, shortsighted. I could list reasons, but detroit covered them well enough. You know, I'd actually argue it's reversed - I couldn't rap to save my life, and I think it takes some talent to really pull it off, but anyone can pick up a guitar and, once again as detroit said, slam out some power chords.

I'm a rock purist in some ways, but I don't like when people try to hold it up as superior to other forms of music. Just like how I'm an atheist, but I loathe when other atheists start spouting Youtube-comment worthy "arguments" just to goad Christians.

In solidarity, I'm going to put on the closest thing I have to rap on my playlist - Rage Against the Machine.

[Master Radishes]

Anyone listen to post-rock? GY!BE or anything else?

Only all the time. Do you by any chance listen to Isis? It's sort of like GY!BE but heavy.

I have not listened to Isis, but I'm interested now. I do like heavy stuff.

It's always good to find someone else who knows what GY!BE stands for. Potentially interesting personal anecdote: I've been to the building they rehearsed in. It was pretty boring...

So it was both "interesting" and "boring"? Well, I'm sure I've walked past a dozen places in Vancouver where some movie or TV show was shot. Also pretty boring.


Another band I'd like to mention (not really in response to this, but just in general) - Mastodon. Specifically, their newest album, Crack the Skye. Anyone heard it?

[Trouble]

You're right, it is quite short-sighted of me to say.
Perhaps I take it for granted that I can rap (you'll have to take my word for it) with very little effort, actually. Truthfully, I don't really hate rap, and I don't doubt there are talented rappers out there... it's just I don't normally hear any.

There are actually some rap artists I like, and I do like to hear rapping in the midst of other songs of different genres. Like Rage Against the Machine, or my favorite band, The O.C. Supertones. They're a ska band, but check out these songs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGtpeQnLzGw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YQZLy_Fxus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ls_3HhHeI8

You're right, it takes talent. Personally though, I've grown quite a degree of animosity towards mainstream rap. Mostly because a friend of mine keeps trying to play that crap in other people's cars (like mine, and I tell him no, and now he doesn't ride in my car anymore. My decision, not his, and not just because of his choice of music). Lil' Wayne is probably the worst now. He really is that guy they pulled off the street and he just babbles nonsense in the microphone while a music track loops behind him. His singing voice makes my ears bleed.

There are some rap artists that I think are really good, but most people don't even know about them. It's saddening, really, that the real rap talent is hidden, and the crap is displayed for everyone to hear.
And what's really bothering me is all the auto-tuning all the time. I've seriously had enough of that. It seems to me like they just can't sing for real, so they use a machine to make them sound good, and that's all they have. I don't know if it's true or not, but that's the way I perceive it.

But the absolute worst to me is that most of the rappers I hear, more than anything, don't represent anything worthwhile. Their lyrics are bogus, and all they do is talk themselves up or sing about women like sex objects. They just talk about fantasies... very sick and wrong fantasies. I know, not all rappers are like that, but that's what's on the radio, at the bowling alley, in the mainstream. Perhaps rock isn't any better in your opinion, (but I would beg to differ, rock artists typically have a more meaningful purpose when they write lyrics) but no other form of music is quite so blatant in the abuse of the English language, and women, and each other.

Show me, please, a rap artist with a deeper purpose than themselves, and I will change my mind.

[fizzball]

For me, the most interesting part of hip-hop has been DJing/sampling. When the economics of hip hop changed after the Biz Markie lawsuit, the genre lost a lot of its appeal.

I''ve found a few semi-recent things I like a lot. Girl Talk is brilliant. The MF Doom/Dangermouse collaboration is cute if you're a Cartoon Network fan. I've enjoyed Kid Koala & Mix Master Mike albums, and anything Prince Paul puts out is worth snapping up. But otherwise, I'm stuck in a 20-year time warp, where the Bomb Squad and Dust Brothers are the apex of the genre.