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Post by blackbowl68 on Jul 13, 2011 4:09:43 GMT -5
I recently signed on the message board because I am a huge fan of American Top 40 and Casey Kasem. As I reading several of the many posts on this site, there seems an overall negative attitude towards hip hop music and its presence in AT40 and Top 40 radio altogether.
I find this rather disturbing and would like to know why this is so. I don't hear this kind of rhetoric expressed towards any other type of music.
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Post by 80sfan on Jul 13, 2011 5:13:59 GMT -5
The age group of the participants in this group is probably the reason. As the name American Top 40 Classics with Casey Kasem implies, fans of this group tends to be older and are primarily interested in 70s & 80s music, and not the latest in musical trend.
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Post by blackbowl68 on Jul 13, 2011 5:48:37 GMT -5
That's not an excuse. I've looked at the profiles of several bloggers showing these attitudes and quite a number of them are younger than me. (I'm in my early 40s) Also, hip hop is an intergral of 80s music AND quite a bit of it is rooted in late 60s/ early 70s music. So I don't buy the age group factor.
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Post by jaxxalude on Jul 13, 2011 16:07:41 GMT -5
Hip-hop still manages to retain an image of defiance, rebelliousness and even a dash of political incorrectness, even when it's bragging about wealth. The same happened with rock music in its golden days. So because of it, it still presents a certain schism among the most conservative fractions of society.
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Post by matt on Jul 13, 2011 16:53:20 GMT -5
Interesting question. Not sure it really has much to do with even politics, liberal vs conservative, rebellion, etc. Hip hop is like any other genre--there is good hip hop and bad. Personally, hip hop isn't my preferred genre, but quite frankly there is some hip hop that I really like and some that is downright great music. There is also some terrible hip hop.
My biggest beef with certain kinds of hip hop, such as that which has predominantly been heard on mainstream radio over the last 15 years or so, is the lack of quality in the music (again, certain kinds of hip hop—not all hip hop) and the overabundance of samples so many of these songs contain. It seems that since this industry is marketing to the younger generations that haven't heard the original songs from which the samples were extracted, it is therefore a "quick fix" way to create a hit single. However, this could also be said about a lot of pop music in general these days, not just hip hop. It's analogous to the movie industry pumping out sequels, remakes, adaptations of TV shows, etc., because they know the younger generations don't know any better. Probably not a bad business model, but in many cases, there is a real lack of authenticity and integrity to the actual art form if you will.
Another thing about hip hop, is that it is generally based around a beat or series of beats with someone rapping over it, right? There is typically little in the way of anyone playing actual instruments or any actual vocal talent in the way of singing (notice I didn't say rapping). Therefore, in order for a hip hop song to be appealing to those of us who grew up listening to melodic songs with a singing vocal and a set of instruments (and still do), the actual meat of the songs (e.g. the lyrics, vocal performance, etc.) need to hit it out of the park. In other words, it has to have something different or original or edgy, which again, really isn't that much different than any other genre of music today.
Finally, so much of hip hop’s popularity seems to be based on an image and not the music itself. The younger generations drive popular music more than ever, but it seems that over the last 20+ years (which includes my generation btw) the appeal of hip hop and rap to so many of the younger demographic seems to be based in the “bad boy”, “gangster” or “tough guy” image of the music—and again, not the artistic nature of the music itself. Which by the way, probably does provide some parallels with the early years of rock and roll.
OK, so feel free to debate, argue, and tell me where I’m wrong. This is an interesting discussion…
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Post by bestmusicexpert on Jul 13, 2011 17:20:50 GMT -5
I wouldn't even call hip hop music at all. Calling it something it isn't, and something that alot of good things are (The Beatles, Queen, Zeppelin, Motown, etc...) is a slap in their faces.
Hip Hop is basically someone bit**ing over a sample of an old song.
Which is my next problem with it. Make up your own music to back you (Preferably with a band) or don't try at all.
Next, the lack of talent it takes to produce a rap song, especially when Auto Tune is involved. Something that makes me have a problem with alot of pop these days.
The lack of an education it takes to be a rapper. Sorry, but people who speak ebonics regularily, are NOT educated. The kids that do, aren't educated enough yet....
The way I look at it, most people, once they hit 30, realize how awful acting like rappers and listening to rap is, and they stop. You rarely see someone in full rap gear, hat backwards, talking ebonics and they're over the age of 30.
Of course, if they did, that'd be fun for us to see on shows like Tosh.0!
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Post by jaxxalude on Jul 13, 2011 17:23:05 GMT -5
First of all, computers, drum machines, sequencers, samplers, turntables, etc., are instruments. Just because they're not played in a traditional way shouldn't be reason enough to dismiss them as not being instruments at all. Another thing: sampling isn't that different from what, say, Led Zeppelin used to do in the beginning of their careers, when they took obscure blues recordings and released them as being their own originals. In fact, The Beatles and The Stones were also guilty of their own feats of intellectual theft back in the day. The difference is that, these days, sampling is very much a legally sanctioned practice. But even sampling has been stronger in the past. Since the early 00's, a lot of producers actually create their own original beats in their machines, due to the (at the time) mouting costs of licensing samples. And when they do sample, it's usually from sources like library music or online sample banks because of their sort of public domain status. The practice of sampling from other songs, while not having disappeared, is now more widely used only by more established artists, since they have more mean$ of getting those licenses right.
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Post by Shadoe Fan on Jul 13, 2011 17:36:46 GMT -5
I don't like a lot of rap. I like the "poppy" rap of the late 80s/early 90s, e.g. Tone Loc (even my local AC station plays that), Young MC, even MC Hammer's hits in 1990. However, I liked even less rap as the 90s progressed, and none since the turn of the century. Now rap is even making inroads to Hot AC, so I'm going to have to stop listening to that eventually.
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Post by franky on Jul 13, 2011 17:42:37 GMT -5
I totally agree. Rap and Hip Hop stink!!!! Can't compare with the REAL Soul/R&B music of the past. I hate how the term "R&B" is still used for contemporary music. It's more like garbage.
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Post by johnnywest on Jul 13, 2011 17:45:07 GMT -5
Rap is not my favorite genre either. As big as it was getting in the mid 90s (Puff Daddy, Coolio, The Notorious B.I.G.), there was a short period in 1999/early 2000 when there were no rap songs in the Top 40 at all.
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Post by matt on Jul 13, 2011 17:45:33 GMT -5
First of all, computers, drum machines, sequencers, samplers, turntables, etc., are instruments. Just because they're not played in a traditional way shouldn't be reason enough to dismiss them as not being instruments at all. Another thing: sampling isn't that different from what, say, Led Zeppelin used to do in the beginning of their careers, when they took obscure blues recordings and released them as being their own originals. In fact, The Beatles and The Stones were also guilty of their own feats of intellectual theft back in the day. The difference is that, these days, sampling is very much a legally sanctioned practice. But even sampling has been stronger in the past. Since the early 00's, a lot of producers actually create their own original beats in their machines, due to the (at the time) mouting costs of licensing samples. And when they do sample, it's usually from sources like library music or online sample banks because of their sort of public domain status. The practice of sampling from other songs, while not having disappeared, is now more widely used only by more established artists, since they have more mean$ of getting those licenses right. OK jaxx, I gotta call you on that. Samples are NOT instruments the same way guitars, keyboards, drums, horns, etc. are. Samples are typically fragments of music that somebody else created. And in the case of the over sampling in hip hop and other pop music, so-called artist(s) too often recycle the samples for their so-called song and try to pass off as their own. Take Vanilla Ice for instance, who tried to say that his sample of Queen/David Bowie's "Under Pressure" wasn't the same as his bass line to "Ice Ice Baby". What a joke--of course it was the same bass line--he just mixed it slightly differently. But it isn't like Ice whipped out a bass guitar and came up with a line that was similar--he actually used the recording of Under Pressure's bass line. I think it's that kind of stuff that makes people question the talent of such artists. And you are right--all artists take a little from each other. Michael Jackson once confessed to Daryl Hall that he "copped the groove" for Billie Jean from "I Can't Go For That". Daryl's response was that it was no big deal, they all do it in some form or another. Every artist has their influences, even the Beatles. So sure, artists derive things from other artists and songs. It's part of what makes you appreciate artists that come up with a lot of original material. But there is a difference from being influenced or using a similar drum beat, bass line, riff, etc., or even using a brief sample or two to enhance a melody, and full out basing an entire song on other songs' samples, or putting together a song entirely of samples. Tough to make a case that the samples are the same as instruments.
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Post by dukelightning on Jul 13, 2011 17:47:04 GMT -5
2 forms of music in the last 40 years that have drawn a lot of wrath are disco and hip-hop/rap. But what I have noticed is that whereas there was a lot of acrimony among the younger generation during the disco era with disco record burning parties, etc., there has been none of that stuff happening with hip-hop/rap. So it seems like the younger generation is more on the same page in their music tastes in the 2000s/today than they were in the 70s.
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Post by matt on Jul 13, 2011 17:49:22 GMT -5
I totally agree. Rap and Hip Hop stink!!!! Can't compare with the REAL Soul/R&B music of the past. I hate how the term "R&B" is still used for contemporary music. It's more like garbage. Agree with your point about R&B - today's R&B should really just be called R, cause that's all it is. Not much blues, like there was in the Motown years, 70's, or even 80's.
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Post by jaxxalude on Jul 13, 2011 17:58:53 GMT -5
Look, I think it's ME who has to call you out, wahoo. Only ignorance can explain the fact that you still see sampling the same way fogies used to in the early 90's. Look, sampling has come a long way. The same way Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen pushed the limits of what an electric guitar could do, people like Prince Paul, The 45 King, Dan The Automator, Steinski, Madlib and Jaydee have, at different times, redefined what sampling means and what to do with it. You can't just lean on a basic example like Vanilla Ice's to prove your point. I mean, why don't you use Kanye West's or Just Blaze's way of sampling in their productions in the early to mid-00's as an example (cf: the chipmunk effects, the timestretching, etc.). In Kanye's case, he actually pitched the samples up by... you wouldn't guess it: using his own drums and instruments. Yes, that's right: some of these producers actually have formal music training, my friend. They just use it in a way that is non-traditional.
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Post by mkarns on Jul 13, 2011 17:59:57 GMT -5
Rap is not my favorite genre either. As big as it was getting in the mid 90s (Puff Daddy, Coolio, The Notorious B.I.G.), there was a short period in 1999/early 2000 when there were no rap songs in the Top 40 at all. The popularity of rap/hip hop music, like any other genre, has ebbed and flowed over the years; in terms of top 40 mainstream radio penetration it was probably most dominant from about 2002-05. Today you can hear a lot of songs, particularly R&B or dance/electropop with elements of it, such a rap interlude or a hip hop influenced beat, but there are relatively few purely rap/hiphop hits on pop radio now. I view rap as a genre like almost any other; there are some excellent records and talented artists to come from it, and a good share of junk as well. And like any other type of music, it's easy to get tired of it when it seems to be overplayed.
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