onemanband wrote:one of a long list of idiots responsible for that rapping or drum and bass (or whatever it's called) s***t
Phew, I thought I was alone!
Strangely enough, I was having a discussion on this on Friday in work - two of my colleagues were extolling the virtues of the Black-Eyed Peas and Kanye West. I shudder just to think about it.
I have two major issues with current popular music. The first is what people call R'n'B. R'n'B means rhythm and blues, ie the Pretty Things, the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds etc. It is
not R Kelly, Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, TLC, Boyz II Men, Lauryn Hill, Missy Elliott, Beyoncé, Alicia Keys, R. Kelly, Usher etc (Don't worry, I googled that list - proud to say none of that excrement abides in my music collection!) To misuse the term for such modern faceless, processed muzak is unforgiveable.
And as far as I'm concerned, when they gave the genre a name, they missed out the 'c' preceding 'rap'. 99% of the time it's monotonous and has no natural rhythm (along with that other misnomer 'dance music'). Lyrics are typically poor and there is no decent bassline nor guitar nor keyboard hook to drive it along and no vocal melody either - I don't count the occasional collaboration between two "greats" (ha!) where some screeching female attempts to sing to counteract the poorly articulated (c)rap. As for the sampling of real musicians' work eg Eminem nicking Aerosmith songs, aargh!! I'm all for artists doing cover versions for a bit of fun in a live set or as one-off singles - it shows respect. But to take a decent song and then put that (c)rap over it...
However, you will notice, I said 99%. There is always the odd exception: Michael Franti of Spearhead, who writes some great thought-provoking lyrics, occasionally heads into rap territory, but he actually varies his voice - ie he sings! The best analysis of rap, hip-hop etc though has to be this late 80s classic by the Rodgau Monotones:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzlY1lBeDW8 For the non-German speakers, basically it's a p***take of the Beastie Boys (of whom, ironically, I can just about stomach the odd song) and how they got rich off nicking someone else's work which would have been too technical for them to write themselves. Just google the lyrics and hit the Google translate button.
