Japanese pop is shorterned to J-pop.
Maybe we could shortern Chinese rap to C-rap ?
Greetings All,
Talk about musical ignorance. I can
Lich,
Did Lulu sing to you too?
I used to listen to some hiphop; not so much any more. In my mind it’s certainly a valid means of expression and can have some good musicianship. I often found, however, that the reason I enjoyed hiphop music was that it sampled great 70s funk and soul, and that sometimes (not always) I got more enjoyment from listening to the original 70s records.
Lich, I have to take you up on one point.
[quote=“Lich”]…being a GOOD classical musician does not require you to be creative, it merely requires you to display proficiency with your musical instrument of choice…The piano competitions just bore me to tears. Talk about
I suppose you don’t think jazz is music either? Music speaks louder than credentials. At any rate, the Royal Conservatory may not, but the Berklee School of Music does. And, well, someone already mentioned the Roots, who play all their own instruments live.
.
First of all, is it more difficult to play the drums than play a guitar? Or play a bass? Or play just about any other instrument? It’s not about the instrument so much as what you do with it.
Secondly, there is a difference between “spinning” records and scratching. I love mixing, and I’m not one to denigrate it, but certainly it is fairly easy to beatmatch two records. I’m not going to argue that point. When it comes to scratching, however, I’m going to have to strongly disagree with you.
Now, as far as pure tech skills go, can you really deny the ability and practice required to do this? Your first reaction may very well be that it doesn’t make for good music, that it sounds like noise, etc. That’s all well and good. This is a battle file, so that is not the point. Next question: could you do this? Can you even tell how this is done? If your answer is no, maybe that should be food for thought.
The turntable is also a melodic instrument: streaming download
fatsackfilms.com/gunkhole.html
not to mention the fact that two albums made completely from scratching have been released, and one of them contains a recording of the star spangled banner being played live on a turntable. That’s one tone, heavily manipulated, not a preexisting recording.
You don’t have to like any of this, by the way, but please don’t deny the skill involved and please don’t deny that it’s music. If you still have doubts, be my guest to try your own hand at scratching the next time you’re near a turntable. I think you’ll find it’s not as simple as you seem to believe.
As for hip hop in general being music, well, if you think coming up with topical rhymes that flow off the top of your head is easy, try it. If you think beat boxing is easy(note that the best beat boxers can make three different sounds with their mouths at the same time), try it. I’m not singling you out, by the way. Anybody else who has thoughts along the same lines(and it appears there are quite a few such people on this board), is welcome to try out these little experiments as well.
If the cultural trappings of hip hop are what offend people, I think it’s important they realize that the mass media image of hip hop really is a distorted version of what hip hop once was. I’m not saying that mainstream hip hop is not hip hop, because it is, but at the same time this music only represents a small, poppy segment of a much larger spectrum.
I guess for example take a band like Iron Maiden.
- They have to write music for 3 guitars
- They have to music for Bass
- They have to write a drum pattern
- They have to write lyrics and a melody
“real music” takes a long time too make and hip hop is not as intensive I mean what form of music will stand the test of time?
Sorry I guess I will never accept Hip Hop as a legitimate form of music. Just like Techno.
Oh and a beat boxer can only make one sound at a time. It’s just they do it in a way that makes it sound like 3 at once.
[quote=“Grasshopper”]I guess for example take a band like Iron Maiden.
- They have to write music for 3 guitars
- They have to music for Bass
- They have to write a drum pattern
- They have to write lyrics and a melody
“real music” takes a long time too make and hip hop is not as intensive I mean what form of music will stand the test of time?[/quote]
But again: what about jazz? What about rock bands that improvise? And isn’t the sound, in the end, what matters anyway?
Aside from that, when it comes to “intensiveness” there’s a wide range to be found within hip hop, just as there is within rock. Not every band is an Iron Maiden, but neither is every hip hop producer a DJ Shadow or a Prefuse 73. And while production may seem to yield simpler results to some, keep in mind that a producer has to deal with the inherent limitations of their equipment(i.e., they mostly cannot bang things out off-the-cuff on an instrument, and they are limited to what can be sampled/synthesized), and unlike a band, they have to handle every single element of the track by themselves.
Songs composed solely for the turntables, of course, combine some of the difficulties bands and producers face, and very few people at this point in time even have the technical/creative chops to do this.
I suppose this is a matter of perspective, but if someone is using different parts of their mouth at the same time, and they can reproduce each “sound” independantly, I would propose that they are, in fact, making three different sounds simultaneously.
Hip Hop is just this generations’ way of pissing off their folks. For me it was Iron Maiden, Guns N Rose Judas Priest and bands like that. Can you imagine what music the next generation will listen to. It’s about rebellion and being seen as an individual.
Hip Hop and grunge were punk for the 90’s
Hair rock was the punk of the 80’s
Punk was rock and roll for the 70’s
Hard rock was the rock of the 60’s
Rock and Roll was the big band music for the 50’s
A great big generalization but it does hold some truth.
Well, this thread has made one hip hop convert, at least – I went out and bought “Ice Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice and it is awesome!!! Thanks guys!
Classical?
“You turn down that Wagner, young man, or you are NOT going to see the Philharmonia next week!”
Incidentally, I like the very limited range of hip-hop that I like primarily for the lyrics, not the ‘music’. I quite like the sound of some of the songs, but much of the stuff all sounds exactly the same to my unhip ears.
Look, its for ages over 4! Cool!
[quote=“Grasshopper”]Hip Hop is just this generations’ way of pissing off their folks. For me it was Iron Maiden, Guns N Rose Judas Priest and bands like that. Can you imagine what music the next generation will listen to. It’s about rebellion and being seen as an individual.
Hip Hop and grunge were punk for the 90’s
Hair rock was the punk of the 80’s
Punk was rock and roll for the 70’s
Hard rock was the rock of the 60’s
Rock and Roll was the big band music for the 50’s
A great big generalization but it does hold some truth.[/quote]
Only if you’re talking about suburban white kids. Hip hop has been around since the late 70s, and been popular since the mid-80s, so I’d say it’s already surpassed “fad” status in terms of longevity. Also, my parents happen to like a pretty large selection of the hip hop I listen to.
Is something like Shades of Blue really just an empty soundtrack for teen rebellion?
Hey! Don’t go diss’ing my boy now, ya hear!?! 
Seriously what music you listen to depends heavily on which generation you are from, how you grew up, and with whom you identify with. If some people don’t like XYZ and their minds are made up it doesn’t matter what you say; nothing will change their minds.
[quote=“tigerman”]
Look, its for ages over 4! Cool![/quote]
Sandman brought up a good point. “Ice Ice Baby” is exactly the type of song that people bring up to show hip-hop at its worst - it’s nothing more or less than “Under Pressure” by David Bowie & Queen with some jerk talking over it. You know, the Puff Daddy style of ripping off some other song’s backing track and rapping over it. That type of “music” completely devoid of any talent or originality. Someone upthread said, why should I listen to rappers sample old soul records when I can go back to the original soul records?
But like they say, 90% of anything is crap. Most rock’n’roll is garbage. For every Mozart there were 20 classical composers around the same time who are now long forgotten because their tunes were awful. Same with rap. Most of hip-hop is obnoxious trash. But it has had a small handful of classics in its 20-year tenure. Public Enemy had a couple of albums that were almost as exciting as the Clash.
Wait a minute. Is Public Enemy classed as hip hop? I always thought it was rap. I really like Public Enemy, Ice-T, Eek A Mouse and all those guys, but its not what I think of when someone mentions hip hop.
And Tupac, but only after I saw him playing bass with Tim Roth in Gridlock’d.
I remember reading some jazz critic years ago in Downbeat who opined that most of the jazz greats of the 40s and 50s would probably be doing rap if they were young Turks today (about 15 years ago), but today’s hip hop is mostly just bland forgettable pop and a dress style IMO.
And they plagiarize – sorry, “sample” – other people’s music. If they’re so great, why don’t they use their own music?
As far as I’m concerned rap=hip hop=rap. Some people may make some distinction, but I think at some point int he early 90s or so, the name just changed.
What I really don’t like is this modern RnB, type stuff masquearading as hip hop.
As for sampling and covering - nothing wrong with that. Jazz musicians takle other people’s worka nd give it their own interpretation allt he time, and people don’t say "they’re just stealing someone else’s song - there’s nothing creative about it’.
Brian
[quote]As for sampling and covering - nothing wrong with that. Jazz musicians takle other people’s worka nd give it their own interpretation allt he time, and people don’t say "they’re just stealing someone else’s song - there’s nothing creative about it’.
Brian
[/quote]
Dammit Brian, if you’re going to take the wind out of my carefully crafted trolls llike that, you could at least use some swear words.
Yes, but Bu Lai En, that’s different. Bob Dylan never wrote a tune he didn’t steal off some old blues or folk record, and neither did Led Zeppelin. “Bad artists imitate, great artists steal.” But if you’ve ever picked up a musical instrument and tried to copy another musician’s sound, you’ll notice you won’t - unless you’re very, very technically good - sound exactly the same. It comes out different. Because you’re human and imperfect, and capable of making mistakes. And out of those mistakes often comes something original and maybe beautiful. That’s part of the creative process. I mean, rock’n’roll started from a bunch of white boys like Elvis trying to sound black - yeah, they were “ripping off” old blues tunes, but in the process they created. In art the process is as important as the result you’re aiming for.
A machine can’t do that. Doing it the old-fashioned way, trying to learn how to play somebody else’s tune on your musical instrument, you’ll never get an exact approximation - it will come with your own individual stamp. Machines are too perfect. Remember how in the '80s all those bands were using drum machines that hit all the perfect beats in perfect synchronization, and how awful that '80s sound was? It took a while for some people to get it, but they eventually did - drum machines sound like shit. Just get a human drummer. A real drummer has something like…I don’t know, a soul that a drum machine can’t put into the music. Sampling is too easy - there’s no sweat in the music. It’s like instant mashed potatoes or instant coffee or instant noodles. Something that’s been sweated over a hot stove for hours is gonna taste better than something that’s just zapped in the microwave in three minutes.
Now, samples can be used creatively, in a mix’n’match montage style that some bands do - a snippet of this, a snippet of that, bam bam bam! That kind of thing is cool. But lazily sampling an old disco groove and building your entire song off of that while you rap over it…well, that stuff just sucks, it has zero creativity.
To clarify: what jazz musicians do is give their own personal interpretation of a tune. Music is like translating, it’s never going to be the same as the original. That’s different from sampling, in which there is no translating, just taking.