Sorry, didn’t respond to this. I associate raves more with Acid house and other faster tempo music. Daft Punk-esque French house seems far more at home in clubs, particularly European clubs. The rave phenomenon was something that occupied primarily and nearly exclusively English ears, and that’s why, for instance, it is only in the U.K. that The Klaxons get tagged as rave revivalists, while the rest of the world looks at the N.M.E. et al’s evaluation saying “huh?”
As been mentioned, I think what we are experiencing right now is a huge shift in music. The difference between this shift and any other shifts for the past forty years is that there isn’t a leading genre or style of music behind. It’s an issue of format.
I read an interview with a heavy metal rocker in the early 1980’s who couldn’t find music he was interested in. But he found an ad in a music magazine from a guy with similar tastes and eventually they got to switch tapes with eachother. That was a lot of work just to hear something new.
That might have taken a week for him back then. It would have come down to minutes today. The sheer avaibility of music puts things in such a different perspective.
This opens up some interesting thoughts:
- With so much music avaible at the same time, how will music evolve? What can be done that hasn’t already been recorded for the past hundred years?
- How will there be a new movement of music? The punk wave had people making fanzines and cheap records and organizing events. How could this happen online with so much going on at once?
- How will we define a musician now that the means of getting yourself heard is more accessible than ever before?
As said, we’re in mid-shift in this very moment. I can see this remain status quo for some years, as people keep ‘branching out’ their music tastes and discover and re-discover classics and hits of past and present. But eventually, something big is bound to come, something that really uses this new technology in an awesome way.
I agree with this.
The New Age rant was more not against New Age, but against the dismissal of rap. Personally, while not a big hop-hop listener myself, I think it’s more interesting and musical than most New Age. Sorry. New Age just makes an easy target.
I’m talking about the people who complain about rap in the first place. I bet most of your social shere doesn’t (though if they have the taste you claim they do I’m sure they complain about specific rappers.)
I hate country music but at least I can form intelligent arguments to support why I hate it. I also have enough experience with it to have formed a real opinion, and I can point out many good artists, albums, and songs within the genre. A lot of people’s hatred for rap just seems completely irrational.
It grinds on me to no end that, with tidal wave after tidal wave of shitty music from all genres that gets thrown at us, there is still an enormous amount of people who only complain about the stuff the blacks are making.
One more thing, though. I stil think a major stylistic shift is inevitable and I feel this sudden access to a wealth of music from all around the world may have something to do with it. There must be a new genre around the corner somewhere…we can’t forever be stuck in rock (a pretty much played-out form) and hip-hop (almost played out). I think there will be a new sound to capture the rebellious spirit of these two forms, yet be popular enough to garner widespread appeal. What these forms will be, I don’t even have a guess. I don’t think I would have been able to portend the advent of rock had I been living in the 40s, nor would I have seen hip-hop on the horizon in the 70s.
Say what you will about Jason Mraz or The Vines…
…but you can have The White Stripes when you pry them from my cold, dead hands. Superb music.
And no, I haven’t listened to the radio in years. I seek out my own music.
Oh, I stand corrected then :rolleyes:
Music has been created for any number of purposes - partying, telling a story, protesting against injustice, expressing a particular feeling or mood.
I’m not victimizing rap. I am simply asserting that while rap as a genre has shown remarkable growth and longevity, I cannot say the same for individual artists. Is there a Beatles or Led Zeppelin of rap and hip hop (perhaps Run DMC or Wu-Tang Clan)? Artists who thirty years from now will, people will still be listening to. I don’t know.
I’m not talking about specific demographics. Rather, I am making a distinction between what one might call “adult” tastes vs “adolescent music”. And I’m not singling out rap either. What makes The Rolling Stones or U2 different from NSynch? NSynch certainly has some catchy tunes. They enjoyed a great deal of short-term popularity. They just didn’t last. Why? Well, it’s average-ish music about nothing particularly profound. It’s just a catchy beat designed for people to dance to and when people get sick of dancing to it, it goes away.
The point I believe Chris Rock was making was that Chuck-D and later gangsta rappers like NWA, Tupac and Wu-Tang were singing about what was going on in the 'hood. Since then, rap has (with some exceptions) kind of mutated into cartoonish characteritures rapping about how much bling they have. And my point is that’s fine, if you are looking for some entertaining party music. It’s not particularly serious music though, in terms of content or technique. And once again, I’m not singling out rap music. There’s plenty of fluff post-grunge alt rock bands and lets not forget the hair bands of the 80s.
And not that “serious” music is always good or party music is always bad.
There’s plenty of dancing music that’s actually good music. Wagon Christ (Luke Vibert) for instance. Infected Mushroom or Shpongle if you really want to move. End Of The World Party by Medeski, Martin and Wood is one of my favorites. The French group Phoenix is great motion music also, and Love Is No Big Truth and I’d Rather Dance With You Than Talk To You by Kings of Convenience are amazing dance party songs.
“Dance Music” is not synonymous with “bad.”
I’m fine with your assessment of N*Sync, but I can’t associate the word “profound” with the Stones or Zeppelin. Not with a straight face, anyway.
FWIW, I was listening to Straight Outta Compton earlier this week. Which is an album well over halfway to your benchmark.
Well, to counter everything I’ve already said in this thread - I still listen to Straight Outta Compton but it sounds more dated than, say, Led Zeppelin IV, an album that is considerably older.
In 1988, Straight Outta Compton scared me. In 2006 I just still think it’s funny to hear Eazy E say "man let’s go, I think my feet are swoll from dancin’ so damn much . . . "
Why it scared you, and why it doesn’t now, is maybe relevant.
And I’d say Led Zeppelin IV certainly sounds older, so we won’t agree on that point 
Then - It sounded brutal, gritty, real, new, unforgiving. It felt like NWA could drive past your house and open fire at any moment. Straight Outta Compton was before As Nasty as they Wanna Be so I’m pretty sure it was also the first album I heard such explicit language on. It was pioneering to say the least.
Now - It’s been imitated and reinvented thousands of times in the last 18 years, all of the slang is laughably outdated, the sound effects are poor, the lyrical complexity is barely extant. It’s like the difference in Apollo technology vs. today.
Now that I’m older, I also hear it for more of what it is - a bunch of young artists trying to make a living, and not a bunch of young, out of control gang-bangers illustrating their rage. Didn’t all but 1 or 2 of them turn out to be from much softer neighborhoods and not actually Compton?
And don’t take it the wrong way when I say it scared me - I meant that as a good thing. I was a kid. Kids love music that scares them; at least I did.
Good. So why is one purpose any greater or lesser than any other?
You are quick to make dismissive assumptions about a music you “don’t know.” Yes, just as in rock, rap has its own canon. Rakim, Nas, Jay-Z, Biggie, Pac, NWA, Dr Dre, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Snoop Dogg, UGK, The Geto Boys, Wu Tang etc.
If one could even distinguish between “adult” and “adolescent” music, why is adult music necessarily superior? You don’t like *NSync apparently (is it because they don’t write enough songs about pixies and elves - “mature” topics - like Led Zeppelin does?) You exalt musical Ozymandiases because of some fiction that they will last forever, without even noticing that ex-*Nsync-er Justin Timberlake has created one of the best albums of the year. What has Mick Jagger, king of kings, been spending his past 12 months doing? He’s been servicing baby boomers desperate for a nostalgia trip… and I’m meant to consider him a legend for that?
And let’s not pretend “serious” music is any more enduring than “disposable” music - “a catchy beat designed for people to dance to” (is dancing really such a bad thing?). To steal an example: “Van Morrison’s “Into the Music” was released the same year as the Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight”; which do you hear more often?” And no, you never hear the Jackson 5 or the Bee Gees or the Marvellettes or Duran Duran or Prince any more, do you?
I don’t really care what Chris Rock’s opinion of popular music is. But he sounds like he’s devolving into an old crank. Many people become convinced today’s music (whenever “today” may be) is terrible, and not as meaningful as the music of their younger years. Rock is not immune from that because he is a comedian. There were just as many party bands in the period Rock was talking about, and there are just as many “serious” bands today, even though I think the distinction is spurious. Dudes partied to KRS-One and Trick Daddy has some thought provoking lyrics.
Why is one ever better than the other?
The truly bizarre thing is what a caricature you’ve turned rock into. Back when folks started listening to rock ‘n’ roll, did they demand that it be serious or memorable or challenging or responsible or reflect life in the “hood.” What a terribly dull, prim lot these kids must have been! All that nonsense about the '60s being the decade of rebellion - if your perception of rock was the music those kids were listening to, I doubt they ever made it out of the library.
Do you really differentiate between serious music and party music when you’re listening? Do you stop your foot tapping when you hear a catchy song, or do you enjoy it and loathe yourself later for indulging in such frivolity? Does music need to be such a puritanical, joyless pursuit?
There’s a thread recent enough to bump that addresses this point directly:
Why is “classic” rap less popular than other classic genres?
While Mick’s year hasn’t been anything worthy of pride, he’s 37 years older than Timberlake. To be fair you should be comparing Justin’s 2006 to Mick’s 1969.
The production on Compton may be dated (not Dre’s finest hour, IMO), but it’s still a great listen. 88-89 also gave us It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and Paul’s Boutique, which have held up a lot better and are as essential now as they were back then.
Aztec Camera and the Smithereens are pretty cool.
Nostalgia based moments in popular music never do last long anyway.
Regarding rap vs. rock I sometimes wonder if the fan base of Buffy The Vampire Slayer was actually middle aged adults like my wife and me, rather than younger people–because thinking back on that show, I can’t remember anyone ever listening to rap or hip-hop. Instead it was always indie rock or something similar.
I’ve given up on music. I haven’t listened to any of it except for some stuff that happens to get through on (not M) tv or through exposure to the daily world. I gave up on it at about 2004, if I recall correctly.
To me, music is getting much more complex. That’s not a bad thing, but it does seem to have lost a kind of craftsman’s feel to it.
It’s hard to explain, but it’s like having a wooden table in your kitchen that’s made from your neighbor’s garage. It’s big and heavy and may have a couple of minor flaws, but you appreciate the work, and you like what it has become. This would be contrasted with a metal table that was mass-produced, has no real flaws, but there’s just no real…soul to it.
Had groups that were into acid in the '70s had their hands on computers these days, we’d have some wild(er) and crazy (ier) stuff than we did coming out of that era.
All in all, I’m still curious about music. I wonder if The Next Big Thing is going to happen. I’m pretty sure it’s going to happen, but couldn’t tell you when or what it might be.
Additionally, someone mentioned Gnarls Barkley earlier. That song Crazy isn’t bad at all, but it was getting played EVERYWHERE. Sometimes overexposure is worse than underexposure.