I agree that the heavy metal/stadium rock spectrum is one 80s feature, along with the emergence of electronic music. I also agree that hip-hop and rap just has to be somewhere - but where? I’m tempted to say that it was the 90s that saw it place itself irrevocably into the mainstream (for reference, Straight Outta Compton was released in 1988). On the other hand, the OP’s suggestion of grunge & indie music being that decade’s feature is persuasive - but I’d insist that Radiohead most definitely belong in there, with their five-year evolution from Creep to OK Computer neatly sitting in the middle of those years.
This decade? Perhaps the magpie-like approach of many musicians, with the blurring of boundaries between electronic and band-oriented genres. The Prodigy have taken an electronic genre and expanded it to be able to put on a genuine live show. The revolution needed is for someone to do the same for hip-hop - Kanye West has tried hard, but still fallen short.
Dude, I saw Nine Inch Nails live in 1989. Live drummer playing along with the sequenced beats, two guitarists, insane, chaotic energy. 17 years later, Prodigy can only aspire…
Kanye needs to check out The Roots or pre-lobotomy Black Eyed Peas, both of whom use predominantly live instrumentation in what amounts to a live rock/R&B show with rappers. I saw BEP pre-lobotomy, pre-Fergie on the Warped Tour, of all places. The white skater kids went nuts.
True – I’m not being picky about it though since I don’t much care for either.
I’ve noticed that there has been some give in what my kids are listening to these days – it is mildly less annoying to me.
I’m wondering if Argent may be right though that the idea of a culturally unifying music of a generation is past tense because of internet radio and free and easily available downloads from large groups of talented diverse independents.
I’ll grant that the pace of evolution of rap was faster, but I don’t think that makes it more original. And, more important, I don’t think rap could possibly be more artistically significant than rock. What I mean is that rock music is deeply important to many peoples’ lives. I’m sure that’s true for rap as well, but no more so than rock. The reason that matters is that I’m interested in what’s going to persist, and I know that the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Nirvana will be listened to for centuries the way Bach, Mozart and Beethoven are listened to today.
I’m very interested to find out who among the musical styles I’m less familiar with will have that much impact – honestly, I’m not being snarky but rather I’m asking for recommendations. Some of the greatest moments of my life are when I’ve discovered amazing music that was there all the time but was outside my realm of awareness. It feels like gaining the ability to see into a new dimension – you experience a whole new world. Please help me achieve this again!
That’s not what I’m talking about - a band cherry-picking a few bits and pieces from other genres. I mean the way music from outside any guitar-band tradition has been adapted to large-scale live performances. Maybe I should have used Orbital or Squarepusher as better examples, because of the way they remained behind their keyboards while doing it. And I suppose it goes back to my belief that Kraftwerk will be seen by future generations as one of the most significant contributions to 20th-century music
No argument here: considering that you can draw a straight line from Kraftwerk to Afrika Bambaataa as well as Cabaret Voltaire and Ministry (and thence to all of the musical progeny *that * implies), I agree with you.
Rap/hip hop is the defining music of the new century. Absolutely no doubt about it (and I’m not even a huge fan). Download DJ Dangermouse’s “Gray Album” (a remix of Jay Z’s Black Album and the Beatles’ White Album) and you will see the light.
FWIW, Ministry, much as I love them, invented nothing. They’re a minor stop along that pathway, not a major branching. Ministry started out as faux-British techno-soul (Culture Club meets the Thompson Twins) and only went industrial–along with the appropriate changes of costume and accent–after many other bands had paved the way for them. Just so’s you know. You should replace them on your time with Foetus, I think.
[QUOTE=ddgryphon]
I’ve noticed that there has been some give in what my kids are listening to these days – it is mildly less annoying to me.
QUOTE]That might be because their musical tastes are gradually maturing . . . or that yours is.
Point taken. Ministry (and let us never speak of Cold Life again) didn’t invent anything, I’ll grant you, but they synthesized and streamlined like nobody’s business. They were the first act to really fuse industrial music with heavy metal, using metal’s crunch as more than just another interesting source of sound snippets. Yes, Foetus preceded them, but the road from Foetus to Skinny Puppy or Rammstein or White Zombie passes through Ministry.
Plus (and this is probably worth another thread), Ministry was so much more listenable (IMO) than Foetus or Throbbing Gristle. There should be one award for the artist who invents something truly new, and another award for the one who’s able to make it palatable to more than 50 people, because they’re rarely the same artist. Ministry:Foetus::Can:Sonic Youth
My evidence: most people listen to music through their iPods and earphones, so they all are walking down the street listening to sounds that I can’t hear.
Well, I for one find Foetus infinitely listenable; there has never been a musician to master, equally, melody and noise the way Thirlwell has. But that opinion aside, I agree with everything you say. (You like Can and SY, you know Geraldine Fibbers, or Deus?)
Musical historians of the future will note that much, not all, but much of the most interesting music in the last 20 years to present day to future times, will have been made by women who got little or no recognition at the time.
:rolleyes: So the problem with rap isn’t that it’s not enough like rock? Rap’s doing just fine without needing to start appealing to old white guys with antiquated ideas about what is music and what isn’t.
I heard a radio story the other day about some music researchers who more or less concur with the OP’s suspicions. There is no really new sound that has become widespread in the Aughts, the way, say, disco, heavy metal, or techno did in their respective heydays.
They suspect the pervasivenes of recording techniques that are heavily digitally synchronized. There’s only so much room for fluidity and creativity when absolutely everything must conform to the click track.
What they were getting at, essentially, was, could you play a collection of 1990s popular music and 2000s popular music to a person unfamiliar with any of the specific acts you chose, and have them have a good shot at saying accurately which were the 1990s tunes and which were the 2000s tunes? They almost certainly could with any other pair of adjacent decades in the past 60 years at least.
I asked a teenager for the difference between rap and hiphop and was told that rap doesn’t have music, and hiphop is basically rap with music. So does rap even count as “music”?
