I was really referring to the melody being repetitive.
Let’s go with This Land Is Your Land, which is probably one of his more melodically complex songs.
Just one two three up the chord hold for a bar then 321 down the chord hold for a bar.
Rinse and repeat for like 12 verses.
Come to think of it… It’s pretty close to the melody of Legend Has It. It’s just Legend has it is just doing the “This Land is your Land” part of the melody and then doing a variation.
You’re welcome! I put off listening to it for years because I have a thing about albums made by artists who know they are dying. It’s too existential for me to handle most of the time. But… It’s fantastic. Cathartic? I don’t always love Coltrane but I really like that one.
Well, it is pretty much just 1/4/5 - like 85-90% of rock/blues/folk music. (Actually 5/1/4/1 - but who’s parsing.)
The repetitive part is that the verse and chorus are the same melody. Yeah, that happens with quite a few folk/oldtime/bluegrass tunes. Often, tho, the chords remain the same, while the melody differs somewhat.
I guess I didn’t realize you were talking about a simplistic/repetitive melody, since I perceive so little melody in what little rap I hear.
To fully understand rap, we must first be fluent with its meter, rhyme and figures of speech, then ask two questions: 1) How artfully has the objective of the rap music been rendered and 2) How important is that objective? Question 1 rates the rap music’s perfection; question 2 rates its importance. And once these questions have been answered, determining the rap’s greatness becomes a relatively simple matter. If the rap’s score for perfection is plotted on the horizontal of a graph and its importance is plotted on the vertical, then calculating the total area of the rap yields the measure of its greatness.
(applause)
I don’t think anybody listens to rap for melody.
But you might be right.
Check out Anderson .Paak. His music is R&B and soul as well as hip hop, but even his songs where he raps have a lot of melody.
Maybe it’s just me, but listening to “Alice’s Restaurant” every Thanksgiving got pretty old…
Wrong Guthrie.
Oh, fuck. And I was so happy with my joke, too.
I mean, I suppose you could blame the entirety of Arlo’s output on Woody.
It’s not even repetition, it’s “coming around on the guitar.”
Dopers always do this. They find the outliers to refute a point.
I was pointing out that Dinsdale’s dislike of rap’s lack of melody was an issue that didn’t matter to its listeners.
Oops, did I have to qualify that statement to the nth degree to satisfy all rhetorical conditions? Insert “generally” between “that” and “matter” so no more goalposts get moved.
Relax a bit. I think maybe you are missing the context of your statement coming on the heels of Magiver saying Hip Hop is a “wheelhouse devoid of melody or music”
Its not. It’s obviously not. And this is an old stick used to beat on the genre and claim it isn’t music. But, vocal melody is also not the primary feature in most of hip hop through the years. This is also true. (I would say lots and lots of people listen to hip hop for the beats. More so now than ever and those beats are often quite melodic, but why split hairs.)
Mostly, like, touch grass as the kids say. This isn’t that important.
Well, not always, because — hey, wait a minute.
Does anybody quote Bart during the half-time shows?
I got here late so, I’m probably repeating others but I still want my 2c 
Yep, absolutely. No-one should feel bad about liking or not liking anything.
Rap and hip hop though are somewhat unique in the degree of snobbishness and contempt levelled at them. I’ve seen it a bit on the dope, but much more elsewhere. That it’s not real music, that the world would be better without it etc.
I’m glad that the OP is very much not in that style, and is just honest inquisitiveness.
It’s something like a dialect; they use a lot of slang and being able to flow with the rhythm is more important than being very clear to the listener.
Most people who frequently listen to hip hop can indeed understand what is being said, though they may not be able to rap along with it, because rapping takes a degree of skill.
Generally-speaking this is not where the skill lies in rap music. It is more in writing lyrics that both make sense and flow, being able to perform that verse, and the music production side of creating catchy rhythms and fresh sounds etc.
I think hip hop doesn’t suit live performance as well as some other genres. Crucially, people often expect a high energy performance, with dancing, which is almost impossible to do while rapping and it’s hard to get the volume mix right live too.
I mean, I’ve been to some great shows, but you typically either have live rapping, or a very visual performance, but often not both at the same time, and for the superbowl they went with the latter.
It depends. It’s become a bit of a meme that rap doesn’t have a message, but actually there are a higher proportion of rap songs covering social issues than other genres IMO.
However, it’s also true that a lot of rap is about bragging, or just “keeping it real” i.e. admitting to a desire for money, sex, whatever, instead of pretending to be above all that. And it’s a performance thing…it’s equally likely to be self-parody these days.
I wasn’t bemoaning rap/hip-hop’s lack of melody. It’s still a musical experience, and it definitely resonates to widespread degrees. There’s some hip-hop that I consider mesmerizing, but other folks might like it for different reasons. I don’t see lack of melody as a valid reason for disliking the genre. A jeep doesn’t have the amenities of a Cadillac, but I’d rather drive a jeep down more potentially hazardous roads.
I never liked hearing punk, but seeing it performed was an entirely different experience. Same goes for opera. Seeing the dedication of the performers and the production setting can be a true adventure.
I didn’t think you were. But your comment was timed to come right on the end of someone who was. I think the responses had a lot less to do with you than with that larger conversation