Today's Pop Music and the culture Supporting it.

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Postby Otohiko » Wed Nov 22, 2006 11:28 am

And let's not forget that we're talking more about the sociocultural implications than stylistic preferences here. In which case I'm sure not all forms of metal or whatever would be entirely 'clean', either.

What concerns me is that this type of 'exhibit' we have here is far more influential and, in my view, reflected in the behaviours of the average sucker. :roll:
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Postby megaman917 » Wed Nov 22, 2006 8:16 pm

Gepetto wrote:
megaman917 wrote:Just like how metal has, only God knows how, many sub-genres


I believe the Wikipedia calls those "weasel words". You didn't say it up front but you imply that Metal is too poor a music style to have proper "sub-genres".

My apologies. I had no intention of implying anything of the sort. I guess Ishould have put the comma after the word 'many' instead of before it. Based on several threads that I've come across here in the Music forum, metal has a long ass list of sub-genres (correct me if I'm wrong).

The differences vary from the category of subjects to the emphasis given to guitar/drum solos, use of instruments like flutes and violins, proportion of the song's lenght that has vocals, predominant tempo, pitch and aspect of vocals, lexic style, metrification and other aspects. For example, in Power Metal the lyrics usually tend towards the "epic" style, and the solos are long and fast. Progresive Metal lyrics are usually metrificated and make a point of always rhyming words that are more or less in disuse, and the tempos are "irregular", like 16/8, as oppsoed to your usual 4/4 or 3/4. Death Metal vocals are the characteristic "growl and grunt" that is stereotipically associated with metal in general.

The differences in hip-hop's sub-genres vary from artist origins/roots, subject matter (for some artist), types of beats, lyrics, how the lyrics are worded and used, etc.

I know I'm swaying off-topic here and I don't want to turn this into a discussion of what music style is "best", but allow me to say that metal (and most other musical genres) is a lot more content-rich than songs about bling-bling and clever phallic euphemisms. Enphasis on "clever".
Hip-Hop has a lot of content rich songs, it's just a matter of finding them.
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Postby Fall_Child42 » Wed Nov 22, 2006 8:48 pm

megaman917 ... are you yourself more into that particular subculture? Your explanations are probably accurate, (though i'm not sure that ID4's explanations are as well thought out, for as far as i know the roots of hip-hop were coming out of a certain jazz, turned rebel commenting on the ills their particular minority were facing at the time.)

Of course I'm not excluding other forms of music of being guilty of this...

Lest the metal fans forget the Cartoon Factor that got pumped up During the 70-80s what with (to quote a favorite spoken word artist of mine)

"In the good corner there's bands like Stryper Throwing bibles into the crowd and oh aren't their Farah Faucet wigs as lovely as Charelie's angels themselves?
and in the other corner we have the EVIL metal bands that speak of blood and Satan and horns like SLAYER and 10,000 other bands that sound exactly LIKE slayer. "

he goes on to describe the "next big thing in metal" as Islamic Metal
(it is a very entertaining speech dripping with sarcasm)

as for the capitalist reasons behind this music, I can totally see the white guys in business suits who "know what kids want" sitting in a meeting drinking their $7 starbucks grande mocha lattes and one of them stands up and says "urban kids like jewelery right? let's have one of these guys rap about their jewelery" yeah yeah awesome ... then they all get in their Porche SUVs and go drive down the street to by some congratulatory cocaine before going home to the wife and kids.

I guess what I'm really wondering is how have we as a culture become so willing to accept and celebrate it?

To what extent is this influencing or influenced by the culture from which it comes?
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Postby megaman917 » Thu Nov 23, 2006 12:03 am

Fall_Child42 wrote:megaman917 ... are you yourself more into that particular subculture? Your explanations are probably accurate, (though i'm not sure that ID4's explanations are as well thought out, for as far as i know the roots of hip-hop were coming out of a certain jazz, turned rebel commenting on the ills their particular minority were facing at the time.)

If you're asking me if I'm a hip-hop head, then yes. Do I carry myself the way these rappers do, with expensive jewlery, being gangsta, etc., I do my best not to. I personally can't see myself doing everything they do. But as far as clothes go, I try my best to look fashionable, but not over do it, and not wear what a lot of others are wearing. Clothing is another subject, which I'm not gonna go any further into.

"In the good corner there's bands like Stryper Throwing bibles into the crowd and oh aren't their Farah Faucet wigs as lovely as Charelie's angels themselves?
and in the other corner we have the EVIL metal bands that speak of blood and Satan and horns like SLAYER and 10,000 other bands that sound exactly LIKE slayer. "

he goes on to describe the "next big thing in metal" as Islamic Metal
(it is a very entertaining speech dripping with sarcasm)

This right here can start another thread questioning the appeal of metal, bringing the same/similar arguments and criticisms (started in this thread) about metal.

as for the capitalist reasons behind this music, I can totally see the white guys in business suits who "know what kids want" sitting in a meeting drinking their $7 starbucks grande mocha lattes and one of them stands up and says "urban kids like jewelery right? let's have one of these guys rap about their jewelery" yeah yeah awesome ... then they all get in their Porche SUVs and go drive down the street to by some congratulatory cocaine before going home to the wife and kids.

By the end of the day many rappers will say that the wife & kids are most important and need to be taken care of, and that's why they do what they do; or something along those lines.

I guess what I'm really wondering is how have we as a culture become so willing to accept and celebrate it?

To what extent is this influencing or influenced by the culture from which it comes?
That right there is food for thought.

My expanations may not be entirely accurate, and maybe someone else can break it down a lot better than I can, but like I said before, I can only explain it/break it down to best of my ability/to the extent of my (limited) knowledge. (I generally listen to what sounds good to me and never really think about analyzing it, wonder about its appeal, etc.)
Had this thread been about metal, metal heads would try to explain it/break it down to best of their ability/extent of their knowledge.
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Postby nailz » Thu Nov 23, 2006 5:06 am

Fall_Child42 wrote:I can totally see the white guys in business suits who "know what kids want" sitting in a meeting drinking their $7 starbucks grande mocha lattes and one of them stands up and says "urban kids like jewelery right? let's have one of these guys rap about their jewelery" yeah yeah awesome ...


I can't imagine even RAPPERS having so little dignity that they'd degrade to writing songs based on what their record company tells them to write songs about. :?
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Postby Gepetto » Thu Nov 23, 2006 5:38 am

nailz wrote:I can't imagine even RAPPERS having so little dignity that they'd degrade to writing songs based on what their record company tells them to write songs about. :?


It haas more to do with the mentality of the bandmembers than with the genre. Comercial bands sing to obtain money as a main goal, while "true" artists do it for the music itself as the main reason (although I don't think they're too bothered by the fame and money). Commercial singers include your average Britney Spears knockoff, Britney herself, bands like Linkin Park that release five albums in two years where two have original songs, one is a live concert and the other two are remix albums, the current GreenDay, which flipped from a soft, ballad-like rock to Punk Rock and released a flood of identical albums in very little time, or Dream Theater, which is the greatest sell-out in Progressive Metal.

megaman917 wrote:
I know I'm swaying off-topic here and I don't want to turn this into a discussion of what music style is "best", but allow me to say that metal (and most other musical genres) is a lot more content-rich than songs about bling-bling and clever phallic euphemisms. Enphasis on "clever".
Hip-Hop has a lot of content rich songs, it's just a matter of finding them.


Sorry, it sounded like I was generalizing. Especially in the beginning, Hip-Hop did and does have many content-rich songs. Unfortunately, (and this is what I meant) it's much easier to stumble upon brainless verbal copulation than these songs.

megaman917 wrote:Based on several threads that I've come across here in the Music forum, metal has a long ass list of sub-genres (correct me if I'm wrong).


No, you're right. But some of them are just for show (like "Viking Metal", of which there are only three bands), which would fall into the category of "commercial bands"

Fall_Child42 wrote:Islamic Metal
Fall_Child42 wrote:congratulatory cocaine


what about Islamic Cocaine? I thought the Arab Peninsula's main export drug was opium.

Otohiko wrote:What concerns me is that this type of 'exhibit' we have here is far more influential and, in my view, reflected in the behaviours of the average sucker. :roll:


which is why they're the "average sucker", not the "unparalleled genious". The day two or three popular groups decide that walking around butt-naked with a duck on your head is cool, then we'll all have to move to a war-torn country where all the radio towers have been bombed down.
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Postby Scintilla » Thu Nov 23, 2006 12:00 pm

Gepetto wrote:... the current GreenDay, which flipped from a <b>soft, ballad-like rock</b> to Punk Rock and released a flood of identical albums in very little time...

I really never thought that songs like "Minority" and "Holiday" were that far off from "Basket Case" and "Welcome to Paradise" in spirit, personally...
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Postby Otohiko » Thu Nov 23, 2006 12:21 pm

It's probably unfair to target rap individually though, aside from the fact that by virtue of its tendency to be 'rough', it slips into far more explicit content. Which is not to say that mind-numbingly bad content is not found elsewhere. Personally I've always been far more inclined to attack certain specimens of pop and pop-rock - I still don't believe in blaming music for stupid behaviour (no more than I believe in blaming video games for school shootings), but I do believe in mass-manufactured music killing culture in the sense of choking musicians who have so much more right to be supported than the average conveyor-pop.
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Re: Today's Pop Music and the culture Supporting it.

Postby Orwell » Thu Nov 23, 2006 2:06 pm

Fall, do you have any examples of the more 'Noble' examples of R&B and hip-hop? I can't think of anything I've heard that's from a time when this type of music wasn't quite so.... degraded.

nailz wrote:Whats the deal with his teeth? Does anyone else find that absolutely revolting?

Yes, very much so. If your going to do body modifications, figure out something a bit better. To earn real respekt, get some scart done.

Popsa wrote:...
And it's simply just impossible to not eat this rubbish
...
They are the idols of our youth, for them they go insane
They need to have a lot of money and a lot of other shit
They're excellent artists, they're great in all ways
They must have everything in the world, except for a soul
...
Ooooh, popsa!
Pink bullshit from the horns to the tail


I feel this is worth quoting since as far as I can see, its accurate in describing this epedemic that is popsa. Or describing popular music. Your call.

As said before, a good majority of people that like this kind of music, and by that I'm refering to both hip hop, pop, and really all the other music popular with the younger crowd, want to follow the crowd and fit in. I personally don't know why you'd want to, I don't care how many times you tell me how cool those 4 seconds are, jumping off the golden gate bridge doesn't sound fun. So even those who don't really care for it are going to be interested in linkin park and Ying Yang Twins.

It's popular because it reflects "the [percieved] general tempo of life." It doesn't matter that even though those who live in poor black neighborhoods don't face all the same problems, its percieved that they have them. Emo's who need a spicy chicken sandwich identify with the lyrics of linkin park. They may not have those problems, but they certainly feel like it. Some, I hope, may not believe in what they're saying but it's still the closest thing that reflects their percieved life. I would venture to guess that the worse situation your actually in, the more you will either gravitate towards believing this, or realize that reality has arrived and you need to get yourself out, not wallow in your problems.

There's no real answer to this either. Maybe improve the general life of the low/middle income majority, but then I think you'd just make more emo's. Your sure as hell not going to 'wake' people up in large groups without some sort of trauma, again, percieved or real. You can't tell your average 16 year old, "Be yourself!" because that's so suppressed or warped that until they're dragged away from this fantasy world that is the general public education system, it almost doesn't exist. They're constantly surrounded by this 'culture' that walls them in. It may well carry onto adulthood, either as a form of making money or as a persona who never made it out of highschool. I find the latter group disturbing, especially when they hold a job as your boss.

Dementia is a, currently, incurable disease. You don't tell the guy with dementia the walls aren't actually closing, you get them away from the walls. The same with Popsa.

Otohiko wrote:Here's a question:
What music do you think is the alternative to modern-day popsa? Surely hard punk or death metal wouldn't work for most people, awesome though some specimens of that may be...


Classical, or some sort of complex music. Construktion of Light comes to mind.
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Postby Otohiko » Thu Nov 23, 2006 2:21 pm

I think it's a little naive to think that complex music would be 'up' with everyone (I'm sure you realize that well enough, of course).

Personally, I have no problem with 'popular' music in the sense of it being 'music of the people', but not in the sense of being 'music for the people' in the context of the capitalist society. There's a lot of pretty good artists who are perfectly full of good substance without slipping into 11/8 every other bar. There's a lot of perfectly good music that doesn't require one to have a stomach for growls and a sufficiently-fucked inner ear to stand wailing solos that sound like a maxed-out buzzsaw. We really don't need a world full of prog junkies, extreme metalheads and Japanese noise afficionados, nor is it realistic to expect it. I'm not concerned about it at all. What I am concerned about is having a world where any type of music has a fair chance and a fair shot at the public's ears.

You may defend hip-hop as a genre all you like, and all I'll say is that I personally like good hip-hop in moderation. Hip-hop is not the problem, I'll join you in defending it if you want. But when certain hip-hop artists that sing about the shit that we see in the 'exhibitions' here are making their 'bling' immoderately while intelligent, musically-skilled artists can't even go on tour because they can't afford the expenses, something is fundamentally wrong. It doesn't matter what genre we're talking about. What matters is that there's no reason that crap like this should even be defended in the context of the music scene as we have it. As soon as someone starts pointing out 'redeeming features', the discussion should already be over. Because for every mass artist that needs 'redemption', there's a thousand perfectly good artists that don't need any excuse.

What worries me about the culture is that the ones that need 'redeeming features' are coming out on top.
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Postby Orwell » Thu Nov 23, 2006 2:39 pm

Otohiko wrote:I think it's a little naive to think that complex music would be 'up' with everyone (I'm sure you realize that well enough, of course).


Ah, I was thinking more opposite than real alternative. For that, I don't think its going to happen until the very music industry changes its structure. Which from what I understand may actually be coming. I've been seeing more articles recently that it seems like they've recognized that music is about music, not about selling plastic discs.
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Postby Fall_Child42 » Thu Nov 23, 2006 3:06 pm

Orwell

http://www.guerrillafunk.com/publicenem ... arch_7.mp3

http://www.guerrillafunk.com/hardtruths ... 3-7-06.mp3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-os (has some nice messages as well as making some "fluff" peices)

Uhh...

http://www.myspace.com/immortaltechnique

thats about all i can really show ... as I'm not really into this particular genre of music...These are only people i know of due to a seperate subculture...

As for the Rap music, I never ment to target it specifically

I only chose that particular genre due to it being the most popular of RIGHT NOW. there are clear examples of all other forms of music turning "popsa" hell when i think what happened to punk it makes me cry ... Avril Lavigne Queen of Punk ... :roll: I just think rap has been one of the MOST exploited.

and has been stated before, you can find solid good artistic rap (just like everything else) but due to the capitalist system, as oto mentioned it just takes WAY more digging than it should.
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Postby R-A-N-M-A » Thu Nov 23, 2006 10:15 pm

When was the last time Pop music wasn't full of empty Lyrics, trends and big bucks for record companies? Trying to find depth and meaning in pop music in any era is a lost cause. If it means anything it probably isn't lowest common denominator any more and it really wouldn't be pop.
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Postby Gepetto » Fri Nov 24, 2006 10:35 am

Scintilla wrote:
Gepetto wrote:... the current GreenDay, which flipped from a <b>soft, ballad-like rock</b> to Punk Rock and released a flood of identical albums in very little time...

I really never thought that songs like "Minority" and "Holiday" were that far off from "Basket Case" and "Welcome to Paradise" in spirit, personally...


I was referring more to the mood. The example I had in mind was Time of Your Life.

When I was younger, I couldn't tell them apart from Oasis. :roll:
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