Simon Reynolds is a gobshite

hey you've got it easy. a couple of years ago simon started listening to metal.

i mean if you want to talk "outsider" outlook and critique from above.

i think the reason simon can get my goat is the same reason xgau can get my goat. cuz he's smart and a good writer. the most dangerous combo of all! and i guess i can say the same thing for sasha. cuz i end up shouting "bbbbut you should know better!".

The level of debat is pitiful though. You just knew before the first comment went up that you'd get a mix of: (1) ho ho, don't you mean (c)rap music?, (2) De La Soul were great but then it was all about bitches and ho's and (3) It's still amazing, you just have to look for the good stuff (proceeds to recommend shit like Sage Francis and Aesop Rock). The third argument probably annoys me the most. Doom has become the MC equivalent to The Wire - I know he's good, but smug bores go on about him so much, as if he's the answer to everything, that it makes me hate him just a little bit.

Good comment by Greg Tate near the end of the list though, which suggests a positive cultural reason why hip hop as a radical force is dead. And Sage Francis ain't going to change that.

x-post

im more annoyed by it being a signpost for a broader trend, signals to all the alt weekly editors & etc. that we can go back to just caring about wu tang & occasional cool kids type shit -- that i find kind of frustrating. maybe im being ridic cuz lots of that writing on rap was pretty awful anyway??

I am afraid this and Sasha's piece works as a signpost to some alt -weekly editors I've dealt with, and to NPR All indie considered, to just go cover only indie rock.

hey! it's like the decade is starting all over again.

I think, if anything, hip-hop is in the place that indie was in c. 1998-2001 and dance music was right at the start of the 00s - lots of good records being made but a lack of a definable narrative and perceived sense of it being vital.

It happens to all types of music once in a while and is much of a lack of anything for journalists to latch onto as it is on the quality of the records. It's more likely we're in the period of relative coasting just before the massive paradigm shift comes in.

I think, if anything, hip-hop is in the place that indie was in c. 1998-2001 and dance music was right at the start of the 00s - lots of good records being made but a lack of a definable narrative and perceived sense of it being vital.

I think this is OTM

Let's just hope 2010's hip hop paradigm shift is better than the Strokes/Libertines eh.

isn't the end of the 00s all about there being no big paradigm shifts anymore, though? Only little shifts.

Simon you little shift.

Though in Simon's defense, 2009 maybe have been one of the worst years in hip-hop since the dawn of time.

isn't the end of the 00s all about there being no big paradigm shifts anymore, though? Only little shifts.

Exactly, it is THE END of the 00s.

I'm pitching a similar think piece to the V1ll4g3 V01c3 that works as a rebuttal, that awesome rap records still exist it's just the industry lacks a way to market them and rock critics refuse to cover them unless there's a news peg

Simon's such a big-narrative guy, though, that for him no narrative = nothing happening. Main problem with this piece is that sub-editors LOVE "the death of…" headlines, which are always inaccurate because no genre dies, it just becomes less relevant and exciting, and tends to inflame the faithful to no useful end. Most responses to the article have this blinkered, ground-level, defensive attitude. Instead of dealing with the main issue they just list a smattering of low-level releases they like. Well, great, I like Doom too, but it doesn't mean that hip hop isn't in the doldrums. There's still people going on about drum'n'bass, and I'm sure there are good tunes out there and if you're deep into the scene it probably feels like the most important music in the world, but nobody can claim that it's still important in the big scheme of things, so in that broader cultural sense it is "dead". I don't think hip hop's there yet because it's so much more versatile than d'n'b. I would like to see a hip hop equivalent to the Strokes in 2001 - someone who can trigger a new narrative.

a hip hop equivalent to the Strokes in 2001

Be careful what you wish for.

Heh. I'm aware that out of context it sounds like a horrible prospect.

It sounds like The Beastie Boys.

Just to clarify - they don't have to be white guys from the Upper East Side.

Good!

so they could be white guys from anywhere in NYC, right?

I'm sure there are good tunes out there and if you're deep into the scene it probably feels like the most important music in the world, but nobody can claim that it's still important in the big scheme of things, so in that broader cultural sense it is "dead".

There is no "big scheme of things." There is no "broader culture" to have a "sense" about. Start over.

My take on the article, btw: I don't think hip-hop is "dead" because I never thought it was "alive" in some sort of huge society-defining way. I don't believe in mass popcult consensus, only in a zillion simultaneous microscenes that occasionally fire mortar shells into each other's trenches. These days I only hear new hip-hop when I click past MTV or MTV2. So maybe there are good records out there but I'm not hearing them...and I don't care.

but mattdc, i think "a lack of a definable narrative and perceived sense of it being vital" is as much an issue of perspective as it ever has been. i knew plenty of people in 01 who felt exactly the same about it that he does now

in other words, less vital to whom?

& dont say "timbaland & jay-z listen to coldplay" lol

things i think are diff about hip hop & disappointing about it in 2009 -- to me it seems a lot less interested in taking risks w/ novelty in order to cross over to a larger stage, many of its key artists content to record for established fan bases rather than feel like pop audience is at stake for them

& of course lil wayne, t.i., gucci, lil boosie all going to jail is like if biggie and pac both went to jail for 2 years in 96

There is no "big scheme of things." There is no "broader culture" to have a "sense" about. Start over.

― neither good nor bad, just a kid like you (unperson), Friday, November 27, 2009 5:48 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

My take on the article, btw: I don't think hip-hop is "dead" because I never thought it was "alive" in some sort of huge society-defining way. I don't believe in mass popcult consensus, only in a zillion simultaneous microscenes that occasionally fire mortar shells into each other's trenches. These days I only hear new hip-hop when I click past MTV or MTV2. So maybe there are good records out there but I'm not hearing them...and I don't care.

― neither good nor bad, just a kid like you (unperson), Friday, November 27, 2009 5:52 PM (56 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^so so so otm

Simon's such a big-narrative guy, though, that for him no narrative = nothing happening

this is why i think he's such a terrible journalist tbh, and why he keeps misrepresenting so many scenes and artists. big narrative to whom? who gets to define those narratives? why is a narrative only existent to people who don't really care about a genre? there are tons of big and small narratives, both within hip-hop and w/r/t how it engages with non-hip-hop, happening at the moment. artist-specific, locale-specific, trend-specific...just because you aren't aware of them, which in most cases is because you're not interested in finding out, doesn't mean they're not important.

also i hate the false binary set up between the hip-hop faithful scouring blogs for the latest no-mark mixtape and the rest of the world - it enables fuckwits like reynolds to effectively dismiss and sweep away anyone with an actual rebuttal to him. you're a hip-hop fan, your opinion doesn't matter!

i think the problem is more that hes expecting the 'big narrative' to move a certain way & instead its moving left or right or sideways -- like, if you're looking for a 'massive change' why not consider that gucci released more material in one month this year than tribe called quest released in their entire careers (credit to noz on that observation) -- & the fact that much of it was still novel & creative & adventurous (it was mostly not filler, anyway) implies that we're in a new recording era -- he's come up w/ a way of releasing tons of material that feels kind of like a living body of work, adopted for the economic realities of our times -- how does that not qualify as a big & new direction for popular music? his entire style of prolific recording, of creating interest thru tons of variations on a narrow niche of themes, is pretty novel in the grand scheme imo

i mean isnt this the same thing hes done with uk funky ... "wheres the obvious signs of progress?? house again??" meanwhile the genre follows a kind of less-is-more strategy to 'progress'

I think the problem is that Simon's not pomo enough to get over narratives in the first place.

i am so not a big picture guy. or a prediction guy. so its hard for me to relate sometimes to people who are. or people who are always looking ahead to the new new thing. i think its a personality thing. i can take one record or even one song from another era and make a universe out of it. or for it. but i CAN dig a musical outlook/worldview that is more sociologically inclined or anthro-inclined. but broad sweeping statements and predictions and generalizations about what is happening/what is going to happen rarely do anyone any favors unless they are rigorously researched and thought out over a long period of time.

*applause*

i actually made a prediction a loooooooong long time ago and i don't think it really came true. or if it did it came true in some less obvious way that i didn't pay attention to. in the 90's when indie/undie rap was gaining strength and listeners i thought this might translate into more of a worldwide movement of people making great native language sci-fi rap of all kinds. and maybe people did and i just never heard the albums. i just thought that mo wax/stones throw/co flow/etc would spur people on to make rap music that wasn't, you know, major label rap music. that it would inspire people to make rap in their own image. ( i was really probably just hoping that the japanese would do this since one of my biggest hip-hop influences in the 90's was my major force box set) again, maybe this happened somewhat and i missed out on it or didn't know about the great latvian underground rap explosion.

maybe i should start a thread for the best non-u.s. rap albums of the 90's/00's. (yeah there was grime but there has always been u.k. rap)

I disagree with unperson - I'm still very much interested in the "big scheme of things", in any artform. And it doesn't seem controversial to me to say that all genres have highs and lows, and this isn't a high for hip hop. But the more comments I read on this thread, the more muddled Simon's piece seems. He'd have been on safer ground if he was talking about hip hop as a cutting-edge pop form which creates fascinating, innovative mainstream stars, which it has been for many years and doesn't feel like now, rather than ringing the death knell for the whole genre. deej's argument about Gucci seems fascinating to me, though I don't know enough about him to comment.

what does w/r/t mean?

reynolds is a cockhead

"with reference to"

this isn't a high for hip hop

no, it's been a terrific year for hip-hop. i mean no offence but you even admit that you haven't heard much gucci mane, who's been one of the biggest hip-hop stories of the year?

dj quik & kurupt
gucci mane
nicki minaj
pill
new era
ugk
marco polo & torae
pink dollaz
the bangz
raekwon
young dro
unladylike
jackie chain
kid sister

^^after all these US hip-hop artists across the whole spectrum of hip-hop did in the 09, you honestly can't say it was a bad year for the form. and that's just off the top of my head. maybe you haven't heard them but that's your issue, not hip-hop's.

*after what

there have certainly been v. good records this year but it isn't exactly a vintage '94, '99, '88, '03 type of year.

also ty dorian.

Well I haven't listened to a lot of Gucci Mane because I didn't much like what I have heard. I've heard a good half of that list and only warmed to UGK, DJ Quik & Kurupt and obviously Raekwon. A lot of the rest sounds drab and predictable to my ears, so it's not been a great hip hop year for me. But yes, I'll put my hands up - I let my personal tastes slide into an objective judgement in my previous post. Good job I'm not writing any pieces on the future of hip hop, eh?

a hoy hoy - "ty"?

Sorry - it's obviously thankyou. Thought you meant the British rapper Ty for some reason.

you're throwing up Kid Sister as a reason hip-hop was good in 09?

Also, seriously, real good old man rap like Quik/UGK/Raekwon has like zero bearing on hip-hop at large. It's like saying jazz had a great 09 because Evan Parker is still putting it down

lol i'm a bit of a ukhh stan and even i think ty is a bit rubbish

Also, seriously, real good old man rap like Quik/UGK/Raekwon has like zero bearing on hip-hop at large. It's like saying jazz had a great 09 because Evan Parker is still putting it down

― eatin' spaghett' (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, 27 November 2009 20:57 (22 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the mos def album is dope too

Honestly, pointing at the Quik/UGK/Raekwon/Mos Def axis is the rock critic/ILX/rap-blogger version of hilolarious "YOU'RE JUST NOT LOOKING HARD ENOUGH LISTEN TO REAL SHIT LIKE TALIB KWELI" comments

"Old man rap", that's my shit right there.

Mine too!