Simon Reynolds is a gobshite

EVERY SINGLE YEAR is a good year for rap (or any genre, really!) if you look in the right places... But AN ACTUAL GOOD YEAR is when the good stuff is unavoidable.

This is basically what I've been fumbling towards, only really concise and with CAPS

yeah that's really well-put

man if you really wanted a rap is dead in 2009 example that ama show with a lame em and a lame fiddy and a lame timbo lamely limping to the finish line was all the proof you needed. if that was what you were looking for. thank god all the man on man action at the end of the show made you forget about it.

i listened to rap all year and found it fresh, exciting and generally had a great fucking time listening to it. also i do not care if simon reynolds thinks rap is dead. thank you.

It plays into what people are saying about the dearth of black artists on EOY lists. I love it when hip hop is producing such unarguably brilliant singles and albums that any decent critic has to acknowledge them, without any need for special pleading. This year, it really doesn't surprise me that P4K or NME or whoever aren't going apeshit over Pill. If there's one single as flat-out great, as say, TI's What You Know, then I haven't heard it yet, and I'd really love to.

i blame the economy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5FwduDXz6k

A cynical person might think that a lot of this has to do with getting that Euro.

Pill's only put a couple of mixtapes out though hasn't he? Has there even been an album yet?

I meant Trap Going Ham, which is a big hip hop tune that means v little outside its base. Album-wise, it's pretty much old-man rap or nothing, isn't it?

q: is mixtape culture part of the problem for ppl like me who try to pay attention to what's going on but aren't devoted enough to download and plow through a ton of mixtapes? i tend to be at my best when i can go to a store and buy a cd--so i guess i am prob a minority that should not be catered to. i feel like i'm missing a ton of stuff tho.

sup yall. i'm trying to write my end of year list but i don't know what the huge standout Hip Hop songs that had the streets 'going ham' were. is rap dead or something?

If there's one single as flat-out great, as say, TI's What You Know, then I haven't heard it yet, and I'd really love to.

― Dorian (Dorianlynskey), Friday, 27 November 2009 21:23 (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

why hello there https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHe18yE2kXM

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 12:52 PM (3 hours ago)

so why did you read the article if you don't like hip-hop?

EVERY SINGLE YEAR is a good year for rap (or any genre, really!) if you look in the right places... But AN ACTUAL GOOD YEAR is when the good stuff is unavoidable.

NOTHING IS UNAVOIDABLE. (You used caps first. I'll stop now.) Seriously, this is the same problem I had with that interview with you (some of which I liked, because you talked about listening to non-indie, non-canonical stuff) where you claim that lo-fi bullshit by some 20-year-olds in Brooklyn is "the year's biggest musical trend." Seriously? The majority of people in Brooklyn don't even care about this shit, let alone the world at large. I could easily assert that tech-thrash and deathcore are the year's biggest musical trend, and play you albums by Revocation, Born Of Osiris, and eight dozen other bands of under-25 death metal savants. That wouldn't be true, either.

so why did you read the article if you don't like hip-hop?

Because I like Reynolds' writing (he contributed to a book I edited and we exchange emails from time to time) and because I am a music critic who likes to know what other music critics are thinking, even when I vehemently disagree.

Conversely. the whole Pill/Freddie Gibbs/Juiceman axis is basically just the rap version of nitpicking over chillwave and glo-fi and, again, has little to no bearing on hip-hop at large.

― eatin' spaghett' (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, November 27, 2009 4:04 PM (48 minutes ago)

yeah i mean again this only matters if "hip-hop at large" means anything to you. there's plenty of great, classic rap being made all over the place.

and before the "but it doesn't sell anymore!/it's not ubiquitous anymore" arg gets trotted out again - nothing sells anymore! i'm hardly disheartened that rappers can't go platinum anymore when we're in an era in which like, 2 or 3 artists actually do per year

and at least 1 of them 3 is a rapper.

like, last year lil wayne, kanye and t.i. were the biggest releases in any genre, right? and ok, this year won't have anything *that* big, gucci should still be one of the 10 biggest releases of the year and lol black eyed peas are still technically a rap act

gucci will not be one of the top ten sellers, though that'd be cool

Because I like Reynolds' writing (he contributed to a book I edited and we exchange emails from time to time) and because I am a music critic who likes to know what other music critics are thinking, even when I vehemently disagree.

― neither good nor bad, just a kid like you (unperson), Friday, November 27, 2009 4:50 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Saying "I am a music critic" after saying "So maybe there are good [rap] records out there but I'm not hearing them...and I don't care" is pretty much like saying "I don't really pay attention to wisdom teeth and don't really care to... but I'm a dentist!"

And honestly re: my chillwave argument, I'm not saying it's some ubiquitous or popular thing, I'm saying its a sign of the way things are headed. Chillwave is the Gucci Mane of indie rock

Also, it was the first thing that came to mind when i was asked the question and in retrospect, is probably like the 4th or 5th movement of 2009, and not THE BIGGEST

please tell me that you personally didn't make up the name chillwave.

unfortunately i've heard it other places

oh okay it was the hipster runoff guy who did i looked it up.

Not sure if this genre has a name. Seems like it needs to have a name that is ’serious.’ Here are some ideas for this ‘genre.’

* no-fi
* post-AnCo rock
* post-bloghause
* GorillaVsBearcore
* Chill Bro Core [via Butterteam]
* Kewl Boring Music
* Music 2 smoke weed 2
* Synth Computer Pop Atmospheric Wave
* GazeWave
* ShitWave
* CumWave
* WaveWave
* ShoeWave
* Chillgaze
* Pitchforkwavegaze
* Blogrock
* No-gaze
* Blowgaze
* GazeStep
* post-electro
* conceptro
* ChillHouse
* Browave
* Conceptual Blog Core
* ForkcastRock
* Forkshit
* No-fork
* ZanyCore
* Industrial
* post-freakfolk
* freakgaze

Feel like I might call it ‘chill wave‘ music in the future. Feels like ‘chill wave’ is dominated by ‘thick/chill synths’ while conceptual core is still trying to ‘use real instruments/sound like it was recorded in nature.’ Feel like chillwave is supposed to sound like something that was playing in the background of ‘an old VHS cassette that u found in ur attic from the late 80s/early 90s.’

You know, I'm shocked no one seems to be mentioning this about it, but:

If you told me 5 years ago that every hyped indie rock band in 2009 would sound like Ariel Pink, I would have said you were crazy

GorillaVsBearcore

hahahaha

HRO dude has turned self-loathing into a marketable lifestyle brand, and I for one am genuinely impressed

i think it's nice when there are easily identifiable big trends that pervade over a certain genre for a whole year. it's like all the bands have agreed on a set of rules and they all compete to sound the best within a certain aesthetic. and there is good chillwave! maybe not any classic albums but at least some great songs.

like what? i dont know what chillwave is.

there's this one really amazing neon indian song.

Saying "I am a music critic" after saying "So maybe there are good (rap) records out there but I'm not hearing them...and I don't care" is pretty much like saying "I don't really pay attention to wisdom teeth and don't really care to... but I'm a dentist!"

Hardly. How many polka albums did you hear this year? How many North African releases that didn't come out on Sublime Frequencies? Every writer limits what they investigate, mostly based on what people will pay them to write about. Nobody's willing to pay for my opinions on hip-hop, so when I listen, it's because I've got some down time from all the stuff I'm listening to for money (90-plus percent of which is metal, jazz and assorted skronk). Hip-hop is strictly recreational to me, and I'd much rather listen to Follow The Leader again than whoever's fifth mixtape of the quarter just hit Rapidshare.

okay hipster runoff is already talking about post-chillwave. it's over folks:

http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/2009/11/the-beach-house-theory-of-2k10.html

they created it and then they killed it! that is kinda cool!

But Scott that's so he can position himself for the chillwave revival in 2010.

ummm, not listening to polka != not listening to possibly the decade's biggest genre of music

i.e. nu-chillwave

Hardly. How many polka albums did you hear this year? How many North African releases that didn't come out on Sublime Frequencies? Every writer limits what they investigate, mostly based on what people will pay them to write about. Nobody's willing to pay for my opinions on hip-hop, so when I listen, it's because I've got some down time from all the stuff I'm listening to for money (90-plus percent of which is metal, jazz and assorted skronk). Hip-hop is strictly recreational to me, and I'd much rather listen to Follow The Leader again than whoever's fifth mixtape of the quarter just hit Rapidshare.

― neither good nor bad, just a kid like you (unperson), Friday, November 27, 2009 5:24 PM (3 minutes ago)

this is fair but last time i checked this thread was a discussion on the direction of hip-hop, and since you've admitted you know very little about it and don't care to, i don't see how saying this is productive.

also, unlike polka, north african music, and jazz, people actually listen to and pay for rap music

possibly the decade's biggest genre of music

Among whom?

If you extend it to include norteño, the audience for polka is pretty fucking huge, you know. You don't hear it in many McDonald's commercials, but it's out there.

i started that cinnamon chasers thread 2 weeks ago and i should have just called them chillwave in my thread title! (cuz i saw they were mentioned on an origins of chillwave blog post just now.)

the dude behind CC also makes actual olde-tyme "chillout" music under another name:

do you guys like cinnamon chasers? (ambient electro-pop kinda stuff)

I'm waiting for the post-chillwave revival in 2030.

among whom? umm, the record buying public of the world?

EVERY SINGLE YEAR is a good year for rap (or any genre, really!) if you look in the right places... But AN ACTUAL GOOD YEAR is when the good stuff is unavoidable.

― eatin' spaghett' (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, November 27, 2009 4:07 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

i feel like it's really easy to avoid everything nowadays though. like are there any other genres that are pumping out an unavoidable wave of great music? imo 2009 has been a fantastic year for hip hop and i didn't even have to look that hard, atleast not any harder than it was to find my favourite r&b, punk, indie or noise albums.

we are all in (i)pod world now.

back to our roots:

http://www.gadgetvenue.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/wooden-ipod-dock.jpg

How about "unavoidable if you're paying a minimum of attention," which is clearly what he means?

yeah i guess my point is that nothing was really "unavoidable if you're paying a minimum of attention" this year besides lady gaga and boom boom pow.