RapGenius thread

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Rapgenius is helpful sometimes

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the (Treeship), Saturday, 29 June 2013 23:34 (ten years ago) link

yeah, it's pretty good sometimes. like using songmeanings... they have better than average lyric transcriptions, but the comments are youtube-level dire.

the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Saturday, 29 June 2013 23:38 (ten years ago) link

I agree with that, although songmeanings seems to have worse comments

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the (Treeship), Sunday, 30 June 2013 00:13 (ten years ago) link

yeah, totally, but i would say that songmeanings' comments aren't that great.

dylannn, Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:01 (ten years ago) link

* Dylannn is using "repetition" to mock or disparage Treeship's contribution to the thread which was just repeating The Girl From Spirea X's comment.

There is also double meaning because Dylannn noted that the "comments" are not as good and was talking about a comment by Treeship so possibly clowning Treeship for not bringing high quality comments to the message.

There is a triple meaning in the fact that Dylannn was also repeating the comment for a third time and possibly talking about the quality of his own comments on this message board thread.

This explanation hasn't yet been reviewed by the Rap Genius editors

dylannn, Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:04 (ten years ago) link

Spot on parody of rapgenius's house style. Good work.

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the (Treeship), Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:10 (ten years ago) link

I typed rapgenius into my browser and it turns out the last time I visited their site was to read up on Hot Cheetos and Takis.

the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:10 (ten years ago) link

thanks, trees.

dylannn, Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:12 (ten years ago) link

this exists http://poetry.rapgenius.com/

at what point will there be freeessays.rapgenius.com

katherine, Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:13 (ten years ago) link

visiting ohhla, it's kind of sad or heartening, i dunno, that it still looks like it did in 2005-- so it's kind of weird to see 2 chains on the list of artists--and when i went to check for lyrics to a cormega song i still got a directory menu and txt files.

rapgenius is cool for allusionheavy ny rap but so much of it is still poorly transcribed and wrong and the things i want annotated aren't. sometimes by tracking down references to the same people or events in a really well annotated song, you can figure things out. like, the rg entry on 'ghetto quran' will explain almost every preme team ref in new york rap songs: http://rapgenius.com/50-cent-ghetto-quran-forgive-me-lyrics (featuring video annotation by curtis jackson himself breaking down the most obscure reference in the whole thing)

dylannn, Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:13 (ten years ago) link

you just boosted your ilx IQ™

the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:13 (ten years ago) link

OR -- OH GOD

http://poetry.rapgenius.com/Tao-lin-february-lyrics

katherine, Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:13 (ten years ago) link

the mega track i was checking out was "glory days" which is another encyclopedic neighborhood saga, perfect for annotation by internet rap forum guys with a few back issues of f.e.d.s. laying around... but the version on rapgenius is almost untouched and contains the same errors as the ohhla .txt that's been since the realness was rereleased.

dylannn, Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:18 (ten years ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4pf1DpmY3I

treeship, how do you feel about cormega?

dylannn, Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:20 (ten years ago) link

don't know much about him. i finished listening to that song and i like it. the subject matter fits well with the nostalgic style of the rapping and production, which sounds like it could have been released in the 80s almost. i don't know if it made a strong enough impression to cause me to seek out more cormega music in the future. what do you think of cormega?

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the (Treeship), Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:29 (ten years ago) link

I like tao lin's annotations. they're straightforward, like footnotes.

teju cole's on the other hand i find obnoxious: http://poetry.rapgenius.com/Teju-cole-open-city-excerpt-lyrics

like those are obviously not allusions that we're supposed to get. they're part of the inscrutable intertextual mess in your head from which you're drawing ideas. put them all out there for us like that and its like finding out how the magic trick works and now you think that magician is just some balding cornball who doesn't have a real job

stefon taylor swiftboat (s.clover), Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:31 (ten years ago) link

poetry genius seems cool. i didn't know about it before.

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the (Treeship), Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:43 (ten years ago) link

big fan. he manages to follow all of the rap rules i privately judged all music with for a period between 2005 and 2010, and rules that i feel controlled a certain subset of 90s/2000s new york rap. it was music that, to me, was ideal when it covered a set selection of topics and was made under harsh formal constraints. for example, i thought rap lyrics should sound carefully written (i should be able to picture pen on legal pad) and rappers should make a concept or lyric work on the strength of what it would look like on paper, with a limited emphasis on the performance of the lyrics. another factor was a flawed idea of legitimacy, which was gained by following the above rules, and an equally flawed idea of authenticity (the idea that rappers like cormega lived what they wrote about-- this was sometimes taken to extremes, when rappers claimed not to be rappers at all, as if their persona or whatever was not a performance at all). as far as lyrical content, i thought rappers should be focused on a narrow geographical location, hyperlocal neighborhood references--even if they addressed larger issues, those issues should be addressed through the lens of neighborhood/street/block. cormega managed to fulfill all those spurious laws of real rap and my flawed ideas of authenticity and also made dope records.

dylannn, Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:45 (ten years ago) link

treeship, i'm going to make you a mix of my favorite rap ever. i want at least 200-300 words per song. can you do that for me?

dylannn, Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:47 (ten years ago) link

haha wait tao lin does rapgenius annotations for real

some dude, Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:47 (ten years ago) link

c'mon treeship is not the new l0u1s jagg3r, let's not act like drawing out his opinions about stuff is going to be entertaining at all

some dude, Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:48 (ten years ago) link

i won't write that much per song but i would happily listen to a mix of your favorite rap music and discuss it with you in a less formal context. xp.

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the (Treeship), Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:50 (ten years ago) link

xpost 2 al... thing is, i read his legit writing on contemporary literature and i was sort of feeling it, despite his aja-level posting on ilm/not knowing that scarface was a rapper. so, i feel like it would be compelling to read him on pieces of a man or look what you did to me or trenchant joe budden mixtape tracks.

dylannn, Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:54 (ten years ago) link

aight fair enough

some dude, Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:55 (ten years ago) link

anyways, the world needs more corny indie rock guys sharing their thoughts on rap. i'll make the mix but give me a few weeks.

dylannn, Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:58 (ten years ago) link

until then, let's listen to some more cormega.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmC5x_VPrMI

dylannn, Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:59 (ten years ago) link

dude, i am not going to talk to you about rap music if you are going to insult me and say that my posts are similar to those of a fictional 15 year old girl.

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the (Treeship), Sunday, 30 June 2013 02:03 (ten years ago) link

nice. that mega track got you hyped up?

dylannn, Sunday, 30 June 2013 02:06 (ten years ago) link

I dunno, as a pretty ignorant dude rapgenius can be an invaluable resource, even if the consistent "HAHAHA RAP LYRICS BUT LIKE ALL STODGY AND PROPER ENGLISH AND SHIT THANKS FOR THE EMAIL FORWARD DAD"ness of it is eye-roll inducing.

ed.b, Sunday, 30 June 2013 02:07 (ten years ago) link

yeah the annoying thing about rapgenius is they have filled a pretty necessary niche which is "lyrics sites with no popups or malware."

katherine, Sunday, 30 June 2013 02:09 (ten years ago) link

itt people say nice things about Rap Genius

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g-suzna5Rg

bando brothers (Whiney G. Weingarten), Sunday, 30 June 2013 02:23 (ten years ago) link

nice

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the (Treeship), Sunday, 30 June 2013 04:51 (ten years ago) link

Make sure to click on all the annotations.

Stately, plump Carey Mulleeegan (Leee), Sunday, 30 June 2013 06:09 (ten years ago) link

the best part of the wake are the goofy, obvious puns that peek through the total incomprehensibility of the denser passages, which are most of them.

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the (Treeship), Sunday, 30 June 2013 06:50 (ten years ago) link

also, i think people mix it up with dubliners. i have met several people who have told me that they read this book and not ulysses and i don't believe them.

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the (Treeship), Sunday, 30 June 2013 06:50 (ten years ago) link

hate the fucking rapgenius guys, rapgenius itself is hit or miss, poetrygenius is fucking dire, i guess maybe newsgenius has the potential to be interesting

max, Sunday, 30 June 2013 11:57 (ten years ago) link

in most terms songmeanings.net is a vastly vastly better and more interesting website

max, Sunday, 30 June 2013 11:57 (ten years ago) link

the hilarious thing about the rap genius dudes is that somehow the other two guys manage to look 100x douchier than the main douchey guy even is

J0rdan S., Sunday, 30 June 2013 14:29 (ten years ago) link

it's insane that there's not an HBO series based on them yet

some dude, Sunday, 30 June 2013 15:44 (ten years ago) link

an Entourage spinoff about Turtle, or at least a season-long arc on Girls or How To Make It In America

some dude, Sunday, 30 June 2013 15:55 (ten years ago) link

i guess i feel tao lin's annotations are as interesting, or not, as the things they are annotating. is there any other author that you could just go and add more annotations and annotations of annotations and it wouldn't change the character of the work at all?

stefon taylor swiftboat (s.clover), Sunday, 30 June 2013 16:14 (ten years ago) link

this website maintained by anonymous dudes on the internet is better/worse than this other website maintained by other anonymous dudes on the internet

k3vin k., Sunday, 30 June 2013 17:39 (ten years ago) link

says some anonymous dude on the internet

Number None, Sunday, 30 June 2013 17:40 (ten years ago) link

precisely

k3vin k., Sunday, 30 June 2013 17:41 (ten years ago) link

yeah the annoying thing about rapgenius is they have filled a pretty necessary niche which is "lyrics sites with no popups or malware."

― katherine, Saturday, June 29, 2013 9:09 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I assumed this was because lyrics are copyrighted so lyric sites were always gonna be skeezy regardless

anyone know the details bout this / why rapgenius gets away with it?

iatee, Sunday, 30 June 2013 17:43 (ten years ago) link

rapgenius is just a slightly better azlyrics or sing365 or whatever random lyrics site to me. lyrics sites are useful. the explanations are corny because all explanations are corny but it's not like i have to click on them. if you know or care about whoever runs it or, worse, individual annotators, you're in no position to be mocking them imo.

lex pretend, Sunday, 30 June 2013 17:44 (ten years ago) link

heh

flopson, Sunday, 30 June 2013 17:44 (ten years ago) link

the fucked up thing is that rap lyrics are written in pretty transparent idiomatic modern american english. if you're a native english speaker under the age of 45, unless you've intentionally avoided popular music made after 1995, it should be pretty easy to figure out the basics of rap lyrics.

i might not catch every take it back to 88 the year crack ruled naming names on a cormega track and from time to time, i gotta play a yo gotti track a few times to figure out some deep newspaper on the floor crack rap allusions or memphis accented phrases but shit like that never even gets accurately transcribed or accurately annotated.

dylannn, Sunday, 30 June 2013 18:39 (ten years ago) link

i just looked for the lyrics to a new styles track... http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/stylesp/takeitback.html and i know a few days from now, the same error-ridden transcription will show up on rapgenius with like nothing annotated except for like "2pac" annotated with a picture of spongebob with a thuglife tattoo.

dylannn, Sunday, 30 June 2013 18:41 (ten years ago) link

fix it then. be the change you want to see in the world.

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the (Treeship), Sunday, 30 June 2013 18:44 (ten years ago) link

is it wrong if the change i want to see in the world is properly transcribed styles p lyrics?

dylannn, Sunday, 30 June 2013 18:54 (ten years ago) link

that's up to you. i would say it's a fine thing to want, as a world with properly transcribed styles p lyrics is better than a world with improperly transcribed styles p lyrics, if only 0.00000000000000000000001% better.

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the (Treeship), Sunday, 30 June 2013 19:03 (ten years ago) link

lol at how chill things have been lately literally right up until whiney starts making threads again

some dude, Sunday, 30 June 2013 19:13 (ten years ago) link

Haha n/m I thought he started this thread sorry

some dude, Sunday, 30 June 2013 19:15 (ten years ago) link

Styles P should be one of the easiest MCs to transcribe wtf

Neanderthal, Sunday, 30 June 2013 19:15 (ten years ago) link

Haha n/m I thought he started this thread sorry

― some dude, Sunday, June 30, 2013 3:15 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

Neanderthal, Sunday, 30 June 2013 19:15 (ten years ago) link

i mean whatever there are some lines in that might take a few listens but

I used to keep money in the shoebox
Knockin if I die,
The night from two Pac.
Or into the stage from buckshot
Dream of the Europeans standing at the bus stop
Headed to a fuck ass stop job
Never seen a fuck boy I would not rob

i used to keep money in the shoebox
knockin 'if i die 2nite' from tupac
or 'enta da stage' from buckshot
dreamin of europeans, standin at the bus stop
headed to a fuck-ass stock job
never seen a fuck boy i would not rob

pretty hard to fuck up if you stop and think for a second, "does this even make sense? is he dreaming about austrian tourists waiting for a bus?"

dylannn, Sunday, 30 June 2013 19:21 (ten years ago) link

I used to keep honey in a shoe, box
Knocking, if I die,
Tonight by two Pacs
Or into the stage by buck
Shot dream of Europeans standing at the bus stop
Headed to a fuck ass, stop-- job
Never seen a fuck, boy I would not rob

dylannn, Sunday, 30 June 2013 19:26 (ten years ago) link

well yeah. I just mean Styles P, especially the last few releases (like World's Most Hardest MC Project), has predicated himself on being simple and effective, and he enunciates pretty well. Middle section suggest to me more that the transcriber hasn't heard Me Against the World or the Black Moon album (or at least not enough to quickly pick up on the references).

Neanderthal, Sunday, 30 June 2013 19:26 (ten years ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53qSLP2A8zQ

dylannn, Sunday, 30 June 2013 19:29 (ten years ago) link

rap genius annotations just followed me on twitter. they seem to tweet the "best" rap genius annotations, but i am not sure if this means they tweet inept annotations in order to make fun of them. in any case, is this one of y'all?

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the (Treeship), Monday, 1 July 2013 03:25 (ten years ago) link

where do you stand on haze vs. sour?

dylannn, Monday, 1 July 2013 05:20 (ten years ago) link

i had a bad time on what someone said was sour once. always been biased against it since then.

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the (Treeship), Monday, 1 July 2013 13:35 (ten years ago) link

sometimes when i google for rap lyrics and find some bunk misheard bullshit i wonder why someone would 1) be feeling a track that they can't even understand the lyrics to

Wait, isn't this why people google for rap lyrics?

Doctor Casino, Monday, 1 July 2013 13:57 (ten years ago) link

nah i mean dudes that are sitting there listening to a styles p song and are feeling it enough to type out the lyrics. "'knockin everyday, struggle with BI / malcolm rake one ghost-face purple tape' man styles got bars. i gotta get this on the internet."

dylannn, Monday, 1 July 2013 14:15 (ten years ago) link

two months pass...

Very tempted to start a site called crapgenius.com, a WebMD/rapgenius hybrid where users can submit stool samples for others to examine for their medical significance.

Fiddler on a hot tin roof (ed.b), Saturday, 21 September 2013 15:49 (ten years ago) link

i wonder why someone would 1) be feeling a track that they can't even understand the lyrics to

pretty much my entire relationship to pop music for pretty much my entire life has been feeling tracks i don't understand the lyrics to,

fact checking cuz, Saturday, 21 September 2013 16:10 (ten years ago) link

BUT WHY WOULD YOU BE FEELING A STYLES TRACK THAT YOU CAN'T EVEN UNDERSTAND
IT'S NOT KESHA OKAY IT'S SERIOUS RAP MUSIC

dylannn, Saturday, 21 September 2013 16:12 (ten years ago) link

this is like a perfect storm of bad internet: rapper that Rap Genius editors don't care about has lots of sloppy inaccurate RG lyric transcriptions, Buzzfeed does listicle of cuh-razy lyrics by that rapper that are mostly completely wrong RG transcriptions

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/14-bizarre-lyrics-that-prove-flo-rida-knows-no-one-can-under

Jean-Claude Brand Ambassador (some dude), Saturday, 21 September 2013 16:25 (ten years ago) link

yeezus wept ;_;

The Reverend, Saturday, 21 September 2013 20:14 (ten years ago) link

one year passes...

music streaming services like spotify integrate their own lyrics into the programs now, like spotify with musicmatch, taking a huge chunk of hits away. the annotations thing is very good when done well though, obviously.

Arctic Noon Auk, Monday, 20 April 2015 07:28 (nine years ago) link

lol the mogador. mess

soyrev, Monday, 20 April 2015 08:49 (nine years ago) link

nine months pass...

I guess we can put this here (disclaimer: the review in question was written by me) http://themuse.jezebel.com/genius-annotates-a-pitchfork-review-and-every-music-cri-1755277152

a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Tuesday, 26 January 2016 23:44 (eight years ago) link

wow

apple bottom steen, HOOS with the fur (some dude), Wednesday, 27 January 2016 01:44 (eight years ago) link

When you come under a microscope that assholish, you must be doing something right. Keep up the good work, Katherine!

Austin, Wednesday, 27 January 2016 01:51 (eight years ago) link

that all makes sense, but i think it's hard to say what the quality of the site will look like in a few years, as the community grows and becomes more vigilantly self-policing. wikipedia is a lot less amateurish now, i think, than it was when it started, and a similar thing might happen with rapgenius.

― Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the (Treeship), Sunday, June 30, 2013 8:22 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Is it just me or in the 2 and a half years since this comment has rap genius actually gotten much much worse?

MrExplorer, Wednesday, 27 January 2016 03:33 (eight years ago) link

It seems like with unpopular artists the annotations are super thin (same with pop music that doesn't even need annotating but is on the site for some reason anyways) , and with popular artists its all a race to fill up the song as fast as possible so that many things get overlooked, hooks that change throughout a song now all get the same annotation, entire verses are lumped together under a singer annotation that only explains a single line, etc etc

MrExplorer, Wednesday, 27 January 2016 03:35 (eight years ago) link

And then nobody bothers to go back and flesh out annotations because the song is now "done"

MrExplorer, Wednesday, 27 January 2016 03:38 (eight years ago) link

I think I made a similar comment recently in another Genius thread. Yes, it seems worse.

on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Wednesday, 27 January 2016 04:46 (eight years ago) link

def seems like there was a time when it was relatively useful, like you could actually use it to help do a good close reading of lyrics, and now it's just this ridiculous free-for-all.

on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Wednesday, 27 January 2016 04:47 (eight years ago) link

three weeks pass...

yes, I am that llama, that llama you despise, with those big ass eyes, and them luscious thighs.

Jesus motherfucking christ

you are no man. take the balls. (Neanderthal), Monday, 22 February 2016 04:43 (eight years ago) link

one year passes...

I see they are now doing bizarre videos too
https://youtu.be/g3c_AXMR5CE

niels, Saturday, 3 February 2018 13:32 (six years ago) link

six months pass...

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