Taking Sides: Rap vs. Rock

Anyway, I find it interesting that the mainstream (over in the US at least) seems willing to glom onto such rap acts as Missy Elliot, Busta Rhymes, Wu Tang, Outkast, all of which are far more interesting than what passes for mainstream rock Limp Bizkit, Creed, Dave Matthews. Rap seems to get more room to be strange and experiment a little before it drops off the MTV radar.

Sure, this often gets cast into "ghetto" terms, but that's merely a stage which these larger items are played out on, and these larger items have slightly more universalism to them. Music coming from the suburban tip I find very confining these days, as there's simply a more limited range of experience to draw on.

Without citing tons of examples, I don't think I can do a better job than that right now.

I still don't really think I understand the claim that rap is more about rhyming than other forms of pop lyric are. Neuromancer, I was talking about writing, not listening. Like Tom said, there can be pleasures in rhyme. There can also be, I suppose, a kind of useful restrictiveness - a framework which actually makes it easier to write.

i know that this shit is over, but i just notcied this: what the fuck?

what 'message' do combustible edison deliver at all?

easy listening pastiche? wearing 30's evening gowns?

using cigarette holders? man i cant see any fucking message there.......what a weirdo

For myself, I dunno where I stand in this discussion. One one hand, I really like rap. On the other hand, much/most of the lyrics are really abhorrent. I don't think there's many people here who disagree with that. But like the rest of us I just ignore it. But in the end I think we have to face the music: All of those messages aren't for naught. I don't think rap straightforwardly and uncomplicatedly _causes_ drug use, violence etc; I do think it desensitizes and normalizes that kind of stuff, so that it's more easily accepted by the impressionable.

So no, I don't agree with the media stereotype of rap as a one-dimensional monster that directly causes violence and drug use and mistreatment of women. But I'm disturbed at the message it sends. I think the alarm bells really started when I watched the Hype Williams film with Nas and DMX, _Belly_. It wasn't the _glorification_ of crime that bothered me so much as the normalization. The way it was made to look quick and easy and a viable lifestyle. Sure, there were token attempts at making the story a moral fable, like the ending (and, laughably, Nas reading from a morality pamphlet entitled something like "Personal Betterment"), but they were easily overpowered by the ill-gotten glitz.

Maybe what shocks me most in some rap lyrics is an acceptance and shrugging-off of murder. That really goes too far.

- why is that image of toughness and oppression among the rappers. C'mon slavery was abolished a long time ago. -freestyle? Jajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajaja -Big pants.....what a waste of clothing -there's no real music behind the voices. most of the times the samples are not original -no instruments played

rock is the best and will always be

Yup, I see him everyday.

As someone who spends a lot of time with people who listen to and exclusively perform classical music, I have no choice but to laugh at this sentence.

Limp Bizkit, anyone?

Me, Cory, the two that aren't actually miked up onstage, and the rest of the band would just like to thank Whowants for his intelligent and reasoned defense of us. Slipknot especially agree with his point about the degeneration of women, and he will no doubt be happy to know that Gloria Steinem will be supporting us on our next tour. A tour full of beats that have never been used before, and real balls.

That would be pretty painful, I'd think.

That said, I also love and respect Hip Hop, and I'll easily admit that for the past fifteen years or so, it's been considerably more creative and less stagnant than Rock.

And anyway, isn't it all the same thing, when it gets right down to it? What did Run DMC say they were the kings of again?

We all know improv is best.