classic Wu-Tang solo run poll

Fuckin' frame Matt's post somewhere and be done with it, because that says it all.

to me that era will always just sound fresh, it's the only time in my life where i got to hear something *really* happening, like a new genre coming into maturity....that stuff seems like chuck berry records or james brown records or the stooges or whatever, like very dated to its time but also timeless...

yeah this is totally how I feel about it too. maybe it's just personal "you had to be there" shit

just to derail further: wasn't dance music / techno really happening, in a much more decisive ground-breaking way, than underground rock?

i lived on a farm in southern mn, so like had zero idea until the chemical bros. and moby and prodigy and shit like that, but yeah i guess in uk and other places it was

dance music's big revolution seems like it happened in the late 70s/early 80s to me. by the time rave kicked in in the 90s it was just ooh louder/faster/bigger/more annoying

xp

but yeah the 90s stuff was a MUCH bigger deal in the UK/europe than it was here

dance music's big revolution seems like it happened in the late 70s/early 80s to me.

btw what I'm referring to here is stuff like disco edits, the wholesale adoption of synths/drum machines/computers, the DJ as artist, etc.

everything that came after was just an extension of those concepts/approaches

nuh uh

do tell

"everything that came after was just an extension of those concepts/approaches"

Couldn't you make that absurdly reductionist claim about basically anything? I mean why listen to any metal post-Sabbath it's "just an extension of those concepts/approaches", etc.

I didn't think that was direct commentary on the worth of what came after, but rather an opinion on what constitutes something being "seminal" with the added indirect rider that he finds seminal works more interesting/exciting than things that expand upon the original toolkit.

So, it's not that that stuff was worthless or anything, it just wasn't as exciting as disco. Which, you know, is kind of silly, but then that's why opinions are so fun to argue over.

well I did say 90s techno was "more annoying" so in some ways it was a value judgment albeit a flippant one. you could say it about a lot of genres (I don't think metal is a good example tho, cuz metal REALLY broadened as it grew older). but yeah pretty much every genre takes shape around a few basic tenets that are then explored and refined in subsequent years, it's just the way it is I don't think it's inherently negative. My point with dance music was that the seminal/shaping of the genre occurred way earlier than the 90s. If there was some massive formal shift in dance music in the 90s I have no idea what it was, feel free to elaborate.

and yeah M@tt's whole post was about the excitement of witnessing a genre take shape - which IS exciting - so that's what I was referring to.

I think the wholesale appropriation of sampling in the late 80s took dance music in a bunch of different, divergent directions, culminating in the explosion of sub-genres that marked dance music in the early 90s.

i wasn't leaving out techno/dance on purpose, my post was more personal, what hip hop meant to me back then. i didn't even know techno existed back then, and i still don't really know enough about it to say how significant it was or which era was important.

though that said, i don't think it would have felt the same to me because hip hop wasn't just watching a music take shape, it was really an exposure to people, or the lives of people in america that i couldn't imagine and had no knowledge of...like i would see the videos and think about the bronx or compton and it was so far away to me. even just the street names and the neighborhoods or references to local businesses (like sir mix-a-lot talking about dick's hamburgers) clothing or shoes, just all the little details of lives i couldn't fathom.

techno doesn't have those things.

it's weird to think about that time when everything wasn't available to you all the time, how amazing it was when you found something.

well no, techno in its purest form is all about gay robots giving you dance drugs

First result in google for gay robots dance drugs:

http://www.houseofdiabolique.com/links.htm

Face it. You have little reason to visit any other websites after seeing mine.
But here are some that interest me.

microhouse is weak like clock radio speakers.

i mean those kinds of similies are basically like, your literature/language arts teacher explaining rap music kind of goofy. its just ... dated juice crew type ish. rappers inhabit personas more fully now

― j. sargent & lil k3v (deej), Wednesday, October 13, 2010 10:23 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

"clever and/or unexpected wordplay is so dated" goes a very long way towards why I don't feel a lot of current hip-hop

― GLEERILLAZ! (HI DERE), Wednesday, October 13, 2010 12:21 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

metal (discussed upthread) is a good comparison genre, though. i love metal, and have to admit that i don't want my orc-puverizing fantasies interrupted by goofy, artist-humanizing asides. i want nonstop blood and thunder. maybe this is because i genuinely enjoy certain aspects of metal's fantasy universe: weed, monsters, insanity, barbarian carnage, horror flicks, etc. and maybe it's because the fundamental unreality of that universe prevents me from ever taking the artistic POV too seriously. i dunno. point is, i'm not so in love with the corollary aspects of contemporary rap's fantasy universe: dealing, wealth, gangsters, strippers, clubs, etc. and rap's not always so clear about the placement of the line that separates entertaining fantasy from ugly reality. which goes some way towards explaining why i like it when the personas involved aren't quite so fully inhabited.

and maybe it's because the fundamental unreality of that universe prevents me from ever taking the artistic POV too seriously.

yeah this is a key difference, I alluded to it upthread

I think the wholesale appropriation of sampling in the late 80s took dance music in a bunch of different, divergent directions, culminating in the explosion of sub-genres that marked dance music in the early 90s.

yeah I can see this. although I've never really thought of sampling as being some kind of breakthrough technique for dance music, even though once people started doing it obviously things started to SOUND different because sampling is just such a different sound than chilly synths or live instrumentation or whatever. In some ways using a sampler doesn't seem that much different to me from using a sequencer or a drum machine or synth patches, it's just another electronic tool well-suited to a genre that was already explicitly all about electronic tools.

I dunno, I'll defer to people more well-versed in this stuff, I had only a passing interest in it, informed largely by friends who were WAY more into going raving than I was.

yeah this is a key difference, I alluded to it upthread

― i was like a person at a table at a place (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, October 14, 2010 2:30 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

tried to read through everything before posting, but people have been busy ITT.

anyway, a lot of contemporary rap is stuck in a weird position wr2 authenticity and the creation of artistic personas. fans seem to like the idea that the music responds to/reflects/emerges from a "harsh reality", but they also insist that rappers be 100% in character at all times. these demands seem contradictory on a very basic level. most rappers resolve the conflict by inhabiting the personal of people who are themselves in character all the time: dealers, thugs and pimps who can't afford to break character. this works, but gets old fast.

guys who or what are we talking about now

hatcats

Guys can we please stop with the rap authenticity jackoff sesh and talk about Wu-Tang albums again?

fuck you

it's really just me. one guy. and it is currently a gay dance robot jackoff sesh.

to the extent that it isn't rap authenticity, and i'm not sure which is worse

I will oblige: Ironman gettin short shrift imho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPKJZJITZHw
^^^this fuckin song

oh shit I completely forgot about that song

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

that final run of songs on Ironman is soooooo o_0

harbinger of things to come

ilxor's opinions and viewpoints are not necessarily endorsed by San Te

I really wish I knew what I did with my copy of Cuban Linx ...guess it's d/ling time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOXHK5WDdGg

really glad contenderizer is disagreeing with me -- more evidence for the defense basically imo

this thread is still super-frustrating to me. i dont know if im just not writing as clearly as i think i am or what but like, j0hn & croupier, do you guys think im just like a moron?? because i cant understand why else yall are so unwilling to at least take me at my word that ive thought this out & just maybe i might have a point ??

i think thats the most offensive shit to me in this thread isnt at all that u dudes disagree, but that you seem to think im not thinking any of this through. its like ... wtf?? thats the entirety of my critical approach, when it comes to rap, is thinking through persona/vision/aesthetics & how they all interact. thinking about the history of rap in broad sweeping terms & how certain artists inhabit rap in different ways. & instead i get nothing but condescension

Fuckin' frame Matt's post somewhere and be done with it, because that says it all.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, October 14, 2010 12:50 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i love m@tt but if "you had to be there" says it all then i guess ill never be a part of this conversation

lol @ alex in sf turning up for the first time in like 4 years in a rap thread to talk shit about me while adding nothing to the conversation, though

thats the entirety of my critical approach, when it comes to rap, is thinking through persona/vision/aesthetics & how they all interact. thinking about the history of rap in broad sweeping terms & how certain artists inhabit rap in different ways.

I dunno what to tell you... write more in-depth posts and fewer punchline zings maybe

deej dude take a break

i dunno im not really comfortable w/ all these ppl thinking that i think young jeezy is the cnn of the streets or whatever twisted version of my perspective j0hn d has

...& instead i get nothing but condescension

― j. sargent & lil k3v (deej), Thursday, October 14, 2010 4:48 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

dunno how to tell you this, deej, but uh...

i think a basic misunderstanding here:

1. i think, objectively, in a general sense, rapping has shifted towards more nuanced & personality-driven personas than it was in the run dmc era, or the juice crew era that gza came out of.

2. i think SUBJECTIVELY, that as a result i tend to prefer artists who at some level anticipated these changes & had fully developed personas -- by 'fully developed,' i mean that everything-- flow, lyrics, personality, vocal tone, style of delivery, conceptual approach to songs & albums, etc -- fit with who they 'were'. m@tt knows what im getting at here, even if his bias is more towards growing up when this stuff was brand new & therefor repping for it harder than i would.

i dont think i in any way deviated from these main points or shifted my argument at all while making them.

similarly vs. john d., my interpretation of conversation:

john: 'coke rap is old & passe'
me; 'some 'coke rap' still has something to add conceptually imo if you're defining coke rap as 'rap about drug dealing' -- that said, i think 'coke rap' is subject matter not a genre. further, coke will always be a big subject in rap as long as it exists in overrepresented proportions w/in populations that largely produce rap. certain narratives about it might get tired, and often are overrepresented, but 'coke rap' in some form is unfortunately likely to last as long as the drug war.'

this has been my opinion from before this dumb thread ever started, and has remained throughout. there is no contradiction, backpedaling, or shift in my perspective on this issue. ive been thinking about this shit for like 5 years!! since the jeezy stuff first really started exploding, i participated in conversations about this back then.

if by coke rap john d. meant specifically scarface fantasies and kingpin rap, then i agree -- im one of the few ppl on this board who thinks rick ross' entire persona is pretty tired! that unless theres some fresh aesthetic approach its kinda boring.

deej for what it's worth, I personally am much less certain about what exactly 'your perspective' is now than I was a few hundred posts ago, and I don't mean that in a condescending way; I'm sure a certain number of lazy zings will be born of this thread but I don't think it's been entirely unproductive, and I don't think anybody's gonna write you off entirely because you said some shit they thought was dumb (clearly, because otherwise there wouldn't be all these people still trying to talk to you and pick yr brain)

(written before that last big post)

here is one of my favorite articles that suggests that there are new & fresh approaches being taken w/r/t 'drug dealing rap' & imo much more significant/generationally-relevant than clipse:

http://www.sfbg.com/2010/02/09/80s-babies
But unlike other miners of '80s terrain — say, the Casio rock trend of last decade — the new sound of the Town has an organic lyrical connection through tales of crack and the devastation the drug has wreaked in the ghetto. "Slangin' rocks" is hardly a novel topic in rap, yet there's been a shift in presentation. This, I think, is a directly connected to age: unlike their elders, these new rappers are the first generation born during the crack epidemic. Born in West Oakland's Cypress Village in 1983, Stalin himself is literally a crack baby.

In lyrical terms, the '80s baby generation primarily identifies with classic Bay Area mob music, bypassing more recent hyphy. But there seems to be a difference in presentation. The '90s mob rapper tended to rap from an adult perspective, portraying himself in hyperbolic exploits as a kind of Scarface-inspired action figure. To be sure, the '80s babies haven't abandoned such tales of million-dollar deals, speedboats, and private planes. But alongside this, the story of the d-boy has emerged, reflecting the trauma of the generation's upbringing. In contrast to the mobster's comic-book glory, d-boy stories are frequently anti-glamour in tone, from the mundane, heartbreaking experiences of neglect — wearing the same clothes for a week or more being a common detail — to the painful tragedies of losing parents and siblings to drugs or murder. These stories generally unfold against a middle-school or high-school backdrop and are narrated from a present-tense, first-person perspective.