Pull a rabbit out the hat...
- Thread starter Iron Keys
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Beat This!The Beat This! results are in, see what went down.
Im pretty sure some of it is corny as fuck, but to paint the whole subgenre with a tar brush is a bit, tantrum like IMO.Bottom line is Eminem is Hip Pop.
And how is underground Hip Hop corny? Would you go up to these guys and tell them that?
Lo-fi(I couldnt be bothered to mix this) hip hop is corny IMO.
Backpack music, corny as fuck.
But the whole of underground hip hop, seems to me @Iron Keys forgets where hip hop even came from.
dope, all I have to say
I'm not even am Eminem fan. I enjoyed his Slim Shady LP to Eminem Show era.
But don't get your point as I also called his stuff corny.
My point is anything trying too hard to be something is corny.
And I'm talking about underground rap that "tries to be" hip hop or rapping about science or maths. Goofy over emphasising. Lot of battle rap stuff be corny af as well. It doesn't have to be, but people tend towards that stuff.
I personally can't relate to underground hip hip. I've of course listened to it and I'm a hip hop fan so understand the roots/history, and there's a lot of underground hip hop I like, though mostly the classics. It wasn't until hip hop turned into hip pop that I became hooked.
Growing up it was cool/fun to listen to gangsta rap but I'm an older dude now with responsibilities and kids and live in the burbs. I can't relate to the gang banging lyrics. I've seen hip pop evolve into mature hip pop too, and I appreciate music that touches on broader culture/societal trends, and I think it's a good thing for hip hop to evolve as it keeps the average listener engaged.
T-Swift, Eminem, etc. don't necessarily make the most complicated music, but they know how to keep someone engaged and listening, and most importantly they get how to form an emotional connection with the listener (even if it's BS, "it's only entertainment"), which is ultimately what's needed to build fans.
They are a business and like any business they know how to adapt and keep market share. The only thing that matters is "feet and wallet" is a line in business, same thing applies to music: ultimately the only thing that matters is if people listen or not.
That makes a lot more sense, but to me KRS 1 is the epitome of underground hip hop, as is anything fucking half decent any more. So to call such a massive subgenre corny seems a bit extreme to me. Some of it is, and some of it isn't. It's getting harder to find any originality when everyone is trying to sound like somebody else or fit themselves into a box to get a pat on the back.
There is so much more to hip hop than gangster rap. The Fugees, The Alkaholiks, Tribe Called Quest, Flipmode, EPMD, De La Soul, I could go on and on.
In the old days the emphasis was on freshness, dopeness and ORIGINALITY. Biting was a cardinal sin.
I liked the old Eminem, top 5 rapper of all time, but he fell off hard. He became the guy he used to rap about and take the mickey out of.
On the odd occasion the old Em comes out, like on Venom. But I just take each song as it comes and judge it on its merits.
The problem with the music industry and entertainment industry as a whole is that the business overtook the music as the most important factor and the quality of the product suffered majorly. Leading to the enshittification of everything, and everything being a used as a tool to ram government sponsored propaganda down our necks, because governments pay top dollar for that.
Always been that way though, look at every industry today, the MBAs took over. But it's part of the natural cycle. Steve Jobs hated the man, now Apple is the epitomy of a greedy corporation.
"Selling your soul" or not. Depends on your goal, etc. Are you just trying to make art? Need money to buy food? Trying to accumulate as much wealth as possible to have the resources to drive systemic change?
Money makes the world go round. I think we'll see an era of creativity whenever Spotify declines (it'll eventually happen).
re: Fugees, De La Soul, Tribe Called Quest, I genuinely haven't listened much other than giving the classic albums a soon years ago (+ their popular songs of course).
We are in an era of creativity already. It can lead to an over-abundance of mediocrity, it can make the needles in the haystack harder to find.
Its harder to find the diamonds when there is so much rough.
It also devalues the artform, when people give away their music for free.
I've worked with youngsters that werent willing to pay for beats, they just rapped on free beats they found on youtube.
Money does indeed make the world go around, and it always will.
This is an expensive hobby, hardware and software doesn't pay for itself, not to mention the thousands of hours that go into developing your art to a good consistent level. It would be nice to be able to afford that new AD/DA converter, or that Neve Mixing Desk. But its hard to earn enough from music to provide an apple a day let alone buy lavish toys. Hard when people just give it all away for free.
That just proves my point that KRS 1 is an underground rapper.
But people do give it away for free, because tech has scaled. So there's a ton of people who are making beats who have spent close to $0.
If anything I think it creates a more democratic way of getting fame. Pre internet it was whoever had enough money to pay the label or stations. Now if you get enough likes/views, you can grow (and yes people pay to rig the algos, but it's no different than paying a station/DJ to play your shit).
right, and Eminem is pop - I define pop as reaching a mass audience, not a "genre"
A lot of the "promo" people offer bot farm plays, where no human being ever hears your music, its all fake plays. At least when you paid a dj real human beings got to hear the music.
Pop is definitely a genre. Its middle of the road, mass appeal, aimed at the lowest common denominator for highest return on investment. Music from all genres gets popular to go pop at times, but its definitely a genre.
Not really IMO.
Michael Jackson
Billy Joel
Queen
Madonna
Whitney Houston
Taylor Swift
Eminem
Beatles
Rolling Stones
Zeppelin
Nirvana
^all pop, all very different "genres"
Pop evolves and at different times certain genres favor more pop appeal than others, influenced by social/culture/tech trends. We've got into the era or EDM pop (t swift). But 50 years prior it was Bee Gees.
Steps,
The Venga Boys,
The Cheeky Girls,
The Spice Girls,
Every manufactured band,
Everything in the Eurovision competition.
Its a genre of its own.
Also credit for mentioning the Bee Gee's they are responsible for writing many of other artists massive hits
The Venga Boys,
The Cheeky Girls,
The Spice Girls,
Every manufactured band,
Everything in the Eurovision competition.
Its a genre of its own.
Also credit for mentioning the Bee Gee's they are responsible for writing many of other artists massive hits
agree, I guess what I'm trying to say is "pop" is really a mix/fusion of some subgenre usually that gets big attention. does it have common characteristics? sure, hence why it's pop because they're doing something that has mass appeal. but I've always seen "pop" as just a representation of what's in right now
and a pop artist I guess is someone who can stay up with the trends, while working their craft.
Eminem really brought rap out of the underground and into the mainstream. His being white helped this of course, but so did his immense talent, which is undeniable. Then the industry got its grubby mitts really sunk into it, sucked any life out of it it once had, fucked the corpse, chopped it up into pieces, pissed on them, then just randomly tossed the parts out as they drove along a desert road. And here we are.
But yeah, pop is a mix of manufactured music and music that went pop on its own merit.