The sad thruth: Music just isn't what it used to be anymore

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  • pickwick33pickwick33 8,946 Posts
    HarveyCanal said:
    They sample their work, for one, which in some cases brings licensing checks to the older artist.

    Syl Johnson could give you an argument on that

  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
    HarveyCanal said:
    DocMcCoy said:
    There are those performers who everyone knows, but as a general rule you probably aren't going to find too many New Yorkers who grew up listening to Spice 1 or Ant Banks, any more than you'd find a whole load of twentysomething rap fans who knew about Lil' Keke, yet had never lived in Texas.

    If there weren't already better examples, the whole ASAP Rocky phenomenon, with NYC kids openly worshipping Texas rap, has pretty much shattered that conception.

    Really, guys, the paradigm has changed...and I'm not sure y'all are (yet) equipped to discuss it.

    Oh no, I absolutely recognise that it's changed, and it makes perfect sense that it's changed. I'm not one of those older dudes who think ASAP Rocky is somehow fake or should be dismissed because his flow sounds Southern (and there are plenty of them around, believe me).

  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    DocMcCoy said:
    HarveyCanal said:
    DocMcCoy said:
    There are those performers who everyone knows, but as a general rule you probably aren't going to find too many New Yorkers who grew up listening to Spice 1 or Ant Banks, any more than you'd find a whole load of twentysomething rap fans who knew about Lil' Keke, yet had never lived in Texas.

    If there weren't already better examples, the whole ASAP Rocky phenomenon, with NYC kids openly worshipping Texas rap, has pretty much shattered that conception.

    Really, guys, the paradigm has changed...and I'm not sure y'all are (yet) equipped to discuss it.

    Oh no, I absolutely recognise that it's changed, and it makes perfect sense that it's changed. I'm not one of those older dudes who think ASAP Rocky is somehow fake or should be dismissed because his flow sounds Southern (and there are plenty of them around, believe me).

    Alright, cool. Sorry I'm giving you a hard time today. Just fooling around on the interwebs.

  • bassiebassie 11,710 Posts

  • Jonny_PaycheckJonny_Paycheck 17,825 Posts
    Regardless of what Syl Johnson says, sampling has not only paid great dividends to older artists (including Johnson himself) but has allowed older artists, Johnson ny least among them, to extend their careers in front of new audiences.

    But to me the crucial difference between hip-hop and blues-based rock music is that the practiced reverence for blues artists in rock exists because of the implicit cultural debt. Most rappers don't see themselves as being indebted to the music's forefathers in quite the same way.

  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    I dont know about Hip Hop smothering its past. I dont think there was less love for Flash in '96.

    Maybe that has changed in the last decade.

    Yeah artists kill off the previous leaders, but the pioneers have kept there stature.

    The whole Hip Hop Honors thing???

    The era I grew up in knew/studied the old shit, listened to the now shit, and kept an ear out for the next shit.

  • The_Hook_UpThe_Hook_Up 8,182 Posts
    Are their any "classic" hip hop terrestrial radio stations? If there isn't, would one be able to operate and be profitable?


    Back to the original topic, it is more apt that "being a music fan isn't what it used to be"...entire catalogs of artists are available in an instant to anyone with an Internet connection...the appreciation of music this way suffers as music soon becomes taken for granted or (playing devil's advocate) music is now being able to be judged by itself without the pretense of rarity or cultural context to aid in its value. I personally see this as a bad thing, but a lot of people think otherwise...no boundaries, no difficulty in acquiring it, etc.

  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    The_Hook_Up said:
    entire catalogs of artists are available in an instant to anyone with an Internet connection...the appreciation of music this way suffers as music soon becomes taken for granted.

    There are plenty of things about current music that as an old crusty dude I can't/don't understand and therefore can't argue about one way or another.

    On the other side of that coin dude's that are under 30 don't seem to appreciate or understand the impact of what Hook-Up states above and while they might try, there really is no argument to be made against how this has changed the way people listen to and ultimately appreciate music.

  • asstroasstro 1,754 Posts
    I think the dismissal and appropriation of "old" styles and moving on to the next shit is something that has always happened across black music. If you go to a current reggae event you aren't going to be hearing a lot of original Studio One jams being played, even if you hear plenty of new music built on the bones of those old riddims. It's the same thing Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf and them did when they electrified the blues, or when the beboppers took over from the swing bands. The audience for current black styles always seems to be quicker to embrace the next thing, which makes it seem like they are abandoning the older styles to those who are invested (financially, emotionally, or otherwise) in the previous level stuff. Plus young people (generally) don't want to hear their parents' music.

    The difference now to me is in the past when people moved on from a given style, the artists connected with that style could still have viable careers doing what they did. Artists like Louis Armstrong or Dizzy Gillespie performed and made records for decades after they stopped being what young people listened and danced to. But unless you can play the media game now like an Ice T or someone like that, once you are out of style you are really out.

  • Big_StacksBig_Stacks "I don't worry about hittin' power, cause I don't give 'em nuttin' to hit." 4,670 Posts
    Hey,

    I think this thread is incredibly insightful. In reading the posts, I thought immediately of how the social context has changed in regard to how I listened to music. It seems to me, as a child of the 1970s, that radio provided a wider array of music formats to listen to during a given day. For instance, I could tune into a soft rock station and hear Joni Mitchell, then turn the dial to a R&B station and hear "Can't Stay Away" by Bootsy Collins (I still have my childhood 45 of this jernt). With regard to both stations, they played more diverse sets of songs/artists, thus exposing my young ears to many different styles of music. Then, I would have my dad take me to the record store and pick up the 45s or LPs of said artists. Hell, you could hear "I Never Can Say Goodbye" by Gloria Gaynor (I used to hate that song) and "Here You Come Again" by Dolly Parton on the same station! Now, with Clear Channel dominating the airwaves, I have to hear the same songs/artists all day long, relatively speaking. A young cat in his late 20s or early 30s has no conception at all of 1970s radio's diversity of format. Plus, the diversity of radio programming during this time fed the record store merchants by pushing the market for the recordings, a phenomenon that has markedly diminshed these days. I remark all the time how incredible radio was in the 1970s, and to my 'old ears' (as the neighbor's teenage son says I have), that moment in time was truly special. All I'm trying to say (I know, I'm rambling), is that statements such as 'music just isn't what it used to be anymore' have to be taken in context of the frame-of-reference, time-wise, from whence a person approaches it.

    Peace,

    Big Stacks from Kakalak
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