I think I might have rubbed a few fellow moggers the wrong way a few days ago with a comment I made regarding a post on Cody B's zarpex-Endorsed™ mog. I can't be bothered to look it up and link to it, but Cody's post was about some bit of sampled jazz on a rap single, and perhaps I was venturing beyond the subject at hand when I called for rap and country music to acknowledge the creative stasis they've been in for several decades, find some stirring final expression, and - well - die.
Of course, musical genres can only die figuratively, but lest I come across as too vicious, the examples I suggested country and rap should emulate were heavy metal and jazz. Neither of them, to be sure, is truly extinct; you can still find jazz clubs in most cities, and there are still bands called (although I believe it's a misnomer by this point) "heavy metal" that sell records. But there was a time when they were, if not dominant, damned near ubiquitous. When their numbers came up, they bowed out on high notes (Guns'n'Roses for heavy metal; Miles Davis for jazz), and wasted no pity on themselves.
It is a defining attribute of heroes - in literary terms, at least - that they die. Death makes the hero; how they live matters, but only in terms of how it establishes the tragedy. This is why Ahab is a hero and Ishmael (without pretending otherwise), is merely a protagonist.
And like I said, musical genres aren't really alive, and their deaths, unlike ours, are incomplete and subject to rescission. Swing and lounge music sprang from the grave for a couple of quite enjoyable years in the mid-90's; punk rock was declared dead in 1984, and for seven years its pulse was commercially undetectable. The only excuse rap and country music have for continuing to occupy the stage is cowardice. Their stale and rigid formulas make a creative breakthrough impossible. If you kid yourself otherwise, you're part of the problem.
By the way - rock, God's chosen music, occupies a place beyond death, tragedy and heroism. Unlike almost any other kind of music, it abjures formula, and its field of play is so vast and inclusive that the word "rock" has actually lost a great deal of meaning. The band Miranda Sex Garden, by way of illustration, was booked in rock clubs across America in the early 90's, and performed absolutely straight Elizabethan madrigals that would have been entirely at home on Deutsche Grammophon. The death of rock would be the death of musical innovation. Which is quite possible.
My Trusted MOGs
Damn..I got to go to bed, but I'll be back for some Sunni/Shi'a action in the morning. The dreams will be sweet and bloody:)
My Trusted MOGs
Rap is dead? Can I be a pallbearer?
My Trusted MOGs
Come on, at least me be a gravedigger, along with my pals Blues, Funk and Soul. Then we'll play Costello's Tramp The Dirt Down.
My Trusted MOGs
Much as I would like to swallow your sizeable pill-of-an-argument and skip off joyfully on a 60's rock-acid trip, you've got some holes to fill first.
Zarpex says, "The only excuse rap and country music have for continuing to occupy the stage is cowardice. "
scotfree says, The only excuse rap and country music have for continuing to occupy the stage MONEY. They are the ones selling the largest %. Like it or not, there are a lot of consumers who do. Packed throughout the heartland of the U.S., millions of 20 somethings look forward to the next Kenny Chesney/Faith Hill sing-a-long to help lend authenticity to their mud-truckin, beer guzzlin' lifestyles. While I can't speak direct to the rap side, I don't think MTV would cram so much of it into their programming if somebody wasn't buying. I'm not saying I like much of it, but a lot of people are still being tricked into thinking they do.
Like you, rock is my passion, but I'll give about anything an open ear. I kinda thought rock was a fading form and was becoming content just filling in my collection with items from the past, until I found mog. Now, I see the form as alive and vibrant as ever - it just takes a little more work to find the good stuff than it did in the heyday when rock had the big marketing $$$ behind it. Peace man.
My Trusted MOGs
Wow am I ever conflicted. On one hand, I would love to jump on the 'country is dead' train. The city I'm in (Calgary, AB) is a cow-town and country crazy. I'm not so fond of the genre though. I have a pretty eclectic music library, but I have only one country song. On the other hand, referring to anything in music as dead (even if it's an incomplete death) makes me uneasy. It seems to me that music evolves rather than living or dying. Even though rock has been going strong for years, it should be understood that for the most part the label 'rock' encompasses a much wider range of genres than any other I know of (electronic is probably a close second). There are even instances that country music can fall under the umbrella of rock. Personally I think Rap, hip-hop, and urban music in general is still going strong. The main grudge I've had with hip-hop is that the artists hardly ever sing, so really all they are doing is speaking stereotypical, often laughable 'lyrics' over music produced by someone else. Not really what I call talent. Hip-hop is a collaborative monster though, and has allowed for more genre cross-overs than any other type of music. The best argument I can make for hip-hop being alive and kicking is Gnarls Barkley. A collaboration between producer Danger Mouse and vocalist Cee-Lo Green, their music blends genres and has produced some great tracks. Long story short, I agree and disagree. I think it's hard to judge a genre's validity when it's one you don't enjoy. Country all sounds the same to me, but I know that's because it's a genre that I've never been able to get into.
My Trusted MOGs
You didn't rub me wrong..you rubbed me in just the right spot Z...
Rock, despite the efforts of major and indie labels to make it the cultural nexus it was a long time ago, is dead. Dead in the sense that it no longer is the voice of rebellion and youth. Rock is ancient, has museums and a Hall Of Fame and no longer drives what's happening in the world. You can find Rap everywhere though, from Vietnam to France to Africa to Louisiana...It is the music of the future, with more innovations in a year of releases, than Rock has had in the past 30 years.
All that said, I love my Rawk, from Zeppelin to Pavement to Zappa to Vampire Weekend to Wooden Shjips to the Elvises, but aside from fusions with other genres, there's nothing new in Rock. Sure there can be incredible new songs written and there are, but sonically it has all been done.
Rawk is like baseball, still wildly popular in the US and a few foreign outposts (I love baseball, btw.), but relatively unchanged since it's invention. Like rawk its sphere of influence is also diminished, its salad days behind it, a monolith, designed to perfection from the start, but unchanging and mostly unable to generate much interest in the youth.
The fetishists who maintain an interest in these arcane traditions are mostly from the rich,white ruling classes, trying to hold onto their power, but their time is running out.
My Trusted MOGs
Z-HAR -> You've hit the nail -> Rock, God's chosen music is immortal -> though the umbrella-like term 'ROCK' has been abused, it still encompasses what music was meant to be like.
DEMOCLEZ -> I am interested to know what country song has been deemed good enough to make it into your eclectic music collection
?
Rap has been exploited in the wrong direction -> Z-HAR -> You remember me saying how music's message was what made it -> at least in it's prime -> Now Rap is misunderstood as a gangster crap -> fueling a fire in our nation that was out of control already -> at Rap's finest, it was still undiscovered on a national scale -> where wicked poets dropped intellectual lines over the new hot scratch beats -> So when I hear the word rap, I, like most people cringe due to the connotation of hate filled words with not-so-subtle encouragings to do drugs, join gangs, steal, fight, murder, and sleep around. The rap industry may be climbing up and up with record sales, but really doesn't mean it should continue in the state it's in.
But I'm just a backwoods hick jabbering in a language others don't seem to grasp -> Down with the System!!
My Trusted MOGs
Tyler - It wasn't even that the track was 'good enough'. Toby Keith's 'I Wanna Talk About Me' ended up in my collection because it's funny and reminds me of a person very close to my heart. You touched on a very good point. The majority of people think of rap as sex, drugs, criminal activity (hmmm... sounds suspiciously like sex, drugs and rock n' roll). It doesn't help that the top 40 rap artists seem to constantly reinforce this stereotype.
My Trusted MOGs
Gang, what wonderful comments!
I'd been hoping for more knife-play, but this is delightful.
Trouble is, I have to be showered, packed, and out the door to catch a flight in forty-five minutes. When I get where I'm going, I'll go into greater depth.
Soon, my little ones, soon!
My Trusted MOGs
We await your word, o' guardian of the sacred withered music.
My Trusted MOGs
Rap is dying but HH is still kickin'
My Trusted MOGs
DEMO -> Ketchup and liquor fro breakfast, liquor in the front and poker in the rear for dinner -> with some ludes thrown in there for good measure.
Z-HAR -> Yes, rap should die, a rather agonizing death, looking back on itself and wonder what the hell it was thinking in the first place. And never pop up again like swing did. Acting like gangsters -> uhh, yeah, I'll join a gang and do what these idiot rappers tell me to, because they're doing it right? NO, their rolling in bejamin's with high class bitches, talking about slanging rock and gang shootings, but they ain't out on the streets in gang wars or running from the cops -> sure some of them used to, but now they just rap about it, if that's what you can call it -> Using the word Nigga at the end of every line doesn't express talent to me, it expresses the opposite -> usuing a word that is racist if I said it to a black man, but is accepted between the aforementioned race -> it's quite confusing to me. White guys don't sing a racist country duet calling each other honkeys and crakers. Give Def Peotry a listen, it's where the talent is.
My Trusted MOGs
Sorry for the delay, gang; been a busy couple days, but I'm up early and eager to illuminate the darkness you all stumble through without me.
Where to begin? With whom? Hmm...
(Leans forward in thought, audibly tapping his incisors with the tips of his fingernails, a habit that has always annoyed you.)
dehrmark, when country and rap display the common sense and humility to abide by my edicts, their palls will require many a bearer. If I'm among them, I'll wear a modest black suit, comport myself respectfully, and might even shed a tear. Keep an eye out for me; we'll get drunk at the wake and argue politics.
scot, your objection that money is still to be made in these genres, and that this might explain their persistence as well as (or perhaps better than) cowardice, is sensible and valid. I might point out, however, that quite a few heavy metal bands still had something left over after paying their hairspray bills, right up to the moment Nirvana obviated them. Oh; and I hope I didn't leave the impression that I never gave country and rap a chance. God knows I tried. There are even a few songs - a very few - in each genre that I genuinely like.
democlez, I'm not declaring them dead - I'm setting out the bucket, clearing some space around it, and asking them politely to kick it. I admire the way you express your views, though, and expect shortly to be adding you to my list of trusted mogs.
Sturgell, I concluded, after discarding several alternate theories (Howard Hughes? Hermann Hesse? Henrietta Hippo? H.H. Munro, possibly?) that by "HH" you meant hip-hop. Cody and Oatmeal patiently explained to me the difference between rap and hip-hop, and although I appreciate the distinction, they seem so closely interrelated that I can't picture one thriving while the other died...
Tyler, I did make an effort to explain some of the ways that rock is distinct from other kinds of music, but immortality, sadly, isn't one of them. I should also add that however frozen they are in however many facets, I must (VERY begrudgingly) concede that the lyrics of country and rap songs frequently display surprising playfulness and imagination, even from within a virtual straitjacket of subject matter. I have no objection, by the way, to rap's boastfulness or its supposed encouragement of sexism, drugs, violence, or what have you - only to its endless repetition. And obviously a racial epithet spoken between two members of the race it applies to has a playfulness and bonhomie wildly different than the same epithet would possess coming from a member of a different race. This would be an instance where "authorial identity," if you will, actually does mean something.
And Cody. Dear Cody. No rippling broadside, no hail of arrows, no nuclear blast, no alien death ray will ever harm rock. When rock dies, it will be from a short blade inserted tenderly into just the right spot between its ribs - probably by someone who loves it. Like you. Your watchdog vigilance for it, and your almost unerring sense of where to focus, are the stuff of my nightmares. "Hall of Fame"? Ouch. "No longer the voice of rebellion and youth"? Ouch. "The sacred withered music"? Ouch. You overreach, however, when you say of rap that "It is the music of the future, with more innovations in a year of releases, than Rock has had in the past 30 years." I can conceive of preferring rap to rock, but not if innovation is a factor. Let's hear, say, five rap songs about self-doubt, personal failure, or heartache; let's hear five of them in a tricky time signature, let's hear five to which you could attach the description "haunting" with a straight face. But in the meantime, look for me pacing the quarterdeck of the H.M.S. Rock - I have removed my tricorner hat in salute, and I can feel blood squishing between my toes with every step.
My Trusted MOGs
Very, very, very well put sir.
My Trusted MOGs
Country isn't as dead as some might like, nor as dead, say, as disco. When Garth Brooks can sell out what, 7 concerts, immediately, Country isn't dead.
That being said, there's a thin line between Country and Country (or Southern) Rock. There are still places in the US (I live in one) where Country is still a relevant genre. While Rap and Hip Hop might have the "pulse" of the inner city, Country is still the music of the small town and rural farm.
Let's keep in mind that Garth has STILL sold more albums than Elvis.
My Trusted MOGs
Are you telling me tricky time signatures and alternate tunings are what make rock gods music..oh lord. Prog is the answer?
First I say..that ain't Rock! It is twisting real Rock to fit into the context of Western ideas that are mostly designed to control the masses, to seperate the music from the people.
Second, I will prepare and post a playlist of innovative rap/hip hop songs and link back here.
Good Day, Captain! I would have your minions check below decks to make sure your pump systems are in order. Your hull may be sporting a few holes after the canons fire.
My Trusted MOGs
Konk, it's so nice to see you again! As I've repeatedly tried to make clear, I'm not saying either rap or country is dead - I'm suggesting they die. Significant difference. And it bothers me not at all that Garth Brooks has outsold Elvis Presley (whom I hold in utter musical contempt), but it gnaws at me that either of them has outsold Elvis Costello.
Captain Cody! Prog is not the answer. Prog is the question: the names of five rap songs in unusual time signatures, if and when you can find them, will be the answer - or the second of three answers, at least (along with the names of five others about "self-doubt, personal failure, or heartache" and another five "to which you could attach the description 'haunting' with a straight face"). I don't recall mentioning alternate tunings, but look up the way Keith Richards tunes his guitar some time; you may be quite shocked.
And of course, prog is as much and as valid a part of rock as new wave, psychobilly, blitz or grunge, and it certainly isn't the only place to find quirky time signatures in the genre. I don't think anyone would call The Beatles' "All You Need Is Love," or The Tubes' "Stand Up and Shout" prog. God knows jazz never suffered from a shortage of bizarre examples. But whether it's an attempt to control the masses, separate the music from the people, or panic the womenfolk, I'm eager to hear what rap has done to keep up.
The carpenter reports two feet, seven inches of water in the hold, but the pumps gaining. Some damage to the rigging, but the crew (which I prefer to "minions") are splicing it quickly. Look out; your stern is drifting towards our broadside...
My Trusted MOGs
► Wait no longer sir ◄