rap music 1988-1995 vs. 1998-2005

so basically you're asking who is over 30?

1988 > anything

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e9/Pyramix.gif

im more interested in the ten albums WHY to be honest, esp for those who are under 30 or those over 30 w/ unexpected taste

list 10 albums WHY

-- deej, Thursday, July 24, 2008 5:31 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

lol I'm over 30 and it's gonna look like I lick the ass of the canon but whatever 1998-1995

PE Nation of Millions
ATCQ The Low End Theory
De La Soul Buhloone Mind State
Geto Boys We Can't Be Stopped
Dr Dre The Chronic
NWA Straight Outta Compton
EPMD Strictly Business
Ultramagnetic MCs Critical Beatdown
Beastie Boys Paul's Boutique
Cypress Hill s/t

Nation of Millions
Death Certificate
Three Feet High and Rising
Low End Theory
Enter the 36 Chambers
Straight Outta Compton
Bizarre Ride 2 the Pharcyde
Doggystyle
Sex Packets
Life is... Too $hort
Paul's Boutique
Only Built 4 Cuban Linx

Cypress Hill
Critical Beatdown
The Great Adventures of Slick Rick (or is this '87?)
Strictly Business
All 4 One
Fruits of Nature

I can't even think of 10 hip-hop albums from 98-05 on a par with most of this stuff in terms of range of subject matter and stylistic diversity and amazing, unique production

I'm sure ethan will show up in a few minutes to tell me what an asshole I am and how I don't know anything about hip-hop tho

it's funny, looking through my itunes library I can see all kinds of shit in like 1994-5, like Illmatic and Wu and B.I.G. that more clearly point to what happened after 1995. But I suspect people who vote for the later period favor 1994-5 over 1988-93.

1998 - 2005:

Nas - Stillmatic (2001)
Jurassic 5 - s/t (1997)
Outkast - Stankonia (2000)
Blackalicious - Blazing Arrow (2002)
The Coup - Party Music (2001)
Dead Prez - Let's Get Free (2000)
Black Star - s/t (1998)
Dudley Perkins - A Lil Light (2003)
Immortal Technique - Revolutionary Vol 2 (2003)
va - Soundbombing 3 comp. (2002)

That was hard. I think hip hop is a genre better judged by it's singles than LPs, since most rap albums are at least 50% filler.

98-05! too drunk to do list but the real reason is that i'm young. i would worry for anyone of my generation who didn't pick 98-05 tbh

I'm 30 years old. 98-05 would maybe be a little more diverse production-wise, but I have to go with 88-95. I guess I'm old!

how old are you lex? you always talk like yr 17 or something...(just curious)

Albums from 88-95 are better cuz they are shorter.

96-97 was the best shit ever!

seriously though, like all of the NY hardcore i like (boot camp clik productions, beatminerz productions, M.O.P. etc) was all 93-98 or something, right?

i don't really like anything pre-91 all that much and my interest (bar a few things) sort of fades around the beginning of the 00s (post-early neptunes). i really think my favorite stuff is 91-97 or some weird slot like that. gang starr and all that too.

yeah and i'm getting old. sorey dudes. but there's tons of good new shit too. i ain't hating. it's just you know certain things hit you at a certain time and place in yr life.

slick rick - great adventures of...
EPMD - strictly business
kool g rap & dj polo - wanted dead or alive
biggie - ready to die
ODB - return to the 36 chambers
geto boys - grip it! on that other level
too short - life is...too short
nas - illmatic
bone thugs n harmony - creepin' on a come up
sir mix-a-lot - swass

my interest (bar a few things) sort of fades around the beginning of the 00s (post-early neptunes)

^^^ditto

for singles: 98-05
for albums: 88-95

im voting 98-05 bcuz i was sentient in that period

it's hard though. i could easily do just good of a list with totally different albums i just pulled those out of my ass on the fly

i dont think its even close for albums. my 10 for 98-05 period would look off the top of my head something like:

stankonia
the blueprint
lord willin
tha carter II
400 degreez
trap muzik
marshall mathers lp
chronic 2001
pretty toney album
college dropout

maybe madvilliainy or back for the first time or purple haze in there. get rich or die tryin and miss e... also

and how can we forget a grand don't come for free

maybe king instead of trap muzik. can never decide between those two

so i guess deej you should've had a transitional category for dudes

"the predator" 1992
"black sunday" 1993
"enter the wu-tang" 1993
"hard to earn" 1994
smif'n'wessun "dah shinin" 1995
ogc "the storm" 1996
"wrath of the math" 1996
"hard knock life" 1998
"dynasty" 2000
"warriorz" 2000

didn't put in "... so addictive" because that's r&b which maybe is a different poll?

on the flip i don't think singles would be close at all either

oh man i feel bad for fronting on BCC now. and the first jeru record.

this is impossible.

plus a lotta shit from j0rdan's list is awesome too.

anyway i guess the good thing is that you don't actually have to choose irl.

i do feel bad for lex though. man dude you are gonna be a mess mentally when you hit dirty 30.

as opposed to how he is right now?

im going with '98-'05 but really i want to choose like '93 to '99 or something

36 chambers thru life and times basically

I don't feel qualified to choose as my late 80s knowledge is v. limited. My 1998-2005 list would be:

Missy Elliot - Da Real World
Jay-Z - The Life & Times of S. Carter
MOP - Warriorz
Ghostface Killah - Supreme Clientele
Wu-Tang Clan - Iron Flag
Foxy Brown - Broken Silence
Clipse - Lord Willin'
T.I. - Trap Muzik
Trick Daddy - Thug Matrimony
Lil Wayne - The Carter II

88-95
same albums as everyone else

im going with '98-'05 88-95 but really i want to choose like '93 to '99 or something

Straight From The Basement Of Kooley High
Straight Out The Jungle
Saturday Night The Album
The Cactus Album
Eazy Duz It
The Biz Is Goin' Off
Act A Fool
Cypress Hill
Mantronix The Album
Let The Rhythm Hit Em

And as far as singles are concerned, it's not even close.

I'm 30

36 Chambers
Bizarre Ride
Road to the Riches
Critical Beatdown
Fear of a Black Planet
Mecca and the Soul Brother
Great Adventures of Slick Rick
De La Soul is Dead
Check Your Head
Midnight Marauders

i was discussing this elsewhere and i dont know why we got stuck on 8 years but that was how it happened ... i prob should have done 88-97 and 98-2007 right?

i think 98-2007 would lose

if you guys want to pretend its 88-97 and 98-2007 thats cool, then its an even decade

88-95:
Cuban Linx
Infamous
Me Against the World
Ready to Die
Illmatic
Midnight Marauders
36 Chambers
De La Soul is Dead
O.G. Original Gangster
Straight Outta Compton

the Mantronix album is from '85.

Woops. Fuck it then, the one with Simple Simon.

i keep making lists and realizing how conservative my rap taste is

for all my fronting my lists contain the most obvious albums possible

haha i feel that way sometimes

moving back east has made me regress to my h.s. taste, all mobb deep all the time

oh fuck i forgot mobb deep :-(

that'd be 95

I prefer rap music 1958 to 1965.

BAM

http://www.dlackey.org/weblog/images/LAST-GATHERING-thumb.jpg

it'd be 88-95 for me except All Eyez On Me came out in '96 so I'll take the interzone of '96-'97

assuming we sort of put Tupac in the "earlier generation" category yeah I'm ancient and I'd narrowly pick the earlier one largely because the west coast sound meant a lot to me - NWA, Above the Law, the Chronic, Digital Underground on a different but still very west coast thing, Eazy's solo stuff after NWA split, Cypress Hill, not all these would be on my all-time list but that seemed like a really vibrant time to me. So much going on. Of course I'm proper old so it's not like those were The Days Of My Youth either - my "days of youth" music is L.A. post-punk/deathrock & UK postpunk - but it's always exciting when a genre's just blowing up & while rap was hardly new in the early nineties, it was still the newest thing going and had that vibe for me

10 from 88-95

Innercity Griots
Stress, the Extinction Agenda
Ghetto Music: The Blueprint of Hiphop
No Need for Alarm
Fear Itself
Boxcar Sessions
Hard to Earn
The Sun Rises in the East
Resurrection
Still Standing

10 from 98-05

Black on Both Sides
Internal Affairs
Fantastic Damage
Later That Day
Craft Classic
Cee Lo Green is the Soul Machine
Nia
Murs 3:16
Madvillainy (I think)
Aquemeni

pretty close, actually

This post made after four beers and two shots

rap singles from 79 to 87

the fix
philadelphia freeway
kings of crunk
mississippi
400 degreez
get rich or die tryin
straight outta cashville
joseph w. mcvey
a.w.o.l.
dirty money
face off
thug motivation 101
when the smoke clears
aquemini
stillmatic
the realness
the blueprint

i'm 38 (! ... ;_; ) -- 10 random reasons for 1988-1995, and by no means exclusive:

hard to earn
the infamous
the low-end theory
enter the wu-tang
liquid swords
ameriKKKa's most wanted
enta da stage
ready to die
illmatic
grip it! on that other level

39! I think I win on this thread. Wait, I mean lose.

no I am still grandpa to all y'all

on the real i might take 96-97 over both of these brackets but

88-95
on top of tha world - 8ball & MJG
southernplayalisticaddilacmuzik - kast
the most beautifullest thing in this world - keith murray
illmatic - nasir
paul's boutique - beasties
ready to die - big
low end theory - tribe
36 chambers - wu
resurrection - common sense
daily operation - gang starr

Nation of Millions
3 Feet High and Rising
Ready to Die
Illmatic
Enter the Wu-Tang
Fear of a Black Planet
Low End Theory
Paul’s Boutique
Critical Beatdown
Mama Said Knock You Out

beats

Marshall Mathers LP
Stankonia
The College Dropout
Lucy Ford
Fish Scale
Late Registration
The Blueprint
Pick a Bigger Weapon
Aquemeni
AOI: Bionix

1998-2005, here's why:

Aquemini
The Cold Vein
Cee-Lo Green is the Soul Machine
Let There Be Eve
AZiatic
God's Son
The W
Total Eclipse
Let's Get Free
Party Music

Generally I prefer the more varied flows and rhyming styles of the latter era to the more simplistic rapping of the 80s. Also, while I dig sample-based beats, I like good synth beats even more.

Plus I'm not particularly fond of the smooth & mellow jazzy beats that were the norm in NYC rap in 1991-94.

Gimme me a cold, icy synth beat over a Grover Washington sample any day!

ugh the synth beats. main reason why i listen to more pre 00 rap than post.

hay guyz i said make it 1988-1997 and 1998 to 2007 so u dont have to miss out on those two B-]

dj quik - trauma
mop - warriorz
t.i. - trap muzik
b.g. - chopper city in the ghetto
pastor troy - face off
3-6 - da unbreakables
big l - the big picture
UGK - Underground Kings
dr. dre - 2001
camp lo - uptown saturday night

oh shit camp lo was '97 .... :[

OMG, whatever the span, does this thread make you want to listen to just about every one of these albums right now or what?

lil' kim, the notorious k.i.m.
t.i., king
crime mob, crime mob
trina, diamond princess
pitbull, m.i.a.m.i.
missy elliott, da real world
jay-z, the blueprint
lil' wayne, tha carter ii
kanye west, the college dropout
v/a, hyphy hitz
dr dre, 2001

i'll be fine when i hit 30! i am pretty sure i'll always be fine

oh whoops that's not 10, i forgot to count them. oh well

ugh the synth beats. main reason why i listen to more pre 00 rap than post.

^^^YES

i'll be fine when i hit 30! i am pretty sure i'll always be fine

"I used to be with it, but then they changed what "it" was. Now, what I'm with isn't it, and what's "it" seems weird and scary to me."

lex as a british dude arent you consistently bitching about how much you hate what kids are feeling nowadays

400 degreez
tha g-code
lights out
chopper city in the ghetto
chopper city
guerrilla warfare
get it how u live
i got that work
6th & baronne
mac melph calio

yeah so 98-05 no question

wait whoops coupla those from like 96, replace with other equally as good cash money recs

no one ever mentions young n thuggin ;_;

some amazing mannie beats on that record

beats are nice but sometimes turk's rapping is all guy-with-head-in-hands.jpg

get it how u live
i got that work

two really crazy records imo

leave a scar on your ho from the side of my shoe

im as big a big tymers stan as anyone but i think the fresh solo record is way better than both of those, but maybe i was suffering from cash money overload when i was listening to them a few months back

nothing on the mannie album is as good as 'snake'

i been eatin ginseng
swing a big ding a ling

i been takin ginseng

doh

lol that's like your favorite song ever

"real big", "shake that ass" and esp "lady lady" are better

it's goin down like valuejet

mannie fresh biting the rza on that line!

88-95 cuz I could unnastan da woids

I saw Run-DMC get booed off the stage in Passaic NJ opening for Lou Reed in '85, kidz

what is a 'woids'

it's goin down like valuejet

-- J0rdan S., Friday, July 25, 2008 2:24 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

u gotta bring more than that to convince me

idk i think mind of mannie... is way more compelling as this album that goes way into the well of dude's mind (as far as "real big" goes that's an all-time single and "lady lady" is smooth as shit + a great wayne hook) as opposed to i got that work which is... good but if im gonna listen to a cash money posse cut album from that era it would be chopper city in the ghetto or 400 degreez or a hot boys one etc. its just not the cash money record id reach for, whereas mind of mannie... is something different entirely

big tymers werent supposed to be like chopper city in the ghetto or 400 degreez ... theyve got serious joints on them but they're pretty much comedy records, but not underlined basically-stand-up-material comedy like mannie fresh solo

I know I'm all LOL Grandpa to the e-thugz but at the time there was *NOTHING* that sounded like what Dre & Bomb Squad & Lynch Mob were doing. Just the _music_ for "Welcome To The Terrordome" is totally frenetic, all buzzing and stinging on top with this weird swinging groove going on underneath. When that single hit it was impossible to not pay attention, you knew they were writing history. Chuck could've still been talking about his 98 and I wouldn't have minded.

e-thugz lol

I saw Run-DMC get booed off the stage in Passaic NJ opening for Lou Reed in '85, kidz

lolz I bet Lou really blew 'em away with "My Red Joystick" eh

at least it was pre-"Original Rapper"

Video Violence = proto gangsta

^ wrongest thing I can recall saying in quite some time

88-95
Eric B & Rakim "Follow The Leader"
LL Cool J "Mama Said Knock You Out"
Public Enemy "Fear Of A Black Planet"
A Tribe Called Quest "The Low End Theory"
Black Sheep "A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing"
Pete Rock & CL Smooth "Mecca And The Soul Brother"
Wu-Tang Clan "Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)"
Jeru The Damaja "The Sun Rises In The East"
GZA/Genius "Liquid Swords"
Mobb Deep "The Infamous..."
Raekwon "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx"

96-97
Jay-Z "Reasonable Doubt"
Dr. Octagon "Octagonecologyst"
Ghostface Killah "Ironman"
The Fugees "The Score" (technically not "rap music" but sort of)
1997???????????????? cant think of any

98-05
Ol' Dirty Bastard "Nigga Please"
Kool Keith "Black Elvis/Lost In Space"
Outkast "Stankonia"
Danger Mouse "The Gray Album"
Madvillian "Madvilliany"
T.I. "King"
Clipse "Hell Hath No Fury"
Ghostface "Fishscale"

Okay, thats the best I could come up with for 98-05.. 88-95 was WAY easier.. And I hadn't heard a single one of these albums before 1998 (except The Score).. I got into them all within the 98-05 period, so based on the fact that nostalgia plays very little in my decision, 88-95 is the clear winner. And of course this is only judging based on albums and not singles.

one word: SP1200

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

hahaha ILM is old

well under 30 and voted 88-95

well you just have good taste then

house & techno 88-96 vs 97-08 might be, well not that interesting, but still...

Haha well with albums it might be kind of close.

I'd skew contemporary in that poll. Early house & techno is a load of shapeless stink for the most part.

it would be no competition, just like this one

i mean sure, there's loads of great new shit, but...

hahaha ILM is old

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, July 30, 2008 6:02 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

in this case I think it's more of an issue of common sense than age!

yeah i mean realistically i was voting for 94

in this case I think it's more of an issue of common sense than age!

seriously

Early house & techno is a load of shapeless stink for the most part.

-- Johnny Fever, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 23:37 (Yesterday) Link

ILX is stupid

good idea deej

BG & Soulja Slim - Never Know

blunt foreshadowing

sick, is it a hook huh.

1980-1988 vs 1990-2000 would of been better imo!

something happened in 1998
i think it was bia bia

control+f "Enta da Stage" not found

well why you didn't type it?

xpost
^ha i was just thinking that were you watching the little mini black moon set they played on mtv jams this AM too?

enta da stage
ready to die
illmatic
grip it! on that other level

-- Eisbaer, Thursday, July 24, 2008 9:53 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Link

hidden in the cut. but yeah, this shit still got cha opin

i find it really unnatural to prefer a past generation's music to your own, regardless of genre

^ha i was just thinking that were you watching the little mini black moon set they played on mtv jams this AM too

nah,missed that. i just threw this on for the first time in awhile and it's sounding tighter then ever

Coolin' In Cali
The One
The Devil Made Me Do It
To The East Blackwards
Uncle Samn's Curse
Downtown Science
Powerule, Vol. 1

i find it really unnatural to prefer a past generation's music to your own, regardless of genre

does not compute

why should I feel any particular alliegance to people born roughly the same time as me

or people who die the same time as you

when i first came to ilx i thought it was insane that people seemed to think timbo/neptunes were the best thing that ever happened to rap

the present is the present, and couldn't exist without the past, especially in rap. even if all you were ever were able to listen to was from '98 to '05, you'd still be hearing quotes and samples and straight up biting from stuff from '89 or '94 in almost every song.

When it comes to Hip-Hop I'm no expert. But I know what I like. I want upbeat tunes, a retro vibe, more than just a vocal hook to keep me interested and a bit of bounce. I like the electro-tinged beats of the Wiseguys, the jazzy and scratchy style of A Tribe Called Quest, the hip hop mash-ups of The Rub, the in-your-face politics of Public Enemy and the chipper old school sound of DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince. I like it old school and I like it sunny.

or people who die the same time as you

eh not exactly - I imagine I will die the same time as people not of my generation as well. death is like that.

rap music 2008-2015: The Rub making blends of Tribe and the Fresh Prince

i find it really unnatural to prefer a past generation's music to your own, regardless of genre

^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCn7nVOV4wM

on the real i see the point the lex is making, even if he's making it in a very the lex way. i think it's healthy to be really invested in your own era and generation, lord knows i definitely own more CDs from 98-05 than 88-95. but it's a slippery slope from that to just being yay new now now now (i.e. the lex) all the time.

i'm not though! ok maybe i am on ilx. i never really feel the need to talk about old music. i'd expand but it's too fucking humid to articulate anything and i have to be in notting hill in half an hr, it's about how pop music forms a backdrop to your life as it unfolds, all the associated memories of where you were and what you were doing as much as the mere beats and chords, the reasons why you think of a particular song as yours, and of course half of that is shared with others who were around you. of course this isn't, you know, a blanket rule or anything, plenty of old songs do this, but i can't see why you'd prefer them. it's like, i'd find it really odd if someone who was a new tennis fan said their favourite player was monica seles, even though she may have been better or invented the playing style of current players, she's retired.

as i said it's really fucking humid here

i'll say

i'll get me coat.

strange thing to do in such humidity

always with the tennis

the rackets are excellent for playing air guitar with

it's about how pop music forms a backdrop to your life as it unfolds

this assumes that the music playing around you is always new, which, frankly it rarely is

I mean I've been hearing the same shitty AM 70s pop hits in grocery stores my entire life

"i'd find it really odd if someone who was a new tennis fan said their favourite player was monica seles"

I don't think tennis players vs. records makes much sense as a comparison. No new tennis fan spends a lot of time watching old French Open finals on ESPN Classic or whatever, whereas plenty of music fans got into music because of old records their parents or older siblings owned (see enduring success of the Beatles.) There is also a history of artistic excavation (in music, film, literature) that doesn't exist in sports.

dude Monica totally ripped off her backhand from Bjorn Borg

Everyone ripped off their backhand from Borg (or least anyone who hit two handed.)

joeks bruv I know nothing about tennis

I hear Bjorkand Skyoaàxjorn has a pretty awesome backsplash this year, and could be the biggest thing on the tour since Jiminez Rodriguez Ballestierez took four Reunion Island Opens back in the glory days of 73-79.

Although don't bet against Olaaf Bischtkarn showing off some of his recently redeveloped sidereal return against some of the more dominant players this year.

i think making the 'its because i grew up on it' argument is weak and sells 98-07 rap era way short

in a lot of ways, rap was peaking around 01 ... those are gonna be the 'classic rock radio'-type staples that get played 20 yrs from now, because those are the trax that crossed over in a huge way, where early 90s rap was mostly about the niche rap audience

not making a judgement on one era being 'better' than the other but its like 60s rock vs 70s rock basically

yeah probably. doesn't mean its better.

lolz x-posts

im just saying tho, i dont think the idea that the late 90s - mid 00s were a great period for rap music is really all that radical, nor is the idea that maybe they're just as good as late 80s/early 90s

is there some kind of "trolling for challops.jpg" 77 assignment I don't know about, deej?

I just don't know on what aesthetic grounds they're demonstrably better - by my measure the late 80s/early 90s had a wider variety of rapping styles, a wider variety of production styles, and a wider variety of subject matter; not to mention sampling pastiches are inherently more interesting/unique to me than yr standard keyboard+drum machine beats.

I mean hip-hop in general went from being produced in a way that was totally unique to the genre (bizarro combo of samplers, drum machines, live instrumentation) to being produced like every other kind of dance music (ie, on a computer with a drum machine and a keyboard). yawnz.

is there some kind of "trolling for challops.jpg" 77 assignment I don't know about, deej?

-- some dude, Thursday, July 31, 2008 2:07 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

whats the challops?? dudes here seem to really think its OBVIOUS that recent shit is worse

I just don't know on what aesthetic grounds they're demonstrably better - by my measure the late 80s/early 90s had a wider variety of rapping styles, a wider variety of production styles, and a wider variety of subject matter; not to mention sampling pastiches are inherently more interesting/unique to me than yr standard keyboard+drum machine beats.

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, July 31, 2008 2:13 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i dont think this is demonstrably true

You don't think "by his measure" that's demonstrably true? Interesting.

well if i read it that way then his post essentially says nothing at all. obviously its 'by his measure'

not to mention sampling pastiches are inherently more interesting/unique to me than yr standard keyboard+drum machine beats.

inherently?

I lick the ass of the canon

^ high point of thread

so far

hey by all means explain to me how your list:

dj quik - trauma
mop - warriorz
t.i. - trap muzik
b.g. - chopper city in the ghetto
pastor troy - face off
3-6 - da unbreakables
big l - the big picture
UGK - Underground Kings
dr. dre - 2001
camp lo - uptown saturday night

is indicative of a wider range of creativity than any of the '88-'95 lists posted so far.

inherently?

what can I say, I like parsing references more than listening to tossed-off, standard blues-scale synth riffs

If this poll was rock music 1988-1995 vs. 1998-2005 would anyones' panties be bunched if the former period won in a landslide?

do you really listen to rap music to 'parse references' in the samples?

why's it so important that either period be finally judged on which has "a wider range of creativity"

anyway you're still wrong. rap's gotten way more creative since 98 as it's become more indebted and interested in pop and has further splintered across the country

im not sure how i can explain that, shakey. by which standards? thats a pretty diverse list of albums, tho, production wise, the style of the rappers represented, geographically. its pretty male/macho i guess

do you really listen to rap music to 'parse references' in the samples?

hey what can I say there's a lot of info packed into Cube's "Bop Gun (Endangered Species)" remix

anyway you're still wrong. rap's gotten way more creative since 98 as it's become more indebted and interested in pop and has further splintered across the country

I dunno about that - rap was pretty well splintered regionally to begin with

become more indebted and interested in pop

also I don't know what this means

sampling = pretty indebted to pop!

i know that, but for instance, there was no real rap presence (correct me if im wrong but i dont think i am) in a place like virginia, which from like 96 on gave us timbo, missy, neptunes etc. and just in general, from the mid 90s on there's been a greater presence in rap music, esp rap music as pop music, from the south, which is what i meant by "further splintering" (more minds= more music, i guess)

southern rap pre-96 = Geto Boys, 2 Live Crew/Miami bass, Arrested Development (lolz), 8Ball and MJG

?????????

Outkast's debut=1994

and I know this is standard dumb old white male thing to say in many ways but I sorta hate how gangsta rap came to thematically dominate the genre post-mid-90s. and plz note I am saying this as someone who really loves the progenitors of the style to begin with, it just got so oppressive and deej's list bears that out - not everything on it is gangsta at all (lolz Camp Lo I luvs ya) - but there's a higher percentage of it compared to the lists of earlier stuff.

challops, I know

and don't forget Goodie Mob was '95

x-post

xposts to shakey mo

i don't mean indebted to older pop music, i mean that i think as rap's grown older, its artists have become way more attracted to the idea of pop stardom when that door was kicked open by people like snoop and dre (and run dmc etc) (ill leave out biggie since he's in the weird 96-98 period here, though certainly diddy has a big part in what im talking about) and much more concerned with keeping the genre alive and relevant as a dominant form of pop music and pushing the boundaries of pop with rap music (and vice versa i guess), which is something that i think is kinda unique to the 95-and on era (timbaland, mannie fresh, outkast, diddy etc etc)

I'm with you on pretty much everything you just said, Shakey.
xpost

i think my list from the old era is about as balanced or diverse geographically and production/style wise as a newer list

slick rick - great adventures of...
EPMD - strictly business
kool g rap & dj polo - wanted dead or alive
biggie - ready to die
ODB - return to the 36 chambers
geto boys - grip it! on that other level
too short - life is...too short
nas - illmatic
bone thugs n harmony - creepin' on a come up
sir mix-a-lot - swass

late 90s early 00s you had:

swizz in NY, whole ruff ryders/ the lox / dmx thing
jay-z
miami - trick daddy/trina/slip n slide
lil jon/"crunk" etc
nelly
puffy's post-biggie bad boy stuff - mase, black rob, shyne, etc
hypnotized minds outta memphis
a bunch of new houston rappers showing up
new atl rappers - t.i., luda, youngbloodz, outkast reaching popular peak, etc
ny underground - rawkus, fondle em etc
new orleans - cmr, no limit, soulja slim
rise of nu-soul sampling w/ kanye, just blaze, etc
soulquarians/dilla/roots
revitalized dr dre, dogg pound, snoop

there was a huge diversity of sounds & rap styles at this pt

50/g-unit/eminem should have been mentioned as part of the dre revitalization

i didnt even mention neptunes/timbaland in that entire list

point is there was tons of shit going on, regardless of whether or not you find one era more enjoyable than the other i think its pretty demonstrable that the late 90s/early 00s was just as/more diverse in terms of sound and rap style as the late 80s early 90s

state property/freeway/beanie sigel

I think deej's list is selling itself short actually because it completely ignores the global reach of hip hop by the late 90s. The diversity argument is a red herring. Hip hop is still plenty diverse. You may not like it as much (fair enough) but it's not because it's gotten narrower.

yeah I think you're right deej, the thing I'm agreeing with Shakey about is the dominance of gangster lyrics, and also on the importance that authenticity has taken on in rap.

point is there was tons of shit going on, regardless of whether or not you find one era more enjoyable than the other i think its pretty demonstrable that the late 90s/early 00s was just as/more diverse in terms of sound and rap style as the late 80s early 90s

i def agree with this. honestly though it's a pretty typical arc for any genre really, isn't it? shit gets more diverse, more spread out, more good, more bad....and maybe loses a certain...i dunno....god i wanna say shit like "freshness" or "purity" but that sounds lame...but, something anyway.

true - also no mention of continued blending of R&B/hip-hop, dancehall/hip hop crossover, and im really selling the bay area short as well i'm sure

true was an xp to alex

anytime you compare a genre or type of music from, say, the past decade or so, to an earlier era, what you're really looking at is a quantity vs. quality argument: there have been a shit ton more people rapping, on a major label level and on an underground level, from 98 onward than there were before that. the degrees of variety in those respective eras are kind of apples and oranges, because you're comparing a field of hundreds or thousands to a field of millions.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3234/2719322065_ceba2bb29a.jpg

ok i change my vote

some dude OTM basically

I'm gonna take that statement as saying that it's much harder to locate all the best music as the number of artists keep exponentially increasing in quantity, but if it were possible to cut all the unnecessary bullshit, current music would seem just as good, if not better, than it did 10/20/30 years ago. Is that close?

there was no real rap presence (correct me if im wrong but i dont think i am) in a place like virginia

no mainstream prescence maybe, but def some good rap coming out of virginia pre-96. namely, mad skillz and the whole superfriends crew.

do you really listen to rap music to 'parse references' in the samples?

that's not the ONLY reason, but it can be fun, provides another layer of interest. and yeah, straight up computer/keyboard beats are dull in comparison.

http://www.nomaas.org/images/drudge_siren.gifrockism alerthttp://www.nomaas.org/images/drudge_siren.gif

dismissing that as rockism is now wayyyy lazier thinking than blindly rockist thinking

wtf sense does that make

'straight up computer/keyboard beats' are not dull

sorry, i should've included sirens with it?
rockism: viewed negatively cause it relies on lazy, received wisdom
you dismissing anything on this thread by calling it rockist: lazy, relies on received wisdom. no attempt made to engage with anyone's way of thinking here. much easier to slap ROCKISM on it and be done with it, no?

they are when the producers don't know how to write a melodic hook. one of the reasons everyone lost their shit over Timba/Neptunes was that they are (were?) actually good at this, and stripped everything down so that their productions were often JUST about the hook and a simple casio keyboard beat, and nothing else.

x-post

(christ sounding kinda Geirish there sorry)

i like to think the increased quantity of music per genre is countered by the increase of ways in which to access it and the ways for the cream to rise to the top. that second part still needs a lot of work tho.

ok but how is that rockist? isn't that anti-rockist???? they are dull to me in comparison. can you not see how someone can think that removing elements from a complex soup of production tools results in a relatively duller sound? not saying you have to agree it's duller. if all pizza suddenly didn't have herbs and spices on it, it'd be duller than what came before it.

this is some bullshit to be arguing about: of course people aren't going to agree about what style of music they like!

deej you're kinda regressing to your 2005 self with some of the pointless-ass arguments you're baiting in this thread

deej 1988-1995 vs. 1998-2005

I'm mostly here to find more good recent shit to listen to, though

a huge percentage of that 'complex soup of production tools' b.s. is straight mythology, some of the best sampled beats are straight 1 track jacks and thats cool but pretending that its somehow 'deeper' than swizz doing apocalyptic craziness on money cash hoes or mannie making some double time bounce shit is rockism.

u can say you have a preference but if thats your only point here then we dont really have anything to discuss

deej you're kinda regressing to your 2005 self with some of the pointless-ass arguments you're baiting in this thread

-- some dude, Friday, August 1, 2008 11:19 AM (45 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

lol i am having deja vu (deeja vu?) arguing w/ 'oops' about production techniques. i think last time he was arguing that rza was more complex than dj premier or something

that 'complex soup of production tools' b.s. is straight mythology, some of the best sampled beats are straight 1 track jacks

that is not the case with most of the "best of '88-'95" albums listed on this thread

a more useful line of inquiry might be questioning why complexity is inherently better

the point at which the word "rockism" became useless was when ppl started using it to mean "lol u" - nothing deej is describing is "rockism" by any sense of the word unless there's a sense in which is just means "the ideology to which my opponents in a discussion will be said to subscribe in order that I might gain points."

haha im avoiding this whole b.s. played out beef but saying albums from 88 don't have 1 track jacks is lolwut.gif

and I have never heard a Swizz Beats production that I liked, sorry.

haha im avoiding this whole b.s. played out beef but saying albums from 88 don't have 1 track jacks is lolwut.gif

that's not what I said ethan

yes, many of the albums listed on this thread sampled only one track and looped it; a quick flip thru and organized konfusion's 'stress' is a perfect example

its not some judgement, i love those songs, but theres some mystical psuedo-crit world bullshit that ppl go into over SAMPLING that results in the same kind of crappy overheated praise that dangermouse got for 'the grey album' - OOOH RECONTEXTUALIZING like its supposed to mean something extra special

nah dangermouse is lame

Don’t even try to put a label on Swizz Beatz.

If you called him a music producer, you’d be right. And if you called him a rapper, you’d also be on the money. But then you’d have to add painter, collector, CEO, entrepreneur, new father, and even the United Nation’s Music Ambassador for World Peace to the list.

The only way to describe Swizz Beatz is as a visionary whose exciting interests, enviable music skills and keen insights make him a person who is constantly sought after when in comes to making creative projects a success.

Known in the music world as a respected producer/rapper who has worked with the likes of Cassidy, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, DMX, T.I., Eve, Jadakiss, Busta Rhymes, Mashonda (who happens to be his wife), Gwen Stefani, and Beyonce, Swizz’s work can be found on more than 100 million albums sold.

The Bronx, New York native’s latest album, One Man, One Band, is about to break, and his street single, “It’s Me Bitches,” will hit soon.

Swizz, who is also known by Swizzy and The Monster, is proficient in various popular music genres, from rap and reggae to R&B, pop and rock.

“I’m just doing what I’m coming up with, and I’m challenging myself with all different type of sounds,” Swizz told Fader.com. “I might do something over a Marvin Gaye concept and then take it and mess with a song from the Gorillaz, mess with something from the classic hip hop stuff, and then some sample-free stuff,” he said. “I’m just testing everything.”

This chameleon-like quality makes Swizz a popular collaborator to artists who are looking to make their music stand shine in a crowded category. Currently, the sizzling hot, in demand producer/rapper is currently putting the polish on projects with Britney Spears, Kelly Rowland, Jennifer Lopez, Usher, Lil’ Kim, Marc Anthony, Eminem, Ashanti, and Whitney Houston, just to name a few. Swizz also produced the street single for the new Tupac Shakur album, Pac’s Life.

“I want to be remembered as the producer who changed the dynamic of music while inspiring artists to be creative and innovative,” says Swizz “I won’t stop until history is made.”

Swizz has said that he always want to be 10 steps ahead of what’s happening on the scene and with his competition. “Just when people think that I’m supposed to be cool and that I made it and, ‘Ok, you’re back again, you’re doing it big,’ I’m already preparing for the round after this,” he told fader.com.

Swizz’s unique history was already in the making when in 1978, Swizz (born Kasseem Dean) arrived in a family already steeped in the development of contemporary music.

Swizz’s father, Terrence Dean, is the founder of Terrence Dean Entertainment Management, and Swizz’s uncles started Ruff Ryders Records, where Swizz, at 16, began using his talents to produce tracks. The label’s first chart breaking hit, DMX’s “Stop, Drop,” was one of Swizz’s productions. And in 2001 at the age of 23, the talented Swizz Beatz was named President/CEO of his own record label, Full Service Records, a joint venture with Clive Davis of J Records.

Clearly his strong sense of business has taken him on a long journey in a short period of time. But at the same time, he has expanded his entrepreneurial spirit into areas beyond the recording studio.

He is a partner in Kidrobot, the premier creator and retailer of limited-edition art toys and apparel. Just like Swizz and his skill for working in various music genres, Kidrobot features products that are the result of major collaborations with famous artists with backgrounds in grafffiti, fine, art, industrial design, graphic design, illustration and music.

Kidrobot operates three stores in the U.S. (New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco), and is about to open a location in Japan. The new line of Kidrobot apparel is available exclusively in the Kidrobot stores, kirdorot.com and at Barneys New York.

Among his other business accomplishments are his creation of the Coyote Bay Night Club (CBNC) in Scottsdale, AZ; and his ownership of the Exotic Car Dealership in Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.

Swizz’s accomplishments are almost too many to counts. He has worked with the United Nations to unite the entertainment community in its efforts to promote peace around the world, and continues to express himself as a painter, having studied under the likes of Peter Maxx.

Swizz loves to collect watches and art, and is a major Andy Warhol enthusiast. In addition, he lists cars, jewelry, animation, dogs, planes and fashion among his passions.

“When it comes to the way I look, I don’t want to be thought of as a typical artist,” Swizz says of his personal style. “It’s sort of urban with skateboard appeal. Think hip hop meets global pop culture.”

the point at which the word "rockism" became useless was when ppl started using it to mean "lol u" - nothing deej is describing is "rockism" by any sense of the word unless there's a sense in which is just means "the ideology to which my opponents in a discussion will be said to subscribe in order that I might gain points."

-- J0hn D., Friday, August 1, 2008 11:25 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i think saying that sampling is 'inherently' less dull than keyboard beats is a pretty standard case of rockism, its just the rap music equivalent of 'not using real guitars' or whatever

I mean yeah there are tracks on Straight Outta Compton and Low End Theory and whatever that are one-track jacks no question but the majority of stuff listed and what people consider the best (PE, Cube, Beasties, whatever) are way more layered than that

x-post

dude some of the lazy 100% sample-based tracks bore me much more quickly than any synth beat. beats that incorporate samples AND synths AND live instrumentation are more complex, i don't see how that is not completely obvious.
god STFU with the rockism. so fucking lazy.
rza IS more complex than premier! (complex != better)
deej maybe you shouldn't read psuedo-crit world B.S. then? or not project it onto everyone?

i think saying that sampling is 'inherently' less dull than keyboard beats is a pretty standard case of rockism, its just the rap music equivalent of 'not using real guitars' or whatever

it's kind of the opposite of rockism, which tends to place a priority on the playing of instruments (cf. Geir's preference for G-funk over other forms of rap). the rockist case against keyb beats would involve technical proficiency at the instrument.

god that swizz beats puff piece is nauseating

you're using a really narrow reading of rockism there j0hn

which is to say, you want to dismiss a case by painting it as assoc. w/ a school of thought that all have decided is "bad," when the case for sampling as more interesting is a bit more complex/interesting than you wanna cop to

xpost it's kind of the core of the rockist case! rockism as an ideology arises in response to stuff like sampling.

if you need to call it something different to feel more comfortable saying that its basically the same flawed logic, someone coined 'pete rockism' awhile back if thats better

rockism also digs shit that sounds like """"real instruments"""" more than shit that sounds like casios & 808s

yeah again it just seems like you're really eager to dismiss something by name-calling instead of stating what's wrong with it, that's my beef here

xpost conceded E

dismissing the power of recontextualization that's built into sampling is kinda wtf

casios and 808s are real instruments btw

xpost it's kind of the core of the rockist case! rockism as an ideology arises in response to stuff like sampling.

-- J0hn D., Friday, August 1, 2008 11:34 AM (20 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

its not some static thing; any mid-90s obsessed rap dude goes on and on about sampling's 'purity' the same way any rockist from an earlier generation would hate on rap music for not having guitars. there is really no substantive difference between the two positions

there's no substantive difference unless you concede that rap is a different genre than rock

but you seem to be saying "rockism is whatever I'm against," which is kinda my point

i'm not sure what john's point was with posting swizzbio.doc but Swizz samples a lot, especially these days

I'm not sure anyone here is making a "purity" argument...? (I'm certainly not)

I didn't have a point, it just made me lol

no, i'm not. if you want to make rap music with tin cans and blapping noises recorded on audio cassette and you get a good rapper to rap over it, and the shit sounds good, it sounds good, no matter how the beat was constructed. What i'm "against" is setting up artificial rules about how songs need to be made

or setting up some fake artificial hierarchy

"sampled beats > keyboard beats"

is what i dont like

"sampled beats:apples::keyboard beats:oranges"

is my position

rockism is about coming up with justifications for liking stuff that is established and respected over stuff that is new and flashy, it doesn't have to make sense consistently.

if the old guard played guitar, guitar is better than a sampler. if the old guard used samplers, samplers are better than keyb

really the problem is inventing, out of nothing, a conflict between new and old -- it reads the past and present in freudian terms

no, i'm not. if you want to make rap music with tin cans and blapping noises recorded on audio cassette and you get a good rapper to rap over it, and the shit sounds good, it sounds good, no matter how the beat was constructed. What i'm "against" is setting up artificial rules about how songs need to be made

I like this

or setting up some fake artificial hierarchy

this is what use of the un-unloadable term "rockism" accomplishes

"sampled beats:apples::keyboard beats:oranges"

is my position

I prefer apples I guess

countdown to "jd went completely nuts over the use of the word rockism" or some other christ-I-should-have-just-not-bothered meme

but you know, not always

x-post

obv the most simplistic sample-based tracks are less complex/duller than the best synth beats. alls i'm saying is having an xtra layer ie samples allows for the possibility of a more complex---and to me, interesting--track. what allows more complexity: a guy with a guitar, or an orchestra? we can all agree an orchestra, right? does that mean anything created using an orchestra is going to be automatically more interesting than a guy with a guitar? no.

but I mean by your own hierarchy-hating logic, if you have any suspicion of a rap song that uses sampling instead of keyboards-n-beats, and your suspicion is that it's ideologically lame/suspect, then that's

wait for it

REVERSE ROCKISM

any mid-90s obsessed rap dude goes on and on about sampling's 'purity' the same way any rockist from an earlier generation would hate on rap music for not having guitars.

ok here's the crux of the issue. don't bring your baggage here, man! i could give one fuck about purity.

except i dont think sampling is inferior

xp

except i dont think sampling is inferior

only that championing it/having an aesthetic preference for it is: conservative; "rockist"; backwards-thinking; narrow; etc. I'm only saying it's a defensible position, though nb it isn't mine, I'm pretty kitchen-sink in what I like

so why do you think 98-05 is better then, exactly? is it just cuz there's MORE hip-hop than the previous period, essentially?

x-post

for me, it mostly comes down to the fact that i don't like the textures used in the vast majority of synth beats. i got totally played out on techno/house music, stopped listening to it almost entirely, and then was shocked and awed when the same sort of sounds that were prevalent in mid 90s techno/house started cropping up in hip hop.

having an aesthetic preference is fine

u can say you have a preference but if thats your only point here then we dont really have anything to discuss

-- deej, Friday, August 1, 2008 11:20 AM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

\anytime you compare a genre or type of music from, say, the past decade or so, to an earlier era, what you're really looking at is a quantity vs. quality argument: there have been a shit ton more people rapping, on a major label level and on an underground level, from 98 onward than there were before that. the degrees of variety in those respective eras are kind of apples and oranges, because you're comparing a field of hundreds or thousands to a field of millions.

-- some dude, Thursday, July 31, 2008 7:54 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

this still seems like the smartest post on this thread to me

field of dreams

was shocked and awed when the same sort of sounds that were prevalent in mid 90s techno/house started cropping up in hip hop.

yeah I found this annoying/offputting as well

no, i'm not. if you want to make rap music with tin cans and blapping noises recorded on audio cassette

-- deej, Friday, August 1, 2008 12:38 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i thought that was a rocking chair

haha. is it ROCKIST to hate that production technique bcuz you get clowned for it???

\anytime you compare a genre or type of music from, say, the past decade or so, to an earlier era, what you're really looking at is a quantity vs. quality argument: there have been a shit ton more people rapping, on a major label level and on an underground level, from 98 onward than there were before that. the degrees of variety in those respective eras are kind of apples and oranges, because you're comparing a field of hundreds or thousands to a field of millions.

-- some dude, Thursday, July 31, 2008 7:54 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

this still seems like the smartest post on this thread to me

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, August 1, 2008 11:50 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

yah its a good post, the only thing about saying this is a 'quality vs quantity' thing is that 'quality' is ultimately subjective but quantity isnt

was shocked and awed when the same sort of sounds that were prevalent in mid 90s techno/house started cropping up in hip hop.

yeah I found this annoying/offputting awesome as well

fixed

u can say you have a preference but if thats your only point here then we dont really have anything to discuss

oh come now you don't really believe there's no point in discussing one's aesthetic preference, and their workings, and their implications, etc etc, do you? of course you don't

=just because something's "subjective" doesn't mean "there's no point in discussing/arguing it" else wtf are we even doing here

yah but the only thing im thinking when i read their posts is 'u old'

yah its a good post, the only thing about saying this is a 'quality vs quantity' thing is that 'quality' is ultimately subjective but quantity isnt

maybe its that quantity makes it apparent how much crap there is out there...? Whereas when there were fewer artists working the genre, those that rose to the top had a greater hit-to-miss ratio - there might have been less of them, but the standard for competition was higher...? I'm just thinking out loud here

yeah but that strikes me as kinda beneath you deej not to be a dick about it. it's totally legit to ask "are you sure your opinion isn't deeply informed by/entrenched in preferences you formed early and haven't sufficiently interrogating" and that's less lulzy I know than "lol u old" but the former might lead somewhere, the latter is just tourette's

-ing should read -ed up there

"old" should read "rich" while I'm at it

it's totally legit to ask "are you sure your opinion isn't deeply informed by/entrenched in preferences you formed early and haven't sufficiently interrogating" and that's less lulzy I know than "lol u old" but the former might lead somewhere, the latter is just tourette's

yr right im being unfair, but i thought 'u rockist' was implying the former

anyway now yeah i agree there is a lot more garbage, but by the same token i feel like it doesnt really feel like i have trouble finding albums i like

i do miss the sort of cultural unity it feels like rap used to have ... im not sure if its because music videos are accessed via youtube instead of mtv/vh1/bet, so everyone no longer has the same share mass cultural exp or if its just me getting old/distanced from h.s. but it does feel like rap music for me has become a lot less about cream rising and a lot more about digging for what i want to hear ...

and see, the underlying assumption i make about people like you who are all over the jock of anything that's new, and that, by liking it, allows you to distance yourself from old people like me (i'm white btw) is "lol u trying to be young".

o everyone no longer has the same share mass cultural exp

yeah well welcome to the new millenium, I feel that way about all music not just hip-hop

yeah I think that's true across many genres. in the mid-nineties in lol indie rock there were common touchstones on which almost everybody could agree & which were points of near-universal reference within the subculture/scene (pavement, superchunk, maybe unrest). centerless internet/decreased actual exchange of information (as vs. accumulation of information by individuals) makes for less hierarchical relations, which had their benefits ("cream rising")

I find this interesting even though I am boring myself with my sentences here

I do think Granny's right, that people (me included) try to stay current long past actually giving a gut-level shit about it just so they won't be perceived as having aged/mellowed

at the same time, I think that's probably healthy - rage rage against the dying etc

great fucking thread btw deej, for real

u can say you have a preference but if thats your only point here then we dont really have anything to discuss

that wasn't my only point, but i guess you were too busy thinking "u old, u rockist" to notice. (point was sampling allows for more complexity)

tbh i dont know that i actually think '98-05(07) is better than 88-95(97), i just think its a lot more fun to argue it

(point was sampling allows for more complexity)

-- Granny Dainger, Friday, August 1, 2008 12:09 PM (22 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

this is demonstrably untrue. if you perform a cover version of the song you sampled you are no longer sampling but its just as complex

I do think Granny's right, that people (me included) try to stay current long past actually giving a gut-level shit about it just so they won't be perceived as having aged/mellowed

this is true to some extent - certainly in the case of hip-hop, fewer and fewer people my age/in my social circle have an interest in it so its not like there's any kind of "hey wow we are sharing something great!"-vibe to it like there was when I was a teenager going to friends' houses after school to watch Yo!MTV Raps... nowadays my interest in hip-hop is shared by me and maybe a couple other irl friends, its become a much more individualized, almost abstracted interest for me.

lol I old

alternately keyboards can be complex, if you want to layer tons of shit and have all these cascading arpeggios or whatever. i dont see how sampling = complex makes any sense at all, really

when I do a cover of something it is most assuredly not as complex as the original lol I can't play guitar for shit

haha u should hire chucky thompson

(point was sampling allows for more complexity)

-- Granny Dainger, Friday, August 1, 2008 12:09 PM (22 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

shakey said the same thing (threw in inherently) and its still no less insane

by which I mean yeah I don't really give a gut-level shit about it, but I do find it interesting on an intellectual level and just as one of nine million other genres of music I like to hear I do maintain a passing interest in it

x-post

shakey said the same thing (threw in inherently) and its still no less insane

nah recontextualizing source material offers something that playing instruments doesn't - sorry but its true

alternately keyboards can be complex, if you want to layer tons of shit and have all these cascading arpeggios or whatever.

okay if you have all that crazy keyboard shit AND then throw samples in it too, wouldn't it be more complex? it's just gives you a broader palette to draw from.

what if the keyboard artist is interpolating another song? like all those dancehall songs that are done around the melodies to trax like "99 luftballoons' or whatever. what if yr recontextualizing certain sounds from, say, rave music into rap music? isn't that also recontextualizing in a 'complex' way? or using keyboard sounds from new orleans bounce tracks and appropriating them for major label rap albums like mannie fresh did for cmr? or interpolating new orleans brass band rhythms like KLC did in beats by the pound for Mac on "Murda Murda"? Or when Puffy would have chucky thompson replay a sample and change the original just slightly so they wouldn't be sued for infringement; isn't that even MORE complex than if they just sampled it?

okay if you have all that crazy keyboard shit AND then throw samples in it too, wouldn't it be more complex? it's just gives you a broader palette to draw from.

-- Granny Dainger, Friday, August 1, 2008 12:15 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

yes, i agree

okay if you have all that crazy sample shit AND then threw in keyboards in it too, wouldn't it be more complex?

i dont even agree with you but what's making what complex?

obviously im being pretty loose w/ 'complex' in the paragraph above but i think its obvious that we're using 'complex' as a stand in for some really complicated concept at this point

concepts

Sampling allows for cheaper complexity. One (if not the main) reason why people sample is that it's hard and expensive to find reproduce certain sounds on live instruments.

I'll make a case for "sampling = complex" though I don't think it's necessarily true - certainly sampling as sole-source-of-track in this day and age is like using vintage gear to play rock: it's a statement, it carries ideological weight of some kind. but sampling a short section of a song (usually a rock or soul song), while no longer the radical re-imagining of listening that it once was, remains a recontextualization, always, even if now everybody automatically understands that. "Everybody automatically understands it" =! "it no longer accomplishes the aesthetic work of recontextualization." The only difference between then and now: 1) it's easier to do (which, I'd argue, me being me, decreases the likelihood of the real geniuses being able to make a name for themselves) and 2) it's no longer new. But as the rest of my long-in-the-tooth friends have said here, newness is kind of a bogus criterion - not that it's without value, but as a sine-qua it's a little silly.

Anyhow, to recontextualize something - to redeploy an existing phrase, image, idea, melodic line - is to enrich it; you at least double its ability to generate meaning. That's not true of original melodies, and there's a lot of work on the subject of allusion (esp. in classical scholarship: greece & rome I mean, esp. rome) that testifies to this. The melody I wrote this morning can only really mean itself to you - you can wrest meaning from it/infuse meaning in it, and that can be awesome if the melody's good/if you like it. But a sampled melody, a recontextualized one, comes with some depth already attached, and then, if the new song's good, increases that depth by saying more than it has to say directly (in the song).

That's the basic aesthetic case as I understand it.

lol can u guys tell I have real work I ought to be doing

what if the keyboard artist is interpolating another song? like all those dancehall songs that are done around the melodies to trax like "99 luftballoons' or whatever. what if yr recontextualizing certain sounds from, say, rave music into rap music? isn't that also recontextualizing in a 'complex' way? or using keyboard sounds from new orleans bounce tracks and appropriating them for major label rap albums like mannie fresh did for cmr? or interpolating new orleans brass band rhythms like KLC did in beats by the pound for Mac on "Murda Murda"? Or when Puffy would have chucky thompson replay a sample and change the original just slightly so they wouldn't be sued for infringement; isn't that even MORE complex than if they just sampled it?

this is also true - there is allusion in playing live instruments. but it's a different kind of allusion. actually alluding to the exact same track being remembered - exhuming it from its grave and making it walk different from how it used to walk - it's a different thing.

^^^^posts that sum up the spirit of ilx xp

lol can u guys tell I have real work I ought to be doing

haha hey I dunno about you but its friday and I'm in an empty office so LET'S GO

we don't have fridays in my business for me it's always
http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc241/EveriseMSdotcom/GTObackground2.gif

what if the keyboard artist is interpolating another song? like all those dancehall songs that are done around the melodies to trax like "99 luftballoons' or whatever. what if yr recontextualizing certain sounds from, say, rave music into rap music? isn't that also recontextualizing in a 'complex' way? or using keyboard sounds from new orleans bounce tracks and appropriating them for major label rap albums like mannie fresh did for cmr? or interpolating new orleans brass band rhythms like KLC did in beats by the pound for Mac on "Murda Murda"? Or when Puffy would have chucky thompson replay a sample and change the original just slightly so they wouldn't be sued for infringement; isn't that even MORE complex than if they just sampled it?

it still all sounds like it came from a (modern) keyboard! i guess i'm mainly meaning more complex texturally, not melodically or structurally.

"Puffy" and "complexity" don't even belong in the same sentence together

exhuming it from its grave and making it walk different from how it used to walk - it's a different thing.

maybe it's just cause i agree with you, but i like this a lot

guyz i hate to self quote but i would like to know what you lot thought of this:

rockism is about coming up with justifications for liking stuff that is established and respected over stuff that is new and flashy, it doesn't have to make sense consistently.

if the old guard played guitar, guitar is better than a sampler. if the old guard used samplers, samplers are better than keyb

really the problem is inventing, out of nothing, a conflict between new and old -- it reads the past and present in freudian terms

-- goole, Friday, August 1, 2008 11:40 AM (43 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i don't think the present has an easy 'tapestry' like existence with/against the past, but the rockism problem always hinges on the new against the old in some way (even 'recontextualization') -- whereas whenever you read artists talking about what they're up to it's always "oh man i loved all that old shit when i was growing up!"

really the problem is inventing, out of nothing, a conflict between new and old

well that was deej's motivation for creating this thread, as he's said himself, even if he doesn't necessarily believe one is better than the other.

"Puffy" and "complexity" don't even belong in the same sentence together

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, August 1, 2008 12:26 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

when u say things like this i realllly think you need to unpack what 'complexity' is supposed to mean

i think there's a difference btw deej starting this thread and people who really have a lot of themselves invested in knocking down "the shit you hear on the radio today"

lolz i haven't listened to the radio since I was 13

maybe you should start! where are you, SF? i bet it's pretty good

in SF you can't go 5 blocks without losing radio reception. we do have KPOO in the east bay though, which is awesome.

lol, POO

one thing that might be worth mentioning here is the whole sample clearance thing...biz markie/gilbert o'sullivan etc...

the point being that a certain amount of sample complexity - like if you're talking the classic 3 feet high/prince paul or peak bomb squad or even paul's boutique - wouldn't be POSSIBLE anymore, whether or not techno type stuff and instrumentation would have gotten popular or not....a case where business concerns definitely impacted the future of the music...like the whole interpolation thing was just a cash move, but it maybe made the music evolve in a different way.

^^^yeah this really pisses me off to no end. the one time I can think of when an entire style of creating music was basically legislated out of existence.

i think another thing that sorta gets lost when yr relying on samples is that rhythmic complexity/syncopation became a lot more intricate when you didnt have to rely on samples any more ... james brown loops for dayz in the pre-o'sullivan era. 'keyboard beats' give you a lot more rhythmic freedom.

also, sampling certainly hasn't disappeared, and i don't mean on the "i can afford any sample" kanye/puffy level or the "im under the radar and won't get caught" dangerdoom level ... lots of big albums have samples that, rather than being about layering and making obvious references to older songs, micro-level sampling

and the other thing is that expanding into rave music or bounce music or whatever other keyboards was about expanding the palette ... its not like the same sounds don't get tired too. think of how tired the '03-era lil jon sound would be right now if ciara decided to drop "goodies pt. 2" or something

"Puffy" and "complexity" don't even belong in the same sentence together

I hate Puffy too but this is nonsense

ah you know jsut a little trolling to liven up the thread

i think another thing that sorta gets lost when yr relying on samples is that rhythmic complexity/syncopation became a lot more intricate when you didnt have to rely on samples any more ... james brown loops for dayz in the pre-o'sullivan era. 'keyboard beats' give you a lot more rhythmic freedom.

yes and no. if you're not a creative sampler or drum machine user, then yes. if you're micro-sampling, editing, tweaking, or adding synth percussion on top of sampled beats, then no. sampled vs synth is a red herring, when sampled can include synth within it.

the legality of sampling vs trend towards synth beats is a chicken/egg thing, no? But in addition to the legal issues, there's the simple fact that it's much more time-consuming and costly to search vinyl for samples.

yeah sampling is so much more costly and time consuming than composing and playing music

guessing you've never done either

not to mention that sampling IS composing and playing music

oh dag

i make beats, oops. i dont have a keyboard or any of that shit so everything i do is sampled on my pc, though i chop the samples up premo style so its kinda like composition. i get the tracks from encoded vinyl which i mostly copped from dollar bins. its a fuck of a lot easier and cheaper than buying a synth, learning to play it, and making original beats.

well there are easy and cheap ways and expensive and time consuming ways of doing everything, including sampling and playing trad instruments.

yeah but like as a broke dude who wanted to make beats that getting even the cheapest mannie fresh casio isnt really an option. i jack alot of bass/mantronix type shit tho so they sound like 808/synth beats even though its sampled.

i can get computer programs and synths easily and on the cheap/free, but scouring vinyl, getting the sampler i'd want, and meticulously cutting stuff up on outdated equipment would be far more costly, time and money-wise. so yeah, what some dude said.

"there's the simple fact that it's much more time-consuming and costly to search vinyl for samples."

More costly/time-consuming than hiring an entire orchestra (just as an example)? Beat-digging can be very expensive though, no doubt.

sampling producers that are constantly hitting up vinyl racks looking for obscure shit are like gearhead drummers that are constantly buying new cymbals, there are still a lot of people in both fields that just stay home and just keep trying to do new things with the tools they already have.

but you don't need to hire an orchestra, just pull up the needed synth patches!
synth: heavy initial investment, but then you're good to go
samples: easier to get going, but constantly have to scour the earth for source material?
i just have an (inaccurate) image of a synth guy sitting in his bedroom at his computer, everything sync'd up at the click of a mouse, all the needed sounds instantly available to him after an initial investment vs sample guy going on trips to nairobi and peru every other month.
xpost

Synth patch orchestra sounds don't sound quite the same as as a real orchestra though. Plus it's a bitch to program some of that shit, isn't it, so it doesn't just sound like some straight preset shit (serious question: I actually don't know)

sampling producers that are constantly hitting up vinyl racks looking for obscure shit are like gearhead drummers that are constantly buying new cymbals

some of whom are awesome drummers and some of whom are wanky musos, there's no hard 'n' fast rule on this kinda thing

steely dunn

Live instrumentation is more expensive than both sampling and, er, synthing. Sorry, not seeing what your point is, Alex?

I thought you were arguing in favor of using synth patches over samples and I was pointing out that using the former well is harder than just hitting a button (not that finding a sample is easy either.)

some of whom are awesome drummers and some of whom are wanky musos, there's no hard 'n' fast rule on this kinda thing

didn't mean to imply otherwise for a second! my whole point was there's rarely a consistent status quo about how people work with any genre/instrument, and the way they do work doesn't really correlate to the quality of their results.

for ex. Puffy spending a million dollars on a sample and the song still sucks

(sorry couldn't resist)

I'm in favor of using samples and synth patches and an orchestra and tin cans and blapping noises recorded on a tape recorder.

as long as it doesn't wind up sounding like slowed down rave music from '95.

I hope the next time someone drops a lazy Rachael Ray zing on you they post "(sorry couldn't resist)" right after

my heart belongs to the Barefoot Contessa now

people still crate dig? i figured in a era of microsampling it was pointless, you can clip up any old thing and get a 'hot break' where none really existed.

sampling seems more purposive rather than fundamental these days: "look at me basing something off this old clip you might know" vs "i need a beat". the economic/legal angle is important but in the end i don't know if it's a bad thing

big up slowed down rave music from 95, btw

I know what you mean, but I still hear about the bigger sampling producers (Just Blaze, Alchemist, etc.) frequenting vinyl shops and coveting rare finds, so I assume that whole aspect of the culture still exists for those who can afford it.

i'd just like to point out what a fuckedup youth obsessed culture we live in where being 30 elicits 'u old' responses.

go back to yr retirement home gramps!

'old' is a state of mind

george carlin has a real good bit in the last special he did before he died about how he's an 'old fuck' which is different from an 'old man' or 'old fart'

'old' is a state of mind

only the young say this. if an old person says it, the young people go "lolz yeah right you OLD"

old IS a state of mind, one that really has shit all to do with whether you prefer 90s or 00s hip hop beats

None of the young bucks like Devin the Dude?

I just checked him into my hotel about two hours ago. Got him to sign my copy of Just Tryin ta Live.

ie yes I am a big fan

i think the young bucks see those who prefer 80s-90s stuff as this guy and fear becoming or being looked at as the stereotype he represents:

http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/movie/gallery/1109008/photo_01_hires.jpg

yes why can't he just enjoy Blueshammer like a normal person

boogiemonsters- "honey dips in gotham" did they have any other good tracks? i can't remember

the only boogiemonsters joint i remember is that overcoming threshholds of negative stress shit or whatever it was called.

so basically you're asking who is over 30?

-- carne asada, Thursday, July 24, 2008 6:33 PM (Thursday, July 24, 2008 6:33 PM) Bookmark Link

otm

I DISCOVERED BOTH PERIODS AT THE SAME TIME AND PREFER THE FORMER

deej have you sent this guy his medal yet.

THATS VERY FUNNY