Is there an advantage to being well-read?

Permabear

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MaxWig

Permabear wrote: »

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That's one country.

And I did say for an awful lot of people it had become irrelevant.

My point was that these are genres on music that are essentially stable, unchanging and stale.

Personally I love a lot of country music. But I know nothing of the modern stuff. I'll hold my hand up there.

But even based on those figures, the rise in hip-hop consumption over the last twenty years is staggering.

But in terms of new original music, I still find it hard to accept that people would look to Country, or rock.

They are just regurgitating continually

Permabear

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clairefontaine

Permabear wrote: »

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The other thing to remember is the hybrid influence of hip hop and that its a relatively new genre compared to rock and pop.

Permabear

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clairefontaine

Permabear wrote: »

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Yes! All through my education (Jews and Jesuits) we had it drilled into us to avoid cliche. But I love when I see cliche used in the most innovative ways, like on Mad Men for example, or certain comedy.

MaxWig

It's a country of 315 million people, which makes it highly significant. Certainly, one can argue that country music is primarily an American genre, but exactly the same is true of rap/hip-hop.

I don't think so. It's been subsumed by lots of countries. French and UK hip-hop are the two that spring to mind. And from those genres came a plethora of others. Garage and Grime became dubstep and whatever. The democratic nature of the format - the software, the computers all lend themselves to quick evolution in a way that can't happen with rock, country and all the otehr traditional formats and genres.

Rap, with its tired clichés of bling, hoes, cash, and cars, seems to have become the epitome of "unchanging and stale."

As above - Rap became diversified, it evolved, and changed. The bling stuff is just a tired hangover, an artefact of the original.

Commercially, rap and hip-hop sales rose through the early 2000s, but declined thereafter. Between 2005 and 2006 alone, rap sales fell by 21 percent, with some analysts pointing to rap's increasingly violent and sexualized imagery and tendency to degrade women as reasons for why many listeners were becoming turned off by the genre.

I can't argue with the figures of course. And I understand why that element of hip-hop became tired, jaded and turned people off.

You'll see that on a global level, pop and rock are still the dominant genres by far, while rap and hip-hop sell barely more than classical music. Moreover, sales of rap and R&B were each down by over 8 percent between 2010 and 2011, while classical sales were relatively stable.

Sales figures speak for themselves. I would say one thing though. I'm a relentless consumer of music. 24/7. But I think it's probably 2 or 3 years since I bought any music besides the odd artist that I love and whose collection I wish to complete.

And rap/hip-hop isn't?

Not as I see it. I guess the stuff you refer to is the same old nonsense. But when you consider the amalgamation of hip-hop, garage, dubstep, and many other electronic formats, I think it's anything but regurgitation. I think it changes faster than one can keep up

MaxWig

Permabear wrote: »

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I agree.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I see it becoming harder for rock and similar genres to innovate. Their will always be outstanding artists, like Nick Cave, Richard Thompson, Leonard Cohen [and Thom Yorke] who seem to effortlessly innovate and re-invent genres. But on the whole, for me personally, those genres struggle to keep up in an era where music changes so dramatically every year

Radiosonde

MaxWig wrote: »

That process you are discussing is for me, no less than the death of rock music. I notice Radiohead are also the only contemporary band you mention. I'm guessing we're of a certain age.

Hip-Hop might be anathema to many, but it has more in common with punk than bands like Joy Division in my opinion. No knowledge of how to play an instrument - A few records and the human voice.

Everyone is of a certain age...as it happens almost all of the artists I mentioned were past their prime before I was even born. It's just easier to chart the trajectory of careers that are nearly over than those in full flow (plus they represent work that has, thus far, withstood test of time).

On Joy Division, that bamd was formed after some of its number attended a Sex Pistols gig and were inspired by what they heard. Early demos from their Warsaw period reveal a group mimicing fairly conventional punk rock, yet to forge their own sound; it's a major stretch to argue that rappers on the other side of the Atlantic had "more in common" with British punk than Joy Division.

Interestingly, Ian Curtis - severely affected by epilepsy - talked to bandmates about quitting to open a bookshop in his native Manchester. Fascinated by the figurative waste lands of arch-Modernist TS Eliot and the literal ones of science fiction writer JG Ballard, his literary interests profoundly informed Joy Divison's bleak soundscapes...which brings us back to the OP's original question. As New Order, the surviving members went on to knock out some catchy tunes, but were never remotely as interesting as when they were fronted by someone with a deep appreciation of good writing.

KyussBishop

MaxWig wrote: »

That's one country.

And I did say for an awful lot of people it had become irrelevant.

My point was that these are genres on music that are essentially stable, unchanging and stale.

Personally I love a lot of country music. But I know nothing of the modern stuff. I'll hold my hand up there.

But even based on those figures, the rise in hip-hop consumption over the last twenty years is staggering.

But in terms of new original music, I still find it hard to accept that people would look to Country, or rock.

They are just regurgitating continually

It (rock) is changing all the time still; you won't get a burst of creativity again like the 50's-70's when use of the electric guitar really kicked off, but there is plenty of new ground to push, particularly with incorporating a good/creative electronic touch to music into rock and other genre's, without it coming across as plastic/stale/artificial.

One of the few artists I know who has done this particularly well, is Trent Reznor, who's regarded as a kind of pioneer in this area; Sound City was an enjoyable documentary which lightly touches on this, for those who like rock music.

What you hear in the charts is mostly garbage, and I'm not much of a music buff but there is plenty of good/creative stuff out there, just not all easy to find.

MaxWig

Radiosonde wrote: »

On Joy Division, that bamd was formed after some of its number attended a Sex Pistols gig and were inspired by what they heard. Early demos from their Warsaw period reveal a group mimicing fairly conventional punk rock, yet to forge their own sound; it's a major stretch to argue that rappers on the other side of the Atlantic had "more in common" with British punk than Joy Division.

'More in common' might be a poor description of what I'm trying to say.

I think hip-hop and electronic music are the true descendants of punk, not in terms of sound, but in terms of ethos.

Underground clubs, house-parties, illegal raves - all these things embody the DIY ethic that punk espoused.