Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Scoops Novel]

I think my history teacher put it best when she said that rap is what you don't find on media, though it sure as hell colors it. If they could get out of the pussy, money and cars rut we might be getting somewhere. Despite that, Lordbucket it was not simply, as you put it "At the time, rap was basically black men speaking in a monotone about beating and raping women with a drumbeat simple enough to tap with your fingers." A chunk was, but not all. Lessen up on the hyperbole.

[Owlbread]

I think the widespread popularity of rap may have been one of the single most important things to have come out of the 1990s. Think about how much it influenced our culture.

[freeformschooler]

Is pop music supposed to be really bad? Can barely stand to listen to Lady Gaga or a fair portion of rap, but otherwise everything that regularly plays on the radio is fine. Dubstep, hard rock, metal (even gothic), decent love songs, classical, jazz, R&B. Green Day is one of my favorites.

I'm like a backwards hipster. My tastes are so underground that the hipsters pretend they don't exist.

[LordBucket]

LordBucket, unless you watch Boomerang more than cartoon network, the Powerpuff girls hasn't be on (random appearances not counting) for years. Also, although you've been right on some things like JLU, are you really going to say the likes of Regular Show are any less simpleminded than Tom&Jerry?

Powerpuff Girls was an example from the 90s. JLU was an example from the 2000s. I was comparing to cartoons from the 70s and 80s. I think that's valid. Never heard of the Regular Show. But instances of horrible shows now doesn't change my assertion. There might be both good and bad ones now, but we didn't have intelligent cartoons when I was a kid.

I gave the exmples of Bugs Bunny and Tom & Jerry because they were especially brainless, but go through the list: Pepe Le Pew? Mighty Mouse? The Smurfs? Yogi Bear? Captain Caveman? Popeye? Scooby Doo?

All of these shows were completely formulaic, and never addressed anything intelligently. Some of them were obviously worse than others. Pepe Le Pew was about watching a skunk pronking around trying to seduce a cat against her most extreme insistence otherwise. Or, if you want to be less delicate about it...it was a about  skunk raping a cat until she liked it. Captain Caveman was about a guy yelling and hitting things. And no matter how much some people might like Scooby Doo, every episode was exactly the same, and if you've ever seen a single episode you know what happens in all of them. Only the costume worn by the villain and the scenery changes.

The most clever cartoons were probably the Flintstones and the Jetsons, but I don't remember them really addressing anything, they were just more intelligent because their basic premise was more clever.

JLU, on other hand, addressed some very serious political and philosophical issues. It not only lampshaded faillings in the superhero genre, but them turned around and engaged them directly. Why didn't they just kill Lex Luthor? Ok, well...they did. How are normals supposed to accept the fact their world is filled with world-altering powers? And how did it end? I'm guessing the last episode of Scooby Doo had the exact same premise as the first episode, and every episode in between, but the JLU finale...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

...turned the arch villain into a tomato in the mirror. Lex Luthor's discovery of the anti-life equation results in him realizing that the JLU universe is a piece of fiction, allowing him to "spiritually ascend" in a metaphorical sense because he can't continue being a villain knowing that his universe is a piece of fiction in which he plays a specific role. He then shares this information with Darkseid so that he can't continue being a villain either, all while the heroes in the story are helplessly flailing about, telling Lex to not give Darkseid the equation because they're concerned that it will allow him to kill everyone. Not understanding that the "anti life" equation is called that because once a character understands that he's a fictional character, it doesn't make sense for him to continue playing the role written for him, and therefore the author has to remove him from the story, resulting in him "dying" by virtue of no longer being written about.

So the whole thing ends with both Lex and Darkseid ascending in a ball of light, and the heroes standing around not understanding what happened.

That's awfully deep for a kids show. And incidentally, the final episode of Powerpuff Girls was similar in that it dealt with some very serious political issues and the nature of freedom and self-determination, and it fact...was banned in the US and even today has still never aired in this country.

Sure, maybe there are still mindless dumb cartoons. But the best we had when I was a kid doesn't compare well to what's been done since.

Seriously, you're sounding like a crotchety old fart and I've got you beat by a year. "Kids these days with their hippity-bippety noise! And the clothes they wear! Dagnabbit!"

...pretty sure you didn't read my post very closely. I've very specifically said that some things have definitely improved, and some of the examples you gave are examples that I already gave. In fact, I spent an entire paragraph pointing out that generic mass produced pop music has existed in every decade, and gave the specific examples of Tiffany and Debbie Gibson.

just because you don't like rap doesn't make it non-music.

An ancient debate. Please...humor me for just a moment. Try to understand what I'm about to say. If you disgaree with it, that's fine. If my view is no longer relevant to the modern world, I can accept that. I acknowledge that "generl consensus" now appears to be that rap is music. However...this was not always so.

Unfortunately the dictionary definition of music has changed over my lifetime, and rap is not music according to definitions you'd find in an 80s dictionary. But since I don't have an 80s dictionary on hand, let's consult wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music

"Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch (which governs melody and harmony), rhythm (and its associated concepts tempo, meter, and articulation), dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture."

Rap does not have many of these elements. Rap is rhythm without melody. "Music" according to the common worldview when I grew up required both melody and harmony. If you tap your pencil on your desk, you might enjoy the rhythm, but it is not music. By definition it can't be. If you sing in the shower, you might enjoy it, but it's not music. It's singing. A singular drum beat is not music. It's a drum beat. Beat is not music. Rhythm is not music. Melody is not music. Harmony is not music. It's when you combine these elements that music is created.

Liking it or not has nothing to do with it. If you heard someone singing, and liked it...would you say "I like the music you're making." ? No. Because they're not making music. They're singing. If you saw someone playing on drums in their garage, would you say "I like the music you're making." ? No, because it's not music. You might say "I dig your drumming." or "That's a groovy beat." Because it is a beat. It is drumming. It is not music.

Rap is not music any more than isolated, powdered soy protein is a soy plant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rap

"Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” (rhythm and rhyme), and “delivery”. Rapping is distinct from spoken word poetry in that it is performed in time to a beat.

Rapping is a primary ingredient in hip hop music and reggae"

Rap may be a valid component of music, but it is not music.

[PanH]

JLU, on other hand, addressed some very serious political and philosophical issues. It not only lampshaded faillings in the superhero genre, but them turned around and engaged them directly. Why didn't they just kill Lex Luthor? Ok, well...they did. How are normals supposed to accept the fact their world is filled with world-altering powers? And how did it end? I'm guessing the last episode of Scooby Doo had the exact same premise as the first episode, and every episode in between, but the JLU finale...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

...turned the arch villain into a tomato in the mirror. Lex Luthor's discovery of the anti-life equation results in him realizing that the JLU universe is a piece of fiction, allowing him to "spiritually ascend" in a metaphorical sense because he can't continue being a villain knowing that his universe is a piece of fiction in which he plays a specific role. He then shares this information with Darkseid so that he can't continue being a villain either, all while the heroes in the story are helplessly flailing about, telling Lex to not give Darkseid the equation because they're concerned that it will allow him to kill everyone. Not understanding that the "anti life" equation is called that because once a character understands that he's a fictional character, it doesn't make sense for him to continue playing the role written for him, and therefore the author has to remove him from the story, resulting in him "dying" by virtue of no longer being written about.

So the whole thing ends with both Lex and Darkseid ascending in a ball of light, and the heroes standing around not understanding what happened.

That's awfully deep for a kids show. And incidentally, the final episode of Powerpuff Girls was similar in that it dealt with some very serious political issues and the nature of freedom and self-determination, and it fact...was banned in the US and even today has still never aired in this country.

I fear it might be too deep for me too, because I had to read that for 10mins before understanding this. And I still don't understand the "tomato" (but me ~drunk maybe doesn't help)

[fqllve]

"Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch (which governs melody and harmony), rhythm (and its associated concepts tempo, meter, and articulation), dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture."

Rap does not have many of these elements. Rap is rhythm without melody. "Music" according to the common worldview when I grew up required both melody and harmony. If you tap your pencil on your desk, you might enjoy the rhythm, but it is not music. By definition it can't be. If you sing in the shower, you might enjoy it, but it's not music. It's singing. A singular drum beat is not music. It's a drum beat. Beat is not music. Rhythm is not music. Melody is not music. Harmony is not music. It's when you combine these elements that music is created.

Liking it or not has nothing to do with it. If you heard someone singing, and liked it...would you say "I like the music you're making." ? No. Because they're not making music. They're singing. If you saw someone playing on drums in their garage, would you say "I like the music you're making." ? No, because it's not music. You might say "I dig your drumming." or "That's a groovy beat." Because it is a beat. It is drumming. It is not music.

Firstly, most rap music has a "beat" which is more than just drums, it has harmonic and melodic components. Most rappers wouldn't call it rap without a beat rap, that's generally regarded as spoken word, which no one considers to be music, rather, it's a form of poetry. Saying rap isn't music because the lyrics are non-melodic is like saying talking blues isn't music for the same reason, despite the fact that they are both set to music.

Secondly, defining music as the combination of melody, rhythm,  and harmony only is restrictive. Is Gregorian chant not music? That's non-harmonic yet it has been considered music for centuries and most scholars would balk at its exclusion. What about ragas, which are melodies played over drones, or the Western branle, which is the same thing? These are both also typically regarded as music yet they feature little to no harmonic components. What about African music which is known to have songs that consist only of drums and other percussion instruments? I mean, listen to this. Can you really say that's not musical despite having no melodic or harmonic components? I think most musicologists would disagree with you if you did. Or what about a cappella music? Surely that is still music.

If you exclude rap on those grounds you end up excluding a lot of things that have been traditionally considered music.

[Funk]

im a Generation Y, early 90s so i missed all the cold war and the post Soviet Union era stuff.
my generation is all broke / suffering from unemployment and faceing massive college debt.

[SalmonGod]

The only thing more trivial than sex are your so-called "feelings", and nobody wants to hear it.

This is one thing that drives me fucking crazy.  That damn stupid "emo" label, which gets dropped pejoratively on anyone who relates emotions to absolutely anything.  Now that you mention this bit, I am noticing that one of the defining cultural features of Gen Y seems to be the expectation that to take anything in life seriously is a form of weakness.  Previous posts that alluded to this are making more sense to me now.

If I had to speculate, I'd call it cognitive dissonance. Y grew up on the same expectations of romantic love as the past few American generations, but....the witnessed reality was now much different. Messy divorces, custody disputes, and unhappy stuck marriages were everyday occurrences for a lot of us, what with the divorce rate being higher than the marriage rate. This was the first generation for whom divorce is normal, more normal than staying together, even. I remember when I was in elementary school, one day I got curious and started trying to ask around. There were more people in my class with divorced parents than married parents. I didn't fully understand the implications of my data gathering back then, but at the time I still thought it was strange with media always depicting happy couples if this was how it really was.

It may have gotten worse, but divorce was pretty normal for my generation, too.  The only people I know my own age who still see marriage as relevant are those who are still at least moderately religious.  Others recognize the importance of the legal rights it offers, but otherwise find it an outdated, broken institution.  I think it needs some heavy modification, myself.  It seems to me like it was designed to facilitate the operation of families as political/business units that trade members and form alliances, and also to prevent people from screwing each other over by abandoning dependents and such.  Today families don't operate that way, except perhaps a bit among the upper classes, and people are more likely to abuse it for the purpose of screwing each other over.

[LordBucket]

Is Gregorian chant not music?

If they're all singing melody in unison rather than harmonizing, then no, Gregorian chants are not music. And that's why they're called Gregorian chants rather than Gregorian music.

I'm not intending "rap is not music" merely as some sort of insult just because I happen to not like it. I'm simply acknowledging that music is a specific thing, and therefore choosing to not call things that aren't that thing music even though they're not.

People liking rap doesn't make rap music any more than someone liking the sound of your speaking voice would make your speech music.

If you exclude rap on those grounds you end up excluding a lot of things
that have been traditionally considered music.

Lots of people "consider" tomatoes to be vegetables. That doesn't change the fact that tomatoes are plant ovaries and are therefore fruit.

If the general consensus today is that any arbitrary set of sounds that people enjoy listening to qualifies as "music" I won't argue that such a consensus exists. However, at one time, within my lifetime, there were technical definitions of music for which "rap" does not qualify, for the reasons we've discussed.

defining music as the combination of melody, rhythm,  and harmony only is restrictive.

...yes? And why is that a problem?

Let's work with a metaphor. I hope the mods will forgive me here, because it's really the most obvious example: masturbation. Question: Does masturbation qualify as sex? Yes or no, take your pick. Now...does masturbation qualify as intercourse? No, it doesn't. Intercourse requires more than one participant. By definition. Masturbation might be sex-"ual" but it isn't intercourse. Intercourse is a specific thing, and that specific thing does not include solo masturbation.

It's silly to argue that intercourse is a "restrictive" idea just because it happens to not include something that you might like.

Just like intercourse, music requires two parties. In this case, melody and harmony.


Now, I'm sure you can hop on google and in 30 seconds and find sources that offer definitions that disagree with mine. And that's fine. I'm not arguing whether popular opinion today would consider rap to be music. And maybe popular consensus in the 1800s was that melodic chanting alone would have qualified as music. That's ok too.

But for me, personally, in the era in which I grew up, in my part of the world, amongst my own particular socioeconomic group...rap was not music any more than singing to yourself in the shower was music. And saying that it is makes about as much as saying that you intercoursed yourself.

[fqllve]

Well, if that's you're own personal definition or the definition of your socioeconomic group of that era there's nothing much I can do to contest that. I'm just saying the large majority musicians and scholars throughout history have used only the first part of Wikipedia's definition as restrictive, that is, music is the ordered contrast of sound and silence. It's not a general consensus or popular opinion kind of thing, it's that an academic and strict definition of music would encompass rap. I tend to go for academic definitions (a) because I'm a pretentious asshole and (b) because they tend to form a nice middle ground and tend to be the definitions that have had the most thought put in them. I also find that definition to be far more useful.

You didn't address the point that rap is spoken word set to music though.

[penguinofhonor]

If you exclude rap on those grounds you end up excluding a lot of things
that have been traditionally considered music.

Lots of people "consider" tomatoes to be vegetables. That doesn't change the fact that tomatoes are plant ovaries and are therefore fruit.

And yet that does not make the tomato welcome in a fruit salad, because the technical definition of something is not very relevant to how it's used. So yes, you could argue that rap isn't music and probably have a decent point, but the argument would be completely pointless except maybe to reinforce your own feelings of superiority.

[LordBucket]

It's not a general consensus or popular opinion kind of thing

...but isn't that exactly what you were arguing just a moment ago? That "general consensus" was that rap is music?

I was giving you the academic definition of my era. Just like how at one time "marriage" was by definition between a man and a woman. But now the "definition" has changed due to social pressure.

I tend to go for academic definitions

tend to be the definitions that have had the most thought put in them.

I also find that definition to be far more useful.

Yes, I agree that specific definitions tend to be more useful. I've given you a definition for music from my era, and rap does not qualify as music based on that definition. What's your definition of music for which it does?

Because I'm quite sure that my view of music that clearly distinguishes melody, harmony, rhythm, etc. and views singing, rapping and chanting as different things is far more precise than any definition that describes anything that people like listening to as music.

You didn't address the point that rap is spoken word set to music though.

Mostly because I didn't want to go tracking down examples on youtube. ...ok, how about this one. It's a relatively famous piece of rap from the 80s:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SavVH4W1lxc

Listen to each instrument individually. Don't listen to the whole piece all at once. (Hint: his voice is an instrument.) Pick it apart, and listen to each and every instrument individually, on its own...what it is doing. There is neither melody nor harmony anywhere. All instruments are playing a drum beat, and his voice is just another drum. There are elements of rhythm and tempo, there are elements of pacing and emphasis, but there's no melody and there's nothing to harmonize with.

Whether or not he's speaking, I would not call the usage of the instruments in this piece "music" because there is no interplay of melody and harmony. There's no melody anywhere. The interplay is exclusively between rhythms. If you tap two fingers against your desk, one harder than the other, and talk...you're doing what he is doing. That's not music.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm

"Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements"

This is what distinguishes rapping from singing. Go back to the youtube video and listen to his voice. At first it might sound like he's alternating between two notes...but those aren't notes because there's no pitch distinction. He's not singing a melody with two notes, he's "drumming" a beat with his voice that contains an emphasized and an unemphasized element.

He's using his voice to create rhythm but not melody. And all instruments whether they're his voice or not are all doing the same thing. None of them are using pitch, They're all providing either exclusively a beat, or a dual element rhythm. There is no melody.

Whether or not he's rapping to it, what those instruments are doing is not music. It's rhythm. Multiple simultaneous rhythms do not constitute music.

What he's doing is more like an extended drum solo.

yes, you could argue that rap isn't music and probably have a decent point, but the argument
would be completely pointless except maybe to reinforce your own feelings of superiority.

Knowing what you're talking about should not be a crime. Not knowing what you're talking about should not be a virtue. I don't encourage hanging people who don't know what they're talking about, but it's terribly dysfunctional to view those who know what they're talking about with disdain and therefore choose to live in ignorance because you don't want to be one of the people who causes stupid people to feel stupid.

[fqllve]

...but isn't that exactly what you were arguing just a moment ago? That "general consensus" was that rap is music?

General consensus of academics, scholars, and musicologists. Which is why I made specific reference to them in that post rather than saying most people, or public opinion. It's important and worthwhile to consider what the public thinks, but I don't think their opinion is necessarily well-informed and I wasn't making reference to it.

I was giving you the academic definition of my era. Just like how at one time "marriage" was by definition between a man and a woman. But now the "definition" has changed due to social pressure.

That's not the case. The organized sound definition has generally been the basis of academic definitions since at least 1960, probably before that. After all, John Cage's 4'33" was composed in 1952, and while not widely regarded as music at the time, it was mostly because the silence aspect. Organized sound definitions have been appearing in academia as early as the 17th century. In the 18th century the widely accepted definition was essentially "organized sound that is aesthetically pleasing" and that was the case since at least the Renaissance. Before that music was generally regarded as all kinds of stuff we normally wouldn't classify as such, and most definitions appealed to God in some form and spoke about uplifting the soul and all that. I'm not aware of any academics who have ever said that music must contain melody, rhythm, and harmony.

Yes, I agree that specific definitions tend to be more useful. I've given you a definition for music from my era, and rap does not qualify as music based on that definition. What's your definition of music for which it does?

Because I'm quite sure that my view of music that clearly distinguishes melody, harmony, rhythm, etc. and views singing, rapping and chanting as different things is far more precise than any definition that describes anything that people like listening to as music.

The organization of sound and silence in time.

Precision is not always desirable if it results in exclusion. My definition still allows singing, chanting, and rapping to be viewed as different things, they are just specific subsets of music. Further, this definition better reflects the variety of things that are considered music in both academic and popular usage.

Listen to each instrument individually. Don't listen to the whole piece all at once. (Hint: his voice is an instrument.) Pick it apart, and listen to each and every instrument individually, on its own...what it is doing. There is neither melody nor harmony anywhere. All instruments are playing a drum beat, and his voice is just another drum. There are elements of rhythm and tempo, there are elements of pacing and emphasis, but there's no melody and there's nothing to harmonize with.

Whether or not he's speaking, I would not call the usage of the instruments in this piece "music" because there is no interplay of melody and harmony. There's no melody anywhere. The interplay is exclusively between rhythms. If you tap two fingers against your desk, one harder than the other, and talk...you're doing what he is doing. That's not music.

That isn't really indicative of modern rap music. The vast majority of rap beats include both melody and harmony these days. It isn't really even indicative of rap of the era, as a large portion of early rap still utilized melody and harmony as well, maybe even a majority.

[LordBucket]

I'm not aware of any academics who have ever said that music must contain melody, rhythm, and harmony.

Well, honestly I'd have a difficult time listing "academics" by name who'd make the claim one way or another, but what I'm saying is not a new idea. Even if I don't have any music theory 101 textbooks from the 80s on hand, a simple google search gives lots of support:

http://tomz.hubpages.com/hub/Melody--Harmony--Rhythm-the-DNA-of-all-music

"ALL songs share 3 characteristics

Those three building blocks of music's DNA which exist in every song are MELODY, HARMONY and RHYTHM. "

http://www.didjshop.com/BasicMusicalHarmony.html

"Music can be said to be built by the interplay of melody, harmony and rhythm."

http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Music-Melody-Rhythm-Harmony/dp/0802716822

"The Elements of Music: Melody, Rhythm, and Harmony "

http://www.essortment.com/four-elements-music---melody-harmony-rhythm-dynamics-62012.html

"Certain key elements are what all music is based on - melody, harmony, rhythm, and dynamics"

http://library.thinkquest.org/16020/data/eng/text/education/theory/harmony.html

"Fundamentals of Music

Melody is the horizontal aspect of music, harmony is its vertical aspect. Harmony is melody's support and anchor."

http://www.williamepowell.com/pdfs/DefinitionsOfMusic.pdf

"Vocal or instrumental sounds possessing rhythm, melody, and harmony."


I acknowledge the possibility of cultural bias, and there are certainly other views exist besides the particular view that I'm espousing. But don't pretend what I'm saying is some strange new idea. You might happen to disagree with what I'm saying, but that's kind of what we've been talking about for the past few pages of the thread: different generations see things differently.

The whole discussion reminds of me poetry. In high school I remember a number of girls who insisted that any random string of words was poetry so long as it meant something to them personally. Always the same people who were incapable of working with rhyme and meter. Just because some random string of words has emotional significance to some high school girl doesn't make random words poetry, and just because some people enjoy the rhythms of rap doesn't make it music.

Cat purring also sounds nice and has rhythm, but I wouldn't call cat purring music either.

[itisnotlogical]

In my lifetime I have never met somebody with such a narrow, literal, scientific and certain definition of what music is and is not.