November RIP

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Here's what we talked about in November:

Do trends matter?
Anthony schools us on chart country
Year-end listzzzzz
Indie Special 1: MBV
Senseless artist devotion
Unsustainable false songs/production binaries R Us
Indie Special 2: The Brit Box
A crash course in contemporary hip-hop
Roisin: magnificent or menace?

Plus canons for ELO, Stevie Wonder, Gwen/No Doubt, the Pop Open, the Year In Pop, and album chats about Grills Aloud and Kylie. What a busy month.

[Poll #1099594]

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I was quite sad that the answer to "why don't poptimists show love to hip-hop" wasn't so much that they hadn't heard the songs as that they really just don't like hip-hop (ie are mental and wrong).

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I didn't get that impression from the thread at all!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Apart from the people who I already knew liked hip-hop the answers were mostly variants of "I like hip-hop when it's not very much like hip-hop at all" (hon exception celentari - if only more had followed her example).

[koganbot]

How many people was that? Who? Kat was saying she just has a trouble paying attention to lyrics period, not to hip-hop lyrics in particular, but this makes it harder for her to appreciate hip-hop of almost any kind (because it seems so lyric-dependent). (Interestingly - though this is not obvious from my discussions on my livejournal with Kat about Ashlee - I sometimes don't take in a track's lyrics for years or ever even when I love the music, and I love a lot of hip-hop without getting around to noticing much about the words.) Stevem complained about hip-hop's "thematic bankruptcy" but also said that he often liked it anyway, musically (so he's not saying he only likes the type that qualifies as "not spiritually bankrupt"); and he's said that he's open to listening harder to the lyrics if need be, but just hasn't gotten to it. Piratemoggy doesn't listen to hip-hop or any American music much but likes the recent Trina, Diddy, and Eve, who sure seem much like hip-hop to me (and to you). Martinv likes hip-hop when it's lighter and funnier (but seems to include the first Dizzy album in this category, which is funny but I'd hardly call it light, and I wouldn't call grime hip-hop anyway, rather a second cousin, but that's a different issue). Maybe he's whom you're thinking of, but that's not saying "Oh, I only like hip-hop when it's like _______ rather than [what Frank & Lex like in hip-hop]." I get the impression he hasn't heard a lot of, say, Lil Wayne, and what I'm getting from him is not that he doesn't like hip-hop on principle but rather it's not his first priority.

And no one is taking the standard indie/undie hip-hop line that says, "The real hip-hop was Rakim and Boogie Down Productions and now what's marketed as 'hip-hop' is selling black stereotypes to white people while the real hip-hop, the stuff that draws on the true hip-hop past, is underground."

to clarify (or complicate further)

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

most people love/hate hip-hop based on theme &or lyrics or so it seems as i would've thought minimal-repetetive music alone wouldn't be enough to stir more than indifference (altho it can certainly frustrate). i notice many people who love it demonstrate this by quoting specific lines which is something i rarely do if ever.

my criteria is thus (in order of importance):

(1) strong production (i.e. exciting (as defined by me) hook/tune/beat/actualsounds) - matter of taste and preference naturally
(2) strong theme/subject (e.g. depth of story-telling/characterisation, certain degree of sophistication whether humourous or serious or both)
(3) lyrical and vocal prowess (how the story is told, flow etc.)
(4) strength of artist (past context, do i like this person enough for any deficiency in 2 or 3 to matter as much?)

any track big on all 4 = total classic. scoring high on 1 alone is good enough tho. tracks big on 2, 3 and 4 but not 1 will really struggle for my attention but wouldn't be rejected entirely. anything less than that just won't do.

the problem for me with hip-hop now is that i only hear about 5 tracks per year that are 1 let alone 1+2/3/4, for which i accept 50% responsibility!

but this criteria is how i judge all pop pretty much. hip-hop struggles more than other pop tho because of well documented cultural barriers (many of which were discussed on the hip-hop post) that can never truly be reconciled.

frankly it surprises me that lex likes the genre quite as much as he does (as in more than your average popist critic who writes for indie mags rather than preaching to the converted rap/rnb mag readers) and i'm curious about that but it's a personal avenue.

Re: to clarify (or complicate further)

[koganbot]

People (e.g., me) often quote lyrics even though what's moving them more is the music (or they're being moved by the lyrics and how the lyrics sound with the rest of the music); this is because it's nearly impossible to articulate what it is about the sound that moves you.

Re: to clarify (or complicate further)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

> this is because it's nearly impossible to articulate what it is about the sound that moves you

Exactly - but I am determined to try anyway!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Oh I'm just disappointed I have no one to be excited about Lil' Kim guest verses with me, and stunned/in disbelief that in a community like poptimists I seem to be the only one who regards Kim as a heroine. I mean surely it is obvious that she is great? Her name should get as much automatic excitement as rote past-their=prime Girls Aloud tbh and despite my best efforts people still resist. Never mind trying to get them excited about Crime Mob or TI or Trina.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

she's always talking about lady parts which puts me off a bit for some reason...

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Well that is kind of the point of Kim. Isn't sex, like, an integral part of pop anyway? Hence everyone getting all excited about GA double entendres? Kim is loads funnier with it plus also a bit subversive.

I admit I don't know why you're surprised that I love r&b and hip-hop - r&b is my first love after all and if pushed I would choose it over pop in a heartbeat. I get depressed when I look at people's last.fms and see them entirely bereft of r&b divas and rappers. It seems like a v important facet of music is missing.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

Maybe it would help if I actually found Kim attractive! Blatant crudeness of her stuff ends up unappealing most of the time. Don't most people prefer soft porn to hardcore etc. - even in pop music? Part of Missy's greater accessibility is thru being a lot tamer in this regard. Note I do not like 'Smell Yo Dick' much either, partly cos of the crude nature of the humour but more because I thought the track was boring aside from that. In spite of all that I do like a couple of Kim tracks (e.g. How Many Licks) just not in any big way. This all makes me sound v prudish which may well be the case.

Am curious about her subversiveness tho - example?

You're probably missing some important facets too - I wouldn't waste your energy despairing too much!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Quite apart from the whole feminist theory vagina dentata stuffz I shall just point you towards the lyrics to 'Suck My Dick' (http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/lilkim/suckmydick.html). And yes you are a prude!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I don't think GA's double entendres are sexually exciting - I just happen to enjoy that strain of British smuttiness! ("Sexy No No No" is actually a pretty accurate summation of GA - the nudge-nudge stuff fits them a lot better).

It may be a really impertinent question but how - if at all - do you relate your diva appreciation with mainstream gay culture's traditional love for white pop divas? The diva worship has always struck me as a really interesting thread in yr criticism and as the discarding of Lil Kim from the Grau's top 1000 albums proves it strikes a nerve.

Kim's stuff has never really gripped me for some reason - I like Trina a lot and have enjoyed records by even minor ho-rap entities like Khia more than I have Kim: I should investigate further when I'm in that mood next.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if you're meant to find Kim's music sexually exciting either, even the bits where she basically directs masturbation scenarios. I think she intends her music to be threatening/exciting to straight men but, more than that, empowering and liberating to women/gay men.

I share most of mainstream gay culture's love of white pop divas - MADGE! - though I get annoyed when the gays go nuts for cheapo popstars who will never be divas, ever. And I think this is the crux of why I get so annoyed when black r&b/hip-hop divas are overlooked or ignored, because I appreciate Kim and Trina and Ciara in exactly the same way that I appreciate Madonna and Xtina, and so should they. Pro-pop criticism has always been vaguely coded gay but this is really explicit now - eg Pjustice is a lot more overt about how much of its content is for the gays than it was five years ago. And ho-rap is very, very queer-friendly.

Kim and Trina are about equal in my eyes; Kim has maybe been more reliably full of attitude but there's not much between their pinnacles, 'How Many Licks?' and 'B R Right'. They're equally filthy but Kim is more of a hard-ass (her gunz and drugz chat is totes hardcore and awesome), Trina more of a brat.

Rasheeda's 'Georgia Peach' is probably the most underrated ho-rap classic of them all.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I get the feeling that PJustice (like most publications) has multiple conflicting audiences (some of the conflicts being within an individual reader too!) - diva-loving pop fans, crate-digging pop fans, bouncy excitable pop fans, all coded gay to a greater or lesser degree.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I've got masses of respect for Kim as a person, but I just haven't heard enough of her music. In fact I don't think I'd even heard of her before she went to prison for the first time...

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I should do you a HO-RAP PRIMER sometime then.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I have the inverse issue, in that I have probably 0% respect for Lil Kim as a person (although I find her interesting) but quite like her muzaks.

Except that song with Christina Aguilera, which was gash.

Just tryin' to pay tuition? Liar!

[koganbot]

Lex and Moggy: have you heard Pitbull f. Trina "Go Girl"? I think you'd like it a lot lot lot (the Trina part is relatively lifeless: but Pitbull's rap seems to be inspired by the concept of Trina).

Re: Just tryin' to pay tuition? Liar!

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I like bits of it now a lot more than when I reviewed it for the Jukebox a few months ago but that whistly noise is still exceedingly annoying.

Re: Just tryin' to pay tuition? Liar!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I am hearing it now, it is terrific! And I haven't even got to Trina yet.

I must pick up Pitbull's album...

Re: Just tryin' to pay tuition? Liar!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Picked up Pitbull's album from the internet. Not great! 'When I Hear Music' sample again? Makes El Mariel sound like a masterpiece.

On the other hand, Vanessa Hudgens' 'Don't Stop', which you recommended a gazillion years ago, is AMAZING! And...nothing else by her is even noticeable as far as I can be bothered to check out.