So, I show up after everyone's gone home, but anyway, my problem in your leaving out hip-hop and r&b isn't just that you left out something important and big, but that hip-hop and r&b are always pilfering other musics and never lose their sense of themselves in the process. (Yeah, I know that you can argue with my italicized words, especially given the indie hip-hop guys who are always complaining that hip-hop has been corrupted by the biz and has abandoned its community and its golden age of greatness in the pursuit of mammon, etc. But these guys aren't in the picture, really.) Which is to say that as genres hip-hop and r&b seem to sidestep all the problems that are being discussed here.
But then, from my distance the whole British "dance" and "pop" thing seems like a sore thumb, whether it's "Oh oh oh look look look see how we're taking our genre deeper down into its own basic elements" or "Oh oh oh look look look see how we're combining all these pop and dance elements into glorious fun." Either way, the whole thing seems too studied to me.
(But then, I'm the guy who thinks that techno is just rock with another name - or is what usurped the "rock" role in Britain when the genre "rock" stopped rocking.)
(And by the Boney Joan Rule I get to love Big & Rich for pulling an equivalent Oh oh oh look look look see how we're combining all these metal and country and dance elements at once, congratulations to us. But maybe it's no surprise B&R weren't able to maintain the energy, and John Rich has been shining recently much more as a producer or songwriting collaborator than when he's the name on the marquee.)
But what I'm saying is that hip-hop and r&b seem to be social areas where you can be ambitious and self-aware without the whole thing carrying clanking chains of self-justification with it.
Or maybe the hip-hop guys are better at concealing their clanking chains. Or maybe they flaunt the chains - hip-hop guys acting tough is perhaps a blatant clanking chain of self-justification - but in a way that's so so generic and standard as to be ignorable. (I'm contradicting myself here, aren't I?)
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timeasmymeasure
My chains are finally free
Date: 2008-01-25 08:29 pm (UTC)But then, from my distance the whole British "dance" and "pop" thing seems like a sore thumb, whether it's "Oh oh oh look look look see how we're taking our genre deeper down into its own basic elements" or "Oh oh oh look look look see how we're combining all these pop and dance elements into glorious fun." Either way, the whole thing seems too studied to me.
(But then, I'm the guy who thinks that techno is just rock with another name - or is what usurped the "rock" role in Britain when the genre "rock" stopped rocking.)
(And by the Boney Joan Rule I get to love Big & Rich for pulling an equivalent Oh oh oh look look look see how we're combining all these metal and country and dance elements at once, congratulations to us. But maybe it's no surprise B&R weren't able to maintain the energy, and John Rich has been shining recently much more as a producer or songwriting collaborator than when he's the name on the marquee.)
But what I'm saying is that hip-hop and r&b seem to be social areas where you can be ambitious and self-aware without the whole thing carrying clanking chains of self-justification with it.
Or maybe the hip-hop guys are better at concealing their clanking chains. Or maybe they flaunt the chains - hip-hop guys acting tough is perhaps a blatant clanking chain of self-justification - but in a way that's so so generic and standard as to be ignorable. (I'm contradicting myself here, aren't I?)