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Except this very model has prevented hip hop from evolving and instead we ended up with mumble rap which feels like a step backwards in multiple ways. Music ha

Except this very model has prevented hip hop from evolving and instead we ended up with mumble rap which feels like a step backwards in multiple ways. Music has become all gimmick, fueled by celebrity gossip and social media bullshit. It's samey as hell and stagnant and lacks innovation.

giancarlostoro 6y ago
Which is the sad reality. There are definitely talented rappers that work their tails off to produce great lyrics, in some cases their own beats / tracks and are being overshadowed by what I call pop rap (you can throw mumble rap under than umbrella). I can only imagine the same is happening in other genres. The one decent thing about rap was always all the mixtapes on the other hand.
- janbernhart 6y ago
  That's just how popular music and pop culture works. Internet and streaming did enable long-tail though. Its way easier to listen to and find those underground rappers compared to 20 years ago.
wyattpeak 6y ago
> we ended up with mumble rap > It's samey as hell and stagnant I don't follow rap, but these two claims seem contradictory. Is the first not evidence of evolution in the genre, if in a direction you don't like?
- z3ncyberpunk 6y ago
  No one of any value enjoys mumble rap, don't kid yourself
- daodedickinson 6y ago
  I think the claim is that mumble rap dominates this new ecosystem, that this ecosystem is less diverse, and that this ecosystem does not seem to be changing significantly. I have no idea about Spotify or mumble rap but that's how they might not contradict.
- mosselman 6y ago
  If anything mumble rap is a devolution. Add auto-tune to this and you are left with a worthless corpus of shitty rap, hip-hop and also pop music. It is samey, because everybody does the same thing. You can’t really differentiate music by different performers anymore. Each song is the same. There used to be a cost to producing music; you needed a studio, producer, physical copies of the samples you wanted to use (in case of most rap), etc. Now you can just boot your computer and use one of the many digital studios. It is a blessing in some ways, but a curse in most I think. Quality is by no means the element by which (popular) music is judged. It is all about presentation, which somehow means the most deplorable people get the most praise. Note: I am talking about what is mainstream and played on still high quality radio. I don’t listen to rap stations and luckily there are stations that have a good selection of older music and only play some of the new stuff. The new stuff there is already worse than music from the past though. If you look at the rap and hip-hop scene however, the quality has plummeted even more. It is just one homogeneous soup of crappy, lazy music. In no way like the music of 2Pac, Notorious B.I.G and Outkast but still all the same as the other new crap.
  - enneff 6y ago
    You’re just saying the same things older people have been saying about new music since time immemorial.
    - mixmastamyk 6y ago
      That's true and yet the decreasing revenue, monetization, and relentless cost-cutting is real as well.
      - wyattpeak 6y ago
        Concerns about making money are not going to destroy art. Almost all art through history has been made by people trying to make a living, not trying to express for its own sake. We don't have a thousand years of portraiture of the elite because artists were just absolutely convinced that was the ultimate expression of the medium.
Larrikin 6y ago
New Yorkers said the same thing about all southern rappers decades ago and now many of those artists and songs they panned are considered classics. Rap doesn't have to fit some narrowly defined category where all artists are doing the same style during a given period. You can also like conscious rappers calling for social change and still enjoy a club banger asking women to shake their butts. They aren't diametrically opposed.
- majani 6y ago
  Ah, yes I remember the Great Laffy Taffy Debate that brought division between the North and the South
- loudtieblahblah 6y ago
  >Rap doesn't have to fit some narrowly defined category where all artists are doing the same style during a given period. And yet thats where it's at right now, with some exception. Hiphop used to have diversity of sound. Now, as far as popular rap goes, it's all homogenized. Same beats. Same cadence. Same flow. Voices indistinguishableffrom each other.
  - grasshopperpurp 6y ago
    >Same beats. Same cadence. Same flow. Voices indistinguishableffrom each other. This is how people used to talk about Hip Hop in the 90s. People familiar with Trap can easily distinguish between the different rappers and producers - just like people familiar with 90's Hip Hop could distinguish between Nas and Ghostface or DJ Premier and Pete Rock. And, that's only Trap. There are still popular MC's and producers who operate outside of Trap.
    - loudtieblahblah 6y ago
      >This is how people used to talk about Hip Hop in the 90s This isn't true unless you're talking the bling Era of the late 90s. Also, past criticisms existing doesn't invalidate new ones even if there's similarities in the complaint. So that's a side step. Tribe, wu, west coast gfunk rappers, mobb deep, fu schnickens, onyx, bone thugs, cypress, busta, we're all wildly different. Even at the height of g-funk, I could have named 50 at least semi popular rappers who deviated from that style. Now who deviates? Danny brown? He's like 40. RtJ? They're like 40 too. Kendrick tends to always be the modern exception to every hip hop criticism. So I consider him the exception that proves the rule. >are still popular MC's and producers who operate outside of Trap. And they're treated the same as Rhymesayers or DefJux rappers, Saul Williams or immortal tech were during the bling and Crunk eras. It's all "white" even if black, nerdy, back packing shit thats not considered part of the "culture". Thats the way most lyrical rappers are treated today. They're talked about like Atmosphere was in 2004. So fuck the culture.
PierceJoy 6y ago
I prefer good lyrics over mumble rap, but music is entirely subjective. You think it's a step backwards, but young people think it's a step forwards. Mumble rap is essentially just natural selection. Some random rapper started doing it, people liked it, and so it propagated. If people didn't like it, it would have died out quickly. You just aren't one of those people. > It's samey as hell and stagnant and lacks innovation. I've said the same thing about metal since the first time I heard it. Metal fans disagree. Who's right? Does it even matter?
- drdeca 6y ago
  I don’t know what mumble rap is, so I’m not commenting on that in particular. But, something being selected for doesn’t imply that it isn’t a bad thing. Even if we assume that “how much the typical person likes it” or “how many people like to listen to it” or something along those lines is a good measure of goodness, those are not the only things involved in the selection pressure. Things like cost to produce, discoverability, etc. are all also things that influence the selection pressures. And if there are contributions to the pressures which aren’t entirely aligned with the direction of good, then it seems entirely possible that the selection could make something worse (as in, not as good, not as in, less successful)
  - panchicore3 6y ago
    re: mumble rap ~ have you heard trap?
    - drdeca 6y ago
      I think once or twice, but I don’t remember what it is really.
  - tinbad 6y ago
    Here is an accurate depiction of mumble rap by Snoop Dogg https://youtu.be/g0OdmRtuQew https://youtu.be/g0OdmRtuQew Warning: lots of exercising 1st amendment in the above video.
  - 6y ago
thdrdt 6y ago
It doesn't matter. Just listen to what you like. Even Mozart and Bach made crap music on a bad day. I think in our time we are very fortunate to have the ability to discover music so easily. Personally I never listen to mainstream music but there is a lot more to discover.
zuminator 6y ago
Music generally lacks innovation for the same reason why phones and men's clothing lack innovation. Most of the easy low-effort ways to be appealingly different have been discovered already. Music's creativity has been spurred by a series of technological innovations, the invention of the electric guitar, then the invention of synths, multitrack recording, drum machines, then computers with sampling, loops and DSP. It's been artistically transformed by blues, country, jazz, rock and roll, urban, dance and rap. Each one had its own series of innovations driven by creativity (doo-wop? math rock? new jack swing?) but the genres have settled into their mature phases. Probably some entirely new genre needs to come along and shake things up, but that's hard. Until then we'll continue to get the artistic equivalent of a new coat of paint every few years.
pragmatic 6y ago
I think "pop" music ( which now very much includes hip hop) by it's very nature has been this way. I can't think of a the when it wasn't.

giancarlostoro 6y ago

Which is the sad reality. There are definitely talented rappers that work their tails off to produce great lyrics, in some cases their own beats / tracks and are being overshadowed by what I call pop rap (you can throw mumble rap under than umbrella). I can only imagine the same is happening in other genres. The one decent thing about rap was always all the mixtapes on the other hand.

janbernhart 6y ago
That's just how popular music and pop culture works. Internet and streaming did enable long-tail though. Its way easier to listen to and find those underground rappers compared to 20 years ago.

wyattpeak 6y ago

> we ended up with mumble rap > It's samey as hell and stagnant I don't follow rap, but these two claims seem contradictory. Is the first not evidence of evolution in the genre, if in a direction you don't like?

z3ncyberpunk 6y ago
No one of any value enjoys mumble rap, don't kid yourself
daodedickinson 6y ago
I think the claim is that mumble rap dominates this new ecosystem, that this ecosystem is less diverse, and that this ecosystem does not seem to be changing significantly. I have no idea about Spotify or mumble rap but that's how they might not contradict.
mosselman 6y ago
If anything mumble rap is a devolution. Add auto-tune to this and you are left with a worthless corpus of shitty rap, hip-hop and also pop music. It is samey, because everybody does the same thing. You can’t really differentiate music by different performers anymore. Each song is the same. There used to be a cost to producing music; you needed a studio, producer, physical copies of the samples you wanted to use (in case of most rap), etc. Now you can just boot your computer and use one of the many digital studios. It is a blessing in some ways, but a curse in most I think. Quality is by no means the element by which (popular) music is judged. It is all about presentation, which somehow means the most deplorable people get the most praise. Note: I am talking about what is mainstream and played on still high quality radio. I don’t listen to rap stations and luckily there are stations that have a good selection of older music and only play some of the new stuff. The new stuff there is already worse than music from the past though. If you look at the rap and hip-hop scene however, the quality has plummeted even more. It is just one homogeneous soup of crappy, lazy music. In no way like the music of 2Pac, Notorious B.I.G and Outkast but still all the same as the other new crap.
- enneff 6y ago
  You’re just saying the same things older people have been saying about new music since time immemorial.
  - mixmastamyk 6y ago
    That's true and yet the decreasing revenue, monetization, and relentless cost-cutting is real as well.
    - wyattpeak 6y ago
      Concerns about making money are not going to destroy art. Almost all art through history has been made by people trying to make a living, not trying to express for its own sake. We don't have a thousand years of portraiture of the elite because artists were just absolutely convinced that was the ultimate expression of the medium.

Larrikin 6y ago

New Yorkers said the same thing about all southern rappers decades ago and now many of those artists and songs they panned are considered classics. Rap doesn't have to fit some narrowly defined category where all artists are doing the same style during a given period. You can also like conscious rappers calling for social change and still enjoy a club banger asking women to shake their butts. They aren't diametrically opposed.

majani 6y ago
Ah, yes I remember the Great Laffy Taffy Debate that brought division between the North and the South
loudtieblahblah 6y ago
>Rap doesn't have to fit some narrowly defined category where all artists are doing the same style during a given period. And yet thats where it's at right now, with some exception. Hiphop used to have diversity of sound. Now, as far as popular rap goes, it's all homogenized. Same beats. Same cadence. Same flow. Voices indistinguishableffrom each other.
- grasshopperpurp 6y ago
  >Same beats. Same cadence. Same flow. Voices indistinguishableffrom each other. This is how people used to talk about Hip Hop in the 90s. People familiar with Trap can easily distinguish between the different rappers and producers - just like people familiar with 90's Hip Hop could distinguish between Nas and Ghostface or DJ Premier and Pete Rock. And, that's only Trap. There are still popular MC's and producers who operate outside of Trap.
  - loudtieblahblah 6y ago
    >This is how people used to talk about Hip Hop in the 90s This isn't true unless you're talking the bling Era of the late 90s. Also, past criticisms existing doesn't invalidate new ones even if there's similarities in the complaint. So that's a side step. Tribe, wu, west coast gfunk rappers, mobb deep, fu schnickens, onyx, bone thugs, cypress, busta, we're all wildly different. Even at the height of g-funk, I could have named 50 at least semi popular rappers who deviated from that style. Now who deviates? Danny brown? He's like 40. RtJ? They're like 40 too. Kendrick tends to always be the modern exception to every hip hop criticism. So I consider him the exception that proves the rule. >are still popular MC's and producers who operate outside of Trap. And they're treated the same as Rhymesayers or DefJux rappers, Saul Williams or immortal tech were during the bling and Crunk eras. It's all "white" even if black, nerdy, back packing shit thats not considered part of the "culture". Thats the way most lyrical rappers are treated today. They're talked about like Atmosphere was in 2004. So fuck the culture.

PierceJoy 6y ago

I prefer good lyrics over mumble rap, but music is entirely subjective. You think it's a step backwards, but young people think it's a step forwards. Mumble rap is essentially just natural selection. Some random rapper started doing it, people liked it, and so it propagated. If people didn't like it, it would have died out quickly. You just aren't one of those people. > It's samey as hell and stagnant and lacks innovation. I've said the same thing about metal since the first time I heard it. Metal fans disagree. Who's right? Does it even matter?

drdeca 6y ago
I don’t know what mumble rap is, so I’m not commenting on that in particular. But, something being selected for doesn’t imply that it isn’t a bad thing. Even if we assume that “how much the typical person likes it” or “how many people like to listen to it” or something along those lines is a good measure of goodness, those are not the only things involved in the selection pressure. Things like cost to produce, discoverability, etc. are all also things that influence the selection pressures. And if there are contributions to the pressures which aren’t entirely aligned with the direction of good, then it seems entirely possible that the selection could make something worse (as in, not as good, not as in, less successful)
- panchicore3 6y ago
  re: mumble rap ~ have you heard trap?
  - drdeca 6y ago
    I think once or twice, but I don’t remember what it is really.
- tinbad 6y ago
  Here is an accurate depiction of mumble rap by Snoop Dogg https://youtu.be/g0OdmRtuQew https://youtu.be/g0OdmRtuQew Warning: lots of exercising 1st amendment in the above video.
- 6y ago

thdrdt 6y ago

It doesn't matter. Just listen to what you like. Even Mozart and Bach made crap music on a bad day. I think in our time we are very fortunate to have the ability to discover music so easily. Personally I never listen to mainstream music but there is a lot more to discover.

zuminator 6y ago

Music generally lacks innovation for the same reason why phones and men's clothing lack innovation. Most of the easy low-effort ways to be appealingly different have been discovered already. Music's creativity has been spurred by a series of technological innovations, the invention of the electric guitar, then the invention of synths, multitrack recording, drum machines, then computers with sampling, loops and DSP. It's been artistically transformed by blues, country, jazz, rock and roll, urban, dance and rap. Each one had its own series of innovations driven by creativity (doo-wop? math rock? new jack swing?) but the genres have settled into their mature phases. Probably some entirely new genre needs to come along and shake things up, but that's hard. Until then we'll continue to get the artistic equivalent of a new coat of paint every few years.

pragmatic 6y ago

I think "pop" music ( which now very much includes hip hop) by it's very nature has been this way. I can't think of a the when it wasn't.