Wow what a thread! Very entertaining. I do like to envision the age, race, and sex of all of the people writing these posts. I feel it would be dominated by white men in their 50's sitting in front of their Sonus Fabers with a laptop :-)
That's no insult though, I am a white male, age 41, sitting in front of my Rockports with a laptop! The point is, that this thread represents a particular slice of the population, not the whole, and while there are many posts here that support that stereotype, there are some that buck the trend and actually speak with an open mind.
I think it is less constructive to bash and dismiss the entire genre than it is to explore it with a thread of intellectualism or philosophy as a base. Rap isn't music, rap sucks, rap is ignorant, rap this, rap that... what does that do for the progression of the argument or to answer the question that Taters asked? Those comments are just pats on the back for those who think "Rap Sucks!" and have no desire to take the thought any further.
I listen to all music, from Stravinsky to Snoop Dog, with Pink Floyd, Willie Nelson, and John Lee Hooker in between. For me, it is all about quality, and less about genre. Ok, sure, I don't go through too many opera crazes, but I have a couple operas on LP, and they do go under the needle every now and then.
I bough them to explore the best Opera has to offer for someone who is not predisposed to opera in the first place. I enjoy straight classical more than opera, and I wanted to see what it was all about. What are the opera fans enjoying so much!? So, I bought La traviata and Le nozze di Figaro. I figured those two gems would be a good start.
I would like to propose, and challenge, especially to the nay sayers about rap on this thread, do the same thing I did with those two operas! If you already think you hate rap, and that may remain a cold hard fact despite any future experimentation, get philosophical on your own ass, slam the brakes on dismissive thought, and open your mind to the fact that the genre of hip hop and rap MUST have some redeeming quality somewhere, even if it is not super accessible to the main stream.
If that is true, find it, and buy your two albums, or get on Tidal and create a playlist of the best that you can find. Spend an hour on the web and instead of bashing and dismissing, search for the genre's redeeming qualities. Find a music journalist who writes about all genres, and see what artists and albums they say are the more enlightened of the hip hop genre.
As I mentioned, I listen to nearly all genres. There are a few I really dislike though. Modern mass market county is not for me (though Willie Nelson & Johnny Cash are) and Brittany Spears style pop is not my speed. But other than that, I am all over the board, and I love to find the examples of the genres that I do like!
I will sum this up with an invitation to all of you who wrote on this post, to join me on another post, which I am going to put in the music section and call it "Hip Hop & Rap recommendations for Taters"
This is not an insult at all, and I am only using Taters' name so we can all easily find the post. I will start by naming an artist, a track, an album, whatever I can think of, that I feel is some of the better examples that the genre has to offer. I hope you join me, and to the bashers out there, stop hating, look for the good stuff, its more rewarding than pointing at the garbage!
Have a great Sunday all,
- Mark
