what a horribly bleak world i live in

I had to help with my senior class carwash today. there was a boombox so i tried to get some good music on. i tried dream theater and iron maiden, but someone turned it of right in the middle of the solo, then put on some rap and everyone cheered. aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I had to listen to rap for the next 4 hours. Christ a guy can only take so much.

i know how you feel (despite loving rap, and hating shreders, LOL)... cos some bastard turned off my "my bloody valentine" cd when I was moving my stuff into my room, and they put on goddam green day "warning" (dont get me wrong, i liked "insomniac" and "dookie" but the rest of their stuff is pretty weak)..

I hate rap. I dont know how it passes for music. I like some of the stuff Zepp_Rules wrote. I mean, how could you not. I guess its because people arent exposed to good music. A lot of stuff on the market these days is either all rhythm, some poppy wuss of a sell out or some guy shouting about how great he is in front of a drum machine.

I know how does it feel.. I had a similar experience, or even worse ! I was playing some rock/metal stuff with my band in a club, we had some nice reaction from the audience, but righ after we finished, the DJ came in , played some techno & rap... I was amazed by the reaction he had, every body was dancing on his music... that lucky drum machine bastard !
I was wondering how much time did it took him to learn every thing about the buttons on his machine... a couple of hours?

RAP IS CRAP !

Different situation but it kinda relates.

Did you guys get that from "musically impaired" people :), you are talking to someone and a music is playing in the background, then you stop the guy and say "wait, this lick is really good, listen to this" and the guy just looks at you with that what-kind-of-cheap-a%$-drug-are-you-on look?

Happens to me a lot. You basically can't ask someone who doesn't understand what it takes to play an instrument to know the difference between Ice-Cube and Steve Vai.

Maybe we just don't get what it takes to master rapping, but still... One rap song is ok, two gets kind of old, and I never get to three since I get out of the room in the middle of the second rap song :)

Zepp_rules, we feel your pain

erm... I actaully like Ice Cube (his work with body count anyway) more than Via...
I STILL dont get shredders, I've been listening to Via for about 8 months now, and I dont get all the myandering.. yes, he certainly has some excellent riffs, but god, you have to sift through some real OTT crap to get to it.. but that's just me... The same with satch... It just feels so empty to me.. I do like the Zappa stuff though, it's more adventerous...

Dj's are cool i think... Admitidly the commercail stuff makes you want to slit your wrists, but the more indie stuff is cool (eg Dj shadow)... I think guitarists simply have to accept the mixing desk... the same way trumpeters had to accept the on comming dominance of the guitar... DJing isn't as actually as easy as it looks.. just watch grandmaster flash (that's not to say, that all djs are grandmasters)...
It makes you cringe to see bands like Linkin Park using the mixing desks, and getting a lot of attention... but there are still great groups who used desks for a long while, and have had some sucess like Massive Attack (Unfinshed Sympathy has one of the best intros i've ever heard)..

Skyclad said it all:


Forgive me if I'm 'out of order' -
This new music has no soul.
It may be good for making money,
Sadly that is not my goal.

Integrity and honesty are words that you don't understand.
But you're the best - it says so in
the penny dreadful in your hand.

Chorus :
I saw you in a magazine - they're calling you Mesiah.
They must be living in a dream -
they couldn't be more wrong.

Oh, if we'd play this riff more punk
then maybe we'd have had a million seller.
But this piper's tune is not for sale -
I'm glad to say I'm not that kind of fella.


D.J.'s , V.J.'s - pimps and trollops,
Never mind music - this is bollocks.

Chorus ;

Turn on, tune up, cash in, sell out.

Stand your ground behind the times -
And refuse to follow fashion.
Write your poetry with anger,
And then sing it with a passion.

Painted faces in a circus - images that spring to mind.
When I read my penny dreadful
filled with pictures of your kind.


Commercial suicide's appealing
after ten years on this losing streak.
'Cause I'd rather be called sour and bitter
than be deemed the flavour of the weak.


Chorus

I think Azrael is on to something there.
Plus I happen to think bands that use the turntables and stuff in thy're music suck anyway. They are around cause people like turntables, andif you took them away, they'de just he a bunch of people playing one finger guitar chords and yelling.

I'm not 100% sure but I think it's Ice-T that was in bodycount not Ice-Cube.

Well at least bodycount had SOME guitar in it.

I do listen to some band that as rap in their songs but most of them aren't really commercial (Biohazard, crowmag).

I only listen to these band when i'm pissed at something, helps me come down in a weird kinda way. Their music are mostly filled with anger. I never really got that. Maybe it's the start for a new forum thread??

Originally posted by Josh Redstone
. . . or some guy shouting about how great he is in front of a drum machine.

LOL . . . totally agree, man. But like it or not, that's today's music. What a sad world we live in . . . where people who push a few buttons on a drum or synth machine get more recognition than people who actually know how to compose and to play their instruments.

Oh well, more mass produced pop and rap garbage for the music-illiterate masses!

I can't take the comparison between guitar music and the 'cut & paste' music, they are totaly different, it's not bec I'm a guitarist, I respect all other real musical instruments and love most of them, specialy stringed (violin,cello,sitar,oud,etc.) bec you get real music out of that.. but when it comes to having some computer softwares & mixing machines to MAKE your music, this is something else..

Excuse me, I don't mean to be rude, but I can never accept calling a DJ as a musician, may be a sound engineer, music editor, or anything else ... but NEVER A MUSICIAN !

The true of the matter is that the primary concerns of those who produce the music is to get new music out there. By that they have steered away from Rock and thus were left with rock. They also control the exposure to such music and continue plaster rap everywhere. Unfortunitly most people will follow what others give them, instead of what they believe themselves. When i listen to music it is to relate, and of course listen to the god given talents that play the guitar and such. How many people are shallow enough to listen the thong song over and over?...enough are. Said thing is that they might find meaning in all that fables... However not too rule out that all rap is bad, there are a few that are ok....but i cant think of some right now.

We had this argument at skool once...my m8 killed the argument with one line.

"Rap? You might as well listen to a story tape speeded up."

Most rap and techno makes me want to kick a puppy. That said, judging all rap and techno by what's easy to hear (either on the radio or in general "pop" culture) is like judging Metal by Nelson.

No matter what the genre or subgenre of music, there are always people who inovate and push the envelope in one way or another and there are always people who produce incredibly lame work. Usually one will find that the least threatening music always makes it onto the radio; that's because most people just want to hear something that sounds good; they've got bigger prioretys than music. It's the natural way of things.

Finally, to me someone who calls themself a DJ and plays other people's music in the midst of a light show is not a musician. However, someone who calls themself a DJ, can mix two records together or set a needle down in the middle of a specific song on a specific record and work the controls/record to produce a specific sound, and can do it live is a musician. Big difference folks.

I love it how PonyOne can sit here and talk about how he uses electronic stuff for his music, and how it helps him get the sounds he likes, etc. but everyone completely ignores it and goes on with the same old lame "but it's not music" bull****. I mean, can people get over themselvse for one second and actually think tha tmaybe the reaosn why people become DJs or rappers or whatever is because they are passionate about music and they want to create music too, just like everyone here (or at least, I hope that's something to do with what everyone here is on about).
You listen to good DJs talk about the music they listen to and it's stuff like Miles Davis, Coltrane, the Beach Boys, Marvin Gaye, a whole lot of different stuff. When I read an interview with someone who talks passionately about a whole lot of the music that I love too, I get thinking that there's got to be something worthwhile in listening to that guy do his stuff. Of course, I may end up thinking that despite their influences I don't like their music, but I respect them for trying, and for doing something that they feel is important.
I see a helluva lot more integrity and respect for musical tradition in a guy like DJ Shadow than I do in a lot of rock bands.

My 2 cents for what its worth!
If you all were playing in a working band you would
know that DJ'S and 1 piece bands are now killing 4 and
5 piece bands in clubs and all over the usa.
Its because they can do the jobs cheaper than a 4 or 5
piece human band.(Also the one piece band is useing alot
of programmed stuff .(Which i call plastic music)
a Dj can do the gig for $300 where the 4 piece band needs
$800 for a 1 nite gig.(figure)
Mark
P:S Electronics, programing in a 1 piece band is killing
the 4 and 5 piece band.
And about RAP its story telling and it dos suck.
Its a rip off for mindless listers.(My opinion)

[Edited by skee1 on 10-03-2002 at 11:17 AM]

*slaps forehead*... ooops, I was thinkning of ice-T... sTill Ice cube isn't bad...

I agree very much with ponyone here...
My veiw on music has always been: if you WANT to do it, do it.

I like rap as a genre, because it ventures beyond melody... it's kinda like depictions and rythems all in one... It's difficult to explain... kinda like trying to get a Via fan to understand dylan, or a metalica fan to understand REM... basically, what i'm trying to say, is that there is a world of expression beyond chord progressions/ leads/ vocals/ drums... It's a world of concepts, muses, and anything intresting really..

What's sad is that a lot of guitarists are GUITAR minded (obvious statement, ok)... so i find a lot miss the SUBSTANCE of a song..

[Edited by educatedfilm on 10-04-2002 at 03:48 PM]

By the way, though I am taking the "pro rap side" ere (how do i get myself into these things?), i do to agree with you to a degree Skee. DJs to a large extent are killing the live band scene, and that is not good at all. Even worse are the pokie machines though, they're really destroying the pub scene in Australia. However, the kind of DJ that does that is not a good musician, he is a guy who picks top 40 radio records and manages to put the singles together just well enough so they don't quite gell propery when the tracks change, while occaisionally saying"yo, it's goin' off in da house!" while trying to pick up the underage girls who used fake ids to get in there in there first place. That's not the kind of electronic music I'm trying to defend. The guys who I am trying to defend generally cost more to hire than half of the rock bands (which isn't a good thing, it just is). I think the point is, if you can create a sound that apppeals to you, and fits what you are trying to express or whatever, it doesn't matter how you get the sound, the point is that it sounds right. Because that's what music is about: sound and silence. Music should be inclusive, and innovative, and accepting, not constantly being aobut people saying "that's not music". I mean, people used to say that the #4 was killing jazz. Gues what. That's right. It didn't.

I know what you are talking about man. Everyone morning I have to ride the bus to school(don't have license yet) and all they play is rap because majority. Me and like 4 of my friends are sick of it.

I go through that all the time. I'll be in class and someone will want to put the radio on, so they turn on this stupid top 40 station which plays cheesy pop punk and Britney Spears, instead of the good station. Just rock, hard rock, classic rock, all the good stuff.