Letters to the Editor
-
The Timeless Complaint
Isn't this what everyone says? "It used to be better!" Hip hop used to be better, rock used to be better, classical used to be better.
Everything is better in retrospect (never go back and listen to that NWA album, it's not actually very good stuff).
-
Everything turns to shit eventually
Everything turns into mass market product moving hip hop for the kiddies and power drinks crap. But then again, it always was. It's always Christmas in Hollis.
-
Indie labels are the way to go.
Hi, i'm young and a music fan. I feel like I connect to music a great deal, i've spent way more than just a little bit of money tracking down albums. Also, I love a great deal of modern music.
But I hate articles like this. You know why, its insulting for someone to even consider the idea that the music of my generation is even in the least defined by what comes out on mainstream radio, MTV or any of the other ancient outlets. I'm sorry, but the only people who even try to take the stuff that comes out of those formats are either dumb, clueless or completely out of date. Salon seems to always be guilty of this kind of thing(like when Camila Pagila thought that Britney Spears was a symbol for our generation like the Rolling Stone's were for hers). Seriously, there is a TON of amazing material coming out in all sorts of various genres.
So quit trying to take pop-rap or radio rock meant for 14 year olds like it means anything. Fuck.
-
Dude
Seriously, just go find sometehing good to listen to. There's a ton of great Hip-Hop; y9ou just won't find most of it on the charts. Not if people with skills spittin' lyrics is what you're into, anyway...
-
politics and poetics of pop music
I read this in conjunction with a piece the other day from Salon's Andrew Leonard ('How the World Works') in which he lamented that R.E.M. now and then in its long history has not seemed as cool as when they and he were both still part of that youthful demographic all the kids are talking about. I know that pop music is as much about attitude and theatrics as it is about anything but I think that if Leonard and Kix got more hip to the music itself they might find something not so easily queered in their minds by what the crowd decides is cool today.
-
Hip hop was never cool
Popular, yes. But it was never cool. Not even close.
-
hows about: popular music is dead
i would say if your only window into music was the radio and tv, then yes hip hop is dead, along with every other popular music genre from rock to metal to indy. i think i has something to do with soul-less corporations that control our media markets that are to lazy to sell good music. people people who are also too lazy to go out and actively find good music to listen to generally are the ones complaining about how their favorite genre sucks these days. i would reel off a list of 20 or so amazingly strong hip hop artists from the past 5 years, but then again i shouldn't have to spoon feed a grown man.
-
"Easy-E's bemused inventiveness"?, "the oeuvre of Biggie"?
Could you be more annoying?
-
Hip Hop coolness marginalized
Hip Hop a great art form which has been able to help empower a youthful diverse culture and help people to express their own uniqueness has been marginalized by fad ridden rec executives and people who have no understanding of all that is entailed with it. To declare that hip hop is no longer cooler than me is to minimalize the power of its history its presence as well as its future. To allow one artist or a sub genre in the cannon to destroy ones vision of a movement suggests someone not strongly connected and a misunderstanding of it. Please broaden your base from commercial appeal.The Roots, Black Star, and Common are regular names with strong lyricism and musicality. But if they arent cooler than you I suggest you try the Def Jux Crew and other underground artists like the Juggaknots. There is nothing topping these artists. The future is bright for Hip hop. I dare suggest its cool.
-
the bottoms of his trousers
I grow old, I grow old / I will wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Nobody should like the music they liked when they were 8, unless they're already enrolled in the Julliard. It's time not only to dislike current rap, but move onto better, more complex, sounds and wittier and funnier light verse. Even if you share rappers' disdain for women, try Leporello's list aria from Don Giovanni.
-
Aging White Racists Still Not Cool
"More than anything I'm embarrassed. Since when did young black men, heretofore the arbiters of pop culture, become so lame? And since when did the citizens of that culture not know the difference?"
Really, Paul Kix? Really? Are you, a privilege white editor of a certain age, claiming a culture is uncool by writing an article which only names top selling artists.
Does he mention small label artists like Anacron? Hell, he doesn't even mention Lupe Fiasco.
It takes a presumptious racist to act like he knows an entire culture from the most common version.
Also, but did the heyday of funk and soul not involve a few dances which even the most inept of dancers could master? Has club music always involved aboveground and underground hits?
Why yes, yes it has and yet no aging white dude has had the audacity to claim he's cooler than an entire form.
It's funny, now that a mixed race man is running for the white house, Paul Kix can claim he's cooler than an explicitly black music. Is he cooler than blues and jazz as well?
Since when is the vitality of AN ENTIRE MUSICAL FORM to be judged by a selective sample of top 40 hits.
If he was writing about women in rock, would you judge the entire genre based on the latest Avril Lavigne tune? If black guy wrote about how lame rock was based on a list of bands including Linkin Park and Maroon 6, I'm sure this letters section would explode with counter examples.
Kix is too dumb to actually understand the lyrics of "Hip Hop is Dead"...
"If hip hop should die before I wake
I'll put an extended clip inside of my AK
Roll to every station, murder the DJ"
His entire argument is not that hip hop is dead, but that the heavily commercialized version - and refusal to play other types - is killing it. He also name checks MC Ren, who's violent black nationalist albums were not exactly in heavy rotation.
This article isn't about making a well researched or reasoned argument, it's about a white guy making white person generalizations. Something that a lot of other white guys of any age would never have the stones to do. Please, Mr. Kix - shut up. You don't speak for all white dudes over 30.