Is Rap in a flop era?

[ghost]

Absolutely no idea about these

Pobbles Christmas sounds like you made it up

 

[linebaugh]

>pobbles

 

[pattycakes_]

pob>pobbles

 

[germaphobian]

i think people have pretty intense experiences on subreddits for example. it sounds totally ridiculous as a sentence but i do think it's true. that counts as new culture to me. very very new. i think that maybe part of what's going on is that there's less investment or interest in art in the broad sense of the word. and much more interest and energy in other kinds of mostly online culture in its place. to be specific stuff like podcasts, selfies, twitter, micro-videos, youtubes, reading the guardian fifteen times a day.

Skibidi toilet man, don't forget that, that's huge.

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

most of the rap i like is either 90s-rooted (though not replicating) stuff like armand hammer. or ten-15 year old stuff like early young thug, migos, future, kanye. maybe there is good stuff still out there, i just dont know about it. but i suspect its in dribs and drabs or at the most micro level imaginable, an incremental shift, prob one you would only notice if you are deeply immersed in the genre. most things i hear are just decent enough, in the way most modern music can be made to sound decent, but theres not a whole big great new thing happening like with chicago drill or whatever. but i think rap is old enough now for it to be just ticking along without much new exciting energy there. something will come along soon enough, and it will be a new big moment, with one (or maybe a few) great artists/albums, and a lot of connected stuff. or the genre will suddenly get a lot of mainstream attention enough like country when someone outside the genre decides to make a new rap album. maybe ariana grande will do it. or rihanna will come back with a rap album. or taylor swift. and then there will be think pieces on what is great in new real rap etc. the other thing is like someone else said, most ppl dont care about newness or something fresh, its a load of other things often that people latch on to (mainly as newness is not really happening much), i dont really understand what these things are, maybe thats how its always been, just now boosted by various algorithmic/social media factors/parameters and a focus on a lot of celeb bs or a focus on what an artist is (identity politics etc) and what they represent, what new voice they signify, or what niche they fulfill (thinking of a lot of artists i see in crack magazine for example, but i dont really listen to them much, so who knows what they are like).

 

[version]

To what extent do we think the desire for novelty's cultivated? Is it something we should be looking to 'unlearn' and move past or is it fundamental?

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

i think the idea used to be that no apparent newness = no sales = no money made, etc. im not sure that holds really now. anything old was way outside the mainstream. all that matters now is that its recently been created, not whether it sounds all that new (but obv it shouldnt sound totally like a bygone era, like sharon jones type thing, but people dont really want anything TOO new either). maybe its a good thing. im trying to think what we focus on if not anything like 'innovation' - songwriting, lyrics, emotion, etc?

 

[version]

im trying to think what we focus on if not anything like 'innovation' - songwriting, lyrics, emotion, etc?

Yeah, something like that. It's a similar discussion to the one I tried to start a while back about what people currently have to say about a film if they can't fall back on the trusty templates of critiquing capitalism or focusing on representation.

Beyond the Framework

People tend to have their favoured lenses and frameworks, but what lies outside them? What happens to academia, media criticism, and so on, if we hypothetically rule out mentioning capitalism, or race, or gender, or any of the other go-tos? What's discussed instead? Wondered this after reading...

www.dissensus.com

 

[version]

i think the idea used to be that no apparent newness = no sales = no money made, etc.

This is why I'm wondering how much of the demand for novelty is innate and how much is top down because we've been pulled into a particular model of consumption.

I suppose the capacity for novelty was always there, but it was only once we industrialised and globalised and had the ability to produce such a variety of products that it was fully tapped into. Maybe people in the Middle Ages were gagging for thousands of lute playlists and just didn't know it.

 

[pattycakes_]

To what extent do we think the desire for novelty's cultivated? Is it something we should be looking to 'unlearn' and move past or is it fundamental?

Prolly a byproduct of capitalism post the industrial revolution as much as anything. But the interest/need has always been there because we learn and grow as we go and inventing new stuff, esp back in the early days of man would be a survival instinct as much as anything. But then mass production comes along and you've got units to shift. So it's baked in more or less

 

[pattycakes_]

And all that transposeable to media/art in the modern world

 

[pattycakes_]

This is why I'm wondering how much of the demand for novelty is innate and how much is top down because we've been pulled into a particular model of consumption.

I suppose the capacity for novelty was always there, but it was only once we industrialised and globalised and had the ability to produce such a variety of products that it was fully tapped into. Maybe people in the Middle Ages were gagging for thousands of lute playlists and just didn't know it.

Lols didn't read this post. Snap!

 

[pattycakes_]

Prolly just exacerbated what was already there and then over time manufacturers started to learn the ways of marketing and that became just as important as the product itself, and maybe at this point in history has overtaken the product itself.

*takes a side look at the music industry

 

[pattycakes_]

There was a time when most marketing consisted of informing the consumer with technical info, when most things were bought out of necessity (unless you were rich,) but over time it became more about what it represents to the consumer as a reflection of their individuality and tapping into their sense of self ala Bernays

 

[pattycakes_]

So the century of the self is prolly a major factor in the equation. Make new sparkly thing which taps into the interior

 

[version]

There was a time when most marketing consisted of informing the consumer with technical info, when most things were bought out of necessity (unless you were rich,) but over time it became more about what it represents to the consumer as a reflection of their individuality and tapping into their sense of self ala Bernays

Yeah, Lasch gets at this in Culture of Narcissism too. That the desires were created, or at least moulded, by advertising. People didn't need the products, so advertising created the need.

 

[pattycakes_]

And now with us providing all the data for free just by being online you got the last mad dash of novelty where you have these perfected products that fit the interior like a glove, but somehow killed whatever life was there when it was less perfect. Only thing worse than not getting everything you want is getting everything you want etc

 

[pattycakes_]

See: ipads in the barber chairs

 

[version]

i think it’s as simple as the genre has run out of ideas. That’s what happened to rock music. There only a finite amount of revolutionary ideas to be had under specific genre constraints

The clue's perhaps in the title explicitly referring to an era. If you accept the existence of eras then you accept the existence of cycles, of peaks and troughs.

 

[version]

The middle age argument and simply being out of touch has some weight to it, but I also think you can sense when something's thriving and on the up without having to be completely immersed in it. I don't listen to country or follow it, but I'm aware there's a resurgence and it's coming into fashion because it's percolating through the culture and you inevitably bump into something when that happens.

Having to forensically scan YouTube for minor currents within hip-hop to prove it's still kicking seems to suggest the opposite. If it were healthy, you wouldn't have to dig like that.