N
nomadologist
Guest
i can't help but feel that it's really really adolescent male angsty to expect like a spiritual experience from every song you hear on the radio just because it's an "urban"-like male performing it. what i expect from the radio: catchy music with big, loud, epic production values. i expect stadiums to want to fill.
how many songs that have little technical merit are amazing? trillions. how many songs have lyrics that absolutely suck, but are wonderful dance numbers?
also, where is hip-hop supposed to go? i like dank minimalist synths, and i like the music that made use of dank minimalistic synth lines WAY before hip-hop appropriated them from elsewhere, a full 30 years at the very least? i don't want hip-hop to "leave" this place where it is influenced by all the electronic pioneers and other things i like. should it use guitars now? should it sound quiet and ambient?
the nature of music from a music-theoretical standpoint is that genres and their limitations/boundaries are often drawn along the lines of very extremely slight formal innovations. the difference between bebop, hardbop, and trad jazz (for example) are pretty fucking tiny especially to the untrained ear and especially if you consider it in broader and broader contexts (from regional to global to historical/global)
how many songs that have little technical merit are amazing? trillions. how many songs have lyrics that absolutely suck, but are wonderful dance numbers?
also, where is hip-hop supposed to go? i like dank minimalist synths, and i like the music that made use of dank minimalistic synth lines WAY before hip-hop appropriated them from elsewhere, a full 30 years at the very least? i don't want hip-hop to "leave" this place where it is influenced by all the electronic pioneers and other things i like. should it use guitars now? should it sound quiet and ambient?
the nature of music from a music-theoretical standpoint is that genres and their limitations/boundaries are often drawn along the lines of very extremely slight formal innovations. the difference between bebop, hardbop, and trad jazz (for example) are pretty fucking tiny especially to the untrained ear and especially if you consider it in broader and broader contexts (from regional to global to historical/global)
Citing this as a reason for not liking Soulja Boy is over analysing to the point of absurdity. This is really off the mark for most people, I think, and wouldn't really represent how a lot of people approach modern rap, which isn't really about being all deep and clever in your "cypher" and shit. Hip hop produces loads of huge and really good pop hits: for instance, T.I., Young Jeezy, Ludacris, G Unit, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, Lil Jon etc.
These songs are by no means "spiritual experiences" to me, and I recognize them as great pop tracks, and the way I make value judgements on a lot of the hip hop I listen to is its effectiveness in a club environment. You know: "catchy music with big, loud, epic production values," and that sort of thing.
For me Soulja Boy is just too much of a self-parody for my liking (he started off as some punk kid making "joke" versions of rap songs at his high school). And whereas a lot of rappers these days' main aspiration is making chart smashers, and therefore have huge marketing teams behind them to make this happen, this is ALL Soulja Boy seems to have going for him.
Which occasionally has produced some good shit I guess... but I just can't get down with this over-exaggerated, over-dumb one hit wonder train coming out of hip hop right now (Hurricane Chris, Jibbs, Mims, et al). Like I said: you got house music, and then you got Eric Prydz and Bootyluv.
If you like it though - more power to ya. I just don't think you can try and explain away why someone wouldn't like it the way you just did.
Last edited:
UFO over easy
online mahjong
nothing weird about it, I just thought it was interesting in connection to the discussion people were having
Gavin
booty bass intellectual
Yes! His "Throw Some D's" remix is clever as well.
N
nomadologist
Guest
Ok. Let's assume for a minute you're right and I'm overanalysing--it does seem that you like a lot of other straight up pop-rap. In this case, your not liking Soulja Boy has nothing to do with hip-hop as an ethos and the "loss" of hip-hop's former greatness and holiness: many would say T.I. and the other artists you cite as decent in the "pop" vein) is just as responsible for this as Soulja Boy. Not liking Crank Day Soulja Boy is simply a matter of aesthetic preference on a basic, abstract sonic level.
You don't like the sound of the song. It's not to your taste. That's fine. Just don't toss in the righteous language about how anyone with any taste whatsoever knows that this song is "garbage". Pop by definition is disposable, ephemeral, and decadent. Deal with it. Soulja Boy is not corroding the soul of pop music. There's no way he possibly could, it's never had one. And it's by no means universally acknowledged that Crank Dat isn't catchy and has no merit by pop standards. On the contrary many people would say it manifests everything that is great or typical about pop music.
Last edited:
UFO over easy
online mahjong
I've had it in my head for four days.. it's catchy for sure.
ouch.
oh its catchy. but its still shit. its *transparently* contrived and calculated and intelligence-insultingly so, neither quality of which i would say is great or typical about great pop music.
UFO over easy
online mahjong
I'd rather pop was transparently contrived than have to put up with some pathetic attempt at doing it all covertly..
mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
From this forum I kinda got a small grasp on what you like so I can see what yer saying, but most pop music is totally contrived and calculated, the KLF being the best example I can think of immediately.
I'd really like to zoom into the future and see whether Crank Dat ends up as a 'ring o ring o roses' for future generations or whether it just withers, I've got a suspicion it's now in playgrounds for evermore, which, if so, is quite a feat, a mind-blowing acheivement actually. A hiphop 'Clapping Song'. Speaking of which, I love this
hint
party record with a siren
of course most pop is contrived but when its good, that contrivance becomes negligible or invisible.
i know this is dissensus but people saying that pop has no soul or that theyd rather it was explicitly and openly contrived is depressingly cynical.
theres plenty of better clapping songs for hip hop, ones which actually emanate pure unmitigated joy much better than crank that imo. those songs - rob base's it takes two, for one - are much more true to the spirit of 'pop' than the likes of fucking crank that.
mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
"I wanna rock right now, I'm Rob Base and I came to get down, I'm not internationally known, but I'm known to rock the microphone, cos I get stupid, I mean outrageous"
no-on ever knows the words beyond 'outrageous', if they get that far. it's great but it's got too many syllables for 5 year olds.
Last edited:
mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
and I wasn't saying that if that's referring to my post.
Gavin
booty bass intellectual
Yup! Just realizing this is hitting the charts across the pond -- this song was the biggest thing all summer and fall, wonder what it'll be like there. I've seen kids as young as 5 doing the dance; I saw a teenager roll up in a car along side a school, open all the windows in the car, and blast the song at full volume while dancing in the street. The lyrics have a way of looping around in your head -- something about the rhythm and the rhyme (I always get "I'm Jocking On Yo Bitch Ass / And If We Get The Fightin / Then I'm Cocking On Your Bitch Ass" looping for days).
It is interesting that something so "dark" sounding -- only those orchestra hits really lighten/cheesify the beat at all -- could be so big with youngins, but maybe that's how we living in '07/08. I thought it was about selling drugs when I first heard it.
Gavin
booty bass intellectual
Sloane, you are spot on with the DUMBness of this stuff... part of what makes it so great.. More awesome dumbness from Soulja Boy, sure to make teenagers incrementally more annoying for the coming months:
<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value=""></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>
<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value=""></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>
S
simon silverdollar
Guest
although it's kind of cool that kids in playgrounds are dancing to this, isn't it a pretty desperate state of affairs where that makes for an interesting pop phenomenon? i mean, kids danced in playgrounds to 'agadoo' and 'let's do the timewarp' back in the day, but it's still shit innit?
Point taken. To make my position clear then, I think that this song most certainly fails as being good southern hip hop. I will agree that it has succeeded as being a great retarded pop song that has indeed penetrated the minds of playgrounds all across the world, but this still doesn't make me like it.
N
nomadologist
Guest
That dance is much harder than it looks, too. I was in Albany and a whole bar full of people were trying desperately to do it, mostly just gave up and did that "jackin on you" fake punching.