"Cocaine Rap" Sasha Frere-Jones hilarious delusion

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nomadologist

Guest
dammit, "hate" is so simple and says so much. of course it's gone. i'll write for it if someone else makes it magically appear. i'll even proof and edit what i write. hahahahha. (maybe.)
 
N

nomadologist

Guest
i'm trying to think of somethign like "hateparade" (which rhymes with hatorade, unfortunately) that sounds meaner
 
N

nomadologist

Guest
i've been to that. there's one in hamburg too. or something like it. i like that one better. it's even campier if you can imagine
 
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nomadologist

Guest
i hope sloane has almost finished this blog template by now, the hate needs to start raining down
 
N

nomadologist

Guest
well the hateparade thing may have been, the fuckparade is just like NYC's gay pride
 
N

nomadologist

Guest
i like the alliteration (i meant assonance, k?) in blatanthate
 
Guybrush

Guybrush

Dittohead
nomadologist said:
Guybrush, I'm surprised you don't like it, since you seem to have an ear for really "hot" r&B/hip-hop production. Being Swedish, do you catch many of the lyrics?
Click to expand...

Oh boy, I could write a (shitty) book about this.

Let’s begin with the language issue, or, the ‘language barrier’, if you like. I believe that, no matter how good you get at comprehending a foreign language, its words are never going to resonate as strongly with you as does the corresponding words in your mother tongue. Thus, ‘love’ merely is an abstraction to me, even though I’m perfectly aware of all its nuances, while the Swedish equivalent, ‘kärlek’, evokes a very visceral sensation. You can think of it as a fine-meshed filter, which transmits the meaning of the words, but shields you from feeling them—not entirely, but very palpably. My filter has an additional mode, only available in English, which shuts out even the meaning of the words, leaving only the sound of them for my ear-buds to digest. I believe almost every non-native English speaker has a similar filter, and this, I think, is one reason for continental Europe’s unheeding love for eurodisco songs with heinous (hilarious!) lyrics. Further adding to this disparity in emotional power is the ubiquity of the English language contra the modest prevalence of most indigenous European languages (the Nordic languages [minus Finnish and Icelandic] lumped together share about twenty million speakers, for example). The practical effect of this condition often is that the English words get watered down, while the corresponding local words retain their emotional effect. (There was a Swedish version of 50 Cent’s ‘In da Club’—the lyrics being a verbatim translation of the original song’s lyrics—which sounded mightily offensive, almost sickening [partly because it was sung by a white whippersnapper, but still].)

What has this to do with rap lyrics, you ask? Well, if you on top of this add the cultural differences leading to a lot of references passing us by, limited English skills leading to a lot of words passing us by, limited experience with slang leading to a lot of local colour passing us by, thick accents, again, leading to a lot of words passing us by, and so forth, it should come as no surprise that most Europeans care more about the beats, and the songs’ energy, than the lyrics. (Dizzee Rascal is an even better example; I would wager that my friends who like him [quite a few], like him almost exclusively out of how he sounds: the beats, the textures, his timbre, the energy he conveys, etc.)

So, yes, I do understand the lyrics most of the time, but I don’t feel them, and—as I outlined above—the difference is not insignificant.

I guess the natural conclusion to this argument is that I should refrain from commenting on hip-hop songs, as the lyrics are essential to the whole, and I do—most of the time.

Ugh... more on this tomorrow. I hope I haven’t bored you to death.
 
M

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
Guybrush said:
Oh boy, I could write a (shitty) book about this.

Let’s begin with the language issue, or, the ‘language barrier’, if you like. I believe that, no matter how good you get at comprehending a foreign language, its words are never going to resonate as strongly with you as does the corresponding words in your mother tongue. Thus, ‘love’ merely is an abstraction to me, even though I’m perfectly aware of all its nuances, while the Swedish equivalent, ‘kärlek’, evokes a very visceral sensation. You can think of it as a fine-meshed filter, which transmits the meaning of the words, but shields you from feeling them—not entirely, but very palpably. My filter has an additional mode, only available in English, which shuts out even the meaning of the words, leaving only the sound of them for my ear-buds to digest. I believe almost every non-native English speaker has a similar filter, and this, I think, is one reason for continental Europe’s unheeding love for eurodisco songs with heinous (hilarious!) lyrics. Further adding to this disparity in emotional power is the ubiquity of the English language contra the modest prevalence of most indigenous European languages (the Nordic languages [minus Finnish and Icelandic] lumped together share about twenty million speakers, for example). The practical effect of this condition often is that the English words get watered down, while the corresponding local words retain their emotional effect. (There was a Swedish version of 50 Cent’s ‘In da Club’—the lyrics being a verbatim translation of the original song’s lyrics—which sounded mightily offensive, almost sickening [partly because it was sung by a white whippersnapper, but still].)

What has this to do with rap lyrics, you ask? Well, if you on top of this add the cultural differences leading to a lot of references passing us by, limited English skills leading to a lot of words passing us by, limited experience with slang leading to a lot of local colour passing us by, thick accents, again, leading to a lot of words passing us by, and so forth, it should come as no surprise that most Europeans care more about the beats, and the songs’ energy, than the lyrics. (Dizzee Rascal is an even better example; I would wager that my friends who like him [quite a few], like him almost exclusively out of how he sounds: the beats, the textures, his timbre, the energy he conveys, etc.)

So, yes, I do understand the lyrics most of the time, but I don’t feel them, and—as I outlined above—the difference is not insignificant.

I guess the natural conclusion to this argument is that I should refrain from commenting on hip-hop songs, as the lyrics are essential to the whole, and I do—most of the time.

Ugh... more on this tomorrow. I hope I haven’t bored you to death.
Click to expand...

Not at all from my perspective anyway, I've never read anyone writing about this, very interesting, and shouldn't at all stop you from commenting, at all.
 
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