Maybe I just hate like 98% of the music that people pass off as acceptable but it feels like to me, that rap, most of it anyway, passes off the lowest common denominator of creativity.
Lets talk about musical composition for a moment. If you took away the lyrics of your favorite hip hop/rap song, what do you have? Seems to me, in most cases, it's a fairly thin layer of music. A beat, a bassline, and maybe, maybe, a lead.
I come from a genre that gets the MOST flak for being repetitious (that'd be electronic), yet anyone who's serious about music can tell you, hiphop/rap should easily, in most cases, be winning that title day in and day out.
I don't mean to turn this in to a pissing contest between genre's or in to a musical elitism thread, I'm just trying to wrap my head around the kind of people who will come in to this thread and do just that.
of course some people are going to be like "but rap isn't rap without lyrics" and yes, that is true, but again, on a strictly compositional level, before lyrics are even applied, what do you have? seriously.
I spent 3 hours down at the guitar center today in the pro-audio section looking at different peices of gear and it seemed like everyone that came in and walked out with something was an aspiring wannabe rap artist. Even the guys behind the counter fit the stereotype and seemed kind of put off when I mentioned I was in to Electronic Music. (yeah thanks you can put that Korg EMX-1 back, I think i'll order it online)
erg, I understand that sometimes simplicity is all it takes to get people moving, but there are people who are building thier mansions and "bling" on this simplicity and I see far more deserving complex artists go unnoticed trying to make their way on myspace and well. Man, It almost hurts to see that.
I guess it all comes down to a matter of personal opinion here and there in some regards....
eh, then again, people who say lyrics are the bread and butter of rap... I watch this and weep.