Alphecca

It's poetry, not music. Really obnoxious poetry disguised as music, but poetry nevertheless. :D

Back in the early 50s the beatniks used to do poetry to the accompaniment of bongo drums. Amazingly, no record company seemed to pick up on it, possibly because it was just as bad as todays rap, alebiet, at lower volume levels.
Now that I mention it, I think there was some of that done, poetry to the accompaniment of a snare drum and string bass. Better poetry, though.

Jeff, Imagine your folks reactions if it had been show tunes! (SORRY, couldn't resist the joke).

Technically RAP is music, having rythm, etc, though in general I share your dislike of the genre. I have heard some rap and hip-hop that I like, but definitly not the violent stuff you hear about in the hysterical, if occasionally justified, rantings of the commentariat.

I like to browse in the local Barnes and Noble, they play less abrazive stuff, both old and new, tending to instrumentals, jazz, etc. I do not know if they go by a corporate play list or how much leeway individual stores have. This may be due to the fact they cater to readers, who tend to be more introverted and contemplative than your typical adolescent and young adult music buyer.

I will buy stuff at B&N, but I will also buy online if I already know what I want. Pretty much anything by Clapton, Glass, Fleck or the remnants of The Who, Led Zep. or Pink Floyd will part me from some dollars before I hear it, if I see it.

I havn't tried downloading, I hate the DRM restrictions.

Imagine what your parents must have thought about Elvis or The Beatles. "You call that music? What's with that steady repetitive banging sound? Is that horrible screech supposed to be a guitar? You call that singing? My God, they're SHAKING THEIR HIPS!"

Having said that, 99% of hip hop contains the stupidest and most immature lyrics I've ever heard. I mean, we're talking mega, mega-dumb. And there's nothing more jarring and out of place than some stupid white teenagers driving through the Green Mountain state blasting hip hop from giant subwoofers, like they're all "gangsta." Yeah. Really adds to that New England charm.

Of course, I remember putting in an advanced, high-power -*ahem*- Craig 8-Track in my first car and blasting Black Sabbath as my friends and I drove round and round the high school...

yup. In the car and at home, I had an 8-track, and then cassettes, now I have CD's. USB connections are starting to show up, so I can use the little 2GB flash memory whatever I have that is the size of my little finger.

But we went around blaring LZ, Boston and, of course, BRUUUUUCE!. All from a factory lifted Ford F250.

Hey, it's joisey. Noisey Joisey.

Sounds like my feelings; I usually go to Randy's Recordsm here in SLC; they have a huge selection of used cd's tapes, and vinyl. Some of my favorite stuff never came out on cd, so I have to keep the old vinyl, such as old Tim Weisberg albums, and It's A Beautiful Day's third album, if you remember it...

I must beg to differ, only in that I'd say the vast majority of hip-hop and rap is talentless noise. (To be fair, I also think most of every other genre is crap, ala Sturgeon's Law.)

The ubiquitously useful Beastie Boys can play instruments and create songs and melody, for instance. And while rap/hip-hop is not about singing, there are people with significant vocal skill as well.

I'm a bit older than most of you, so I remember getting --it from my parents for listening to that "n-word music" - early doo-wop and such... but it still sounds good to me, although now I notice how repetitive most of it was.

But my opinion of today's stuff is best expressed by a quote from some unknown person: "That "music" with the silent "C".

email is human readable - aloud

Rap is yet another entrant in the well established "My parents are dicks" genre. The problem is, most rappers have even less musical talent (in many cases, none at all) than their predecessors. Instead of musicians, they hire DJs to sample and mix. Not only are they incapable of musical invention, but the gangsta rappers simply recycle the same misogynist, xenophobic, racist lyrics. The rappers who aren't gangstas recycle the same booty lyrics.

On the other hand, I have to give them credit for realizing that if all you want to do is annoy people, you don't even need to pretend to have musical talent. They've reduced the form to synchronized shouting.

And that's the way (uh huh, uh huh) I like it, I like it...

Sir, you're old and cranky. You knew that.

Can you please rant on kid's clothing next? Saggy jeans, backwards hats, etc.

If you really want to go berserk, have a couple of kids; who listen to thier music (instead of the real music that I like) and wear stupid looking clothes (instead of proper clothes like I wear).