This album from 90>>> almost anything today

[L.Kizzle]

I do remember buying a Digital Underground mixtape in Augusta georgia in the early 90s....it was around the time Humpty Dance came out. I didnt get it for that but dude who was selling it had some song playing I did like.

Shit was garbage. I only remember because I let my cousin in Augusta keep it when we left.

It wasnt a "real" album but some dj tape on digital underground...which was fairly common at the time.

It couldn't have been Sex Packets or Son of the P because those albums are DOPE!

[ThePhantomCreep]

Gentrification killed the rap star.

[andgar923]

Not really. You could pick the best albums of any time period and its better than damn near everything from any other era....because most music is crap in any era.

My people and I have been known to throw out a Once Upon A Time in the Projects reference here and there. I have nothing negative to say about the album or pre "You can do it" cube in general.

Im just saying....

Freddie Gibbs has mixtapes better than 95% of what I bought at the flea market and in stores 20 years ago.

Lot of garbage ass early 90s releases were in my collection at one point. I had Phantom of the Rapra....

Most music is crap from every era, and every era has good and bad artists... nobody is gonna deny that.

But

The popular artists form the past>>> most of today's
The shitty artists from the past>>> most of the shitty artists from today's era
The dope artists from the past>>> most of the best artists from today

You mentioned Digital Undergound.... them>>> most rap acts today. Humpty Dance (song) is better than damn near every song of its ilk of the past decade.

Back to my main point.

The skills from past artists>>> damn near every artists today.

To be blunt, hip hop has declined in terms of the skill level. Most rappers today concentrate on punchlines and one liners. They usually leave out rhyming, flow, stamina, and writing a song as a whole.

I sit here and listen to Drake, and there's no comparison between Drake and the Cube record I posted. And Drake is considered one of the best rappers in general. And that's not even Cube's best album, he still had that old school 80s rhyming pattern from time to time, yet it's still a bit more complex than the simple rhyme schemes most rappers use today (specially Southern rappers).

This topic aint new and I've demolished any argument. Post today's top selling/top radio plays/ top street bangers and I'll compare them with the same one's from the same month from just about any year from the 90s and the 90s will destroy today's 8/10 times.

Shall we start the game? pick any month from the past decade and post the top hip hop track and I'll counter.

I've stated this a few times and i said it as a joke, but then realized that I was actually on point. But PM Dawn over most of today's rappers..... including Drake. Better flow, better rhyming, better lyrics, better stamina (control) etc.etc.

[Maniak]

All these people taking shots at me are going to look kind of stupid when I blow up.

[Akrazotile]

One would think that as time went on rapping as an art evolved and technology made production superior.

I wouldn't think that.

Technology is typically the antithesis of art. Art is human creation. Robots and machines can't mimic the individual elements of emotion, inflection, passion, etc. that an individual singing or playing an instrument can.

That's why you see fewer and fewer instruments on a stage during a concert these days. Nobody wants to take the time to learn harmonica or saxophone or fiddle etc. All these wannabe-rockstars just learn to press little buttons on a machine that make noise, and they come up with gimmicky twitter names and absurd outfits and yell out things like 'DJ Scooby dooby doo IN THE HOUSE YALL, put yo hands 2 gethaaaa", and think they're teh d0pest rockstarz.

That's why music sucks now.

[Dresta]

All these people taking shots at me are going to look kind of stupid when I blow up.

[andgar923]

I wouldn't think that.

Technology is typically the antithesis of art. Art is human creation. Robots and machines can't mimic the individual elements of emotion, inflection, passion, etc. that an individual singing or playing an instrument can.

That's why you see fewer and fewer instruments on a stage during a concert these days. Nobody wants to take the time to learn harmonica or saxophone or fiddle etc. All these wannabe-rockstars just learn to press little buttons on a machine that make noise, and they come up with gimmicky twitter names and absurd outfits and yell out things like 'DJ Scooby dooby doo IN THE HOUSE YALL, put yo hands 2 gethaaaa", and think they're teh d0pest rockstarz.

That's why music sucks now.

I agree to some degree.

But we saw hip hop as an art form progress and evolve. We saw styles improve and change, we saw lyrics become more complex and poetic, we saw production get taken to new levels of both sampling and from scratch.

Compare the 70s, 80s and 90s and you clearly see how it evolves.

Today there's little evidence of the art advancing. A vast majority is actually stale and declining. I love music and I want to love rap like I used to, but it doesn't leave me a choice but to just be a casual fan and not a hip hop head.

[Dresta]

Art forms reach their peak and then generally decline, it's the way it is. They start out with connoisseurs being the only people taking an interest, but once it gains popularity you get all the pretenders and pseuds piling in, to the point where it becomes difficult to separate the wheat from the masses of chaff.

[Jameerthefear]

Art forms reach their peak and then generally decline, it's the way it is. They start out with connoisseurs being the only people taking an interest, but once it gains popularity you get all the pretenders and pseuds piling in, to the point where it becomes difficult to separate the wheat from the masses of chaff.

Quiet old man. This generation does everything better then the last. Music is better now then it EVER was.

[L.Kizzle]

I agree to some degree.

But we saw hip hop as an art form progress and evolve. We saw styles improve and change, we saw lyrics become more complex and poetic, we saw production get taken to new levels of both sampling and from scratch.

Compare the 70s, 80s and 90s and you clearly see how it evolves.

Today there's little evidence of the art advancing. A vast majority is actually stale and declining. I love music and I want to love rap like I used to, but it doesn't leave me a choice but to just be a casual fan and not a hip hop head.

New creations for music by use of technology should be used to help and advance, instead it's being used for an easy way out.


Think of when these news sounds and equipment were coming out in the 70s and 80s, they were used as say, extras not to dominate a whole release.


The use of drum machines in the early 70s were used basically as a click track in the background with live drums still being played. Every once in a while, it'll be used throughout a whole song. Take Timmy Thomas's 1972 hit "Why Can't We Live Together." Timmy Thomas: Why Can't We Live Together


New synthesizers like the mini-moog, the TONTO, synclavier, Yamaha DX7, Prophet, ect were used, but were used along with live instruments.


No newer keyboards like the Nord and others are used to just get sounds. You can create a whole album from a keyboard. In the 80's, you would just use a keyboard or just that, different keyboard sounds. Occasionally a drum machine was used. Usually the LINN Drum or the TR-808, if not live drums. You always needed a guitarist. And bass guitar was still used. You'd get a synth bass or moog bass often too. And a horn section and orchestration always live.


Now, the parts are being played on a keyboard. Piano, guitar parts, bass parts, drums sounds, ect all played from a keyboard. Basically, you don't even have to know music theory to make a track these days.

[The-Legend-24]

Dustheads stay WOAT.

[Akrazotile]

Today there's little evidence of the art advancing. A vast majority is actually stale and declining. I love music and I want to love rap like I used to, but it doesn't leave me a choice but to just be a casual fan and not a hip hop head.

Well, once upon a time the music industry actually scouted for talent, and then promoted talent to the public. This was in the time before piracy.

With the advent of piracy, pure music became far less profitable. Marketing and gimmicks became a much stronger requisite to making a profit. The mainstream doesn't promote talent anymore, they promote controversy, contrived characters, wardrobe malfunctions, etc. to promote to goobers like B-Low who tune into anything mindless and outrageous, or they just promote handsome models masquerading as singers in order to sell music to the last demographic who actually still pays money for it, tween girls.

Even good underground music is harder to find because new acts take influence from what they were exposed to as youths. More of todays youth are exposed to junk, more of them mimic it when they pursue music.

It's no coincidence that music fell off hard right around the Napster era. Obviously there are some exceptions but the general pattern is clear. There is no reason to promote artists anymore. The only thing worth promoting, from a financial standpoint, is outrage.

[Akrazotile]

New creations for music by use of technology should be used to help and advance, instead it's being used for an easy way out.


Think of when these news sounds and equipment were coming out in the 70s and 80s, they were used as say, extras not to dominate a whole release.


The use of drum machines in the early 70s were used basically as a click track in the background with live drums still being played. Every once in a while, it'll be used throughout a whole song. Take Timmy Thomas's 1972 hit "Why Can't We Live Together." Timmy Thomas: Why Can't We Live Together


New synthesizers like the mini-moog, the TONTO, synclavier, Yamaha DX7, Prophet, ect were used, but were used along with live instruments.


No newer keyboards like the Nord and others are used to just get sounds. You can create a whole album from a keyboard. In the 80's, you would just use a keyboard or just that, different keyboard sounds. Occasionally a drum machine was used. Usually the LINN Drum or the TR-808, if not live drums. You always needed a guitarist. And bass guitar was still used. You'd get a synth bass or moog bass often too. And a horn section and orchestration always live.


Now, the parts are being played on a keyboard. Piano, guitar parts, bass parts, drums sounds, ect all played from a keyboard. Basically, you don't even have to know music theory to make a track these days.

I agree with all this. I don't have a problem with synths and drum machines etc. if they're being used to add layers to the music and the focus on melody isn't lost.

But they're basically being used a substitute. It's like instead of making a delicious sandwhich with six slices of turkey and a slice of swiss cheese and some tomato and jalapeno and dash of mayonaisse, they put one slice of turkey on a piece of bread and put half a jar of mayonaisse on top and call it a sandwich.

[andgar923]

Well, once upon a time the music industry actually scouted for talent, and then promoted talent to the public. This was in the time before piracy.

With the advent of piracy, pure music became far less profitable. Marketing and gimmicks became a much stronger requisite to making a profit. The mainstream doesn't promote talent anymore, they promote controversy, contrived characters, wardrobe malfunctions, etc. to promote to goobers like B-Low who tune into anything mindless and outrageous, or they just promote handsome models masquerading as singers in order to sell music to the last demographic who actually still pays money for it, tween girls.

Even good underground music is harder to find because new acts take influence from what they were exposed to as youths. More of todays youth are exposed to junk, more of them mimic it when they pursue music.

[COLOR="Red"]It's no coincidence that music fell off hard right around the Napster era.[/COLOR] Obviously there are some exceptions but the general pattern is clear. There is no reason to promote artists anymore. The only thing worth promoting, from a financial standpoint, is outrage.

That's something that I never thought of.

It just opened up a new door for me. I'd really like to see any correlation and how illegal downloading affected music in general.

Naturally there's always gonna be good artists, great artists get inspired by great artists. But I wonder if there's talented people that just got inspired by the wrong artists as a result of illegal downloading and thus created crappy music.

How so one may ask?

Crappy artists tend to be popular and easily attainable. As radio stations, and video plays fine tune to appease the masse's thirst for subpar music. Aspiring artists will flock to what is readily available. The quality of what's easily attainable is low so they have no option but to be inspired (can also be subconsciously) by mediocrity,

[Akrazotile]

That's something that I never thought of.

It just opened up a new door for me. I'd really like to see any correlation and how illegal downloading affected music in general.

Naturally there's always gonna be good artists, great artists get inspired by great artists. But I wonder if there's talented people that just got inspired by the wrong artists as a result of illegal downloading and thus created crappy music.

How so one may ask?

Crappy artists tend to be popular and easily attainable. As radio stations, and video plays fine tune to appease the masse's thirst for subpar music. Aspiring artists will flock to what is readily available. The quality of what's easily attainable is low so they have no option but to be inspired (can also be subconsciously) by mediocrity,

Yep, back in the early days of music, all the record labels and music publishers etc. just assumed that if music wasn't good, people weren't going to buy it.

Eventually I think they started realizing people will buy anything if you market it to them, and you started to see an infusion of image and thematic trends into music, although quality music was still important. And then eventually, when a huge chunk of the consumer base (young men) stopped buying music altogether because they were downloading it, there was basically no incentive to find and develop quality artists. It had no impact whatsoever on sales. So the strategy was altered to produce...