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Criticisms of rap

  • The lyrics
    • Lack of substantial / sophisticated messages in the lyrics.
      • Keith Richards (of The Rolling Stones) - "So many words, so little said." (Source)
    • Lack of variety in the messages / topics of songs.
      • Keith Richards (of The Rolling Stones) - "So many words, so little said." (Source)
  • The accompaniment
    • Lack of sophistication in the melodies

      • Keith Richards (of The Rolling Stones) - "What rap did that was impressive was to show there are so many tone-deaf people out there. All they need is a drum beat and somebody yelling over it and they’re happy. There’s an enormous market for people who can’t tell one note from another." (Source)

Why are rap lyrics so heavily focused on the tough-guy image? Why isn't there a Marvin Gaye of rap?
  • Here's my guess
    1. Rap depends heavily on the ability to rhyme words and convey information in the smallest number of words possible.
    2. Because rap is similar to singing except without the melody, it seems to not be as good at conveying 
    3. Young black (poor?) culture also seems to have become somewhat / somehow dominated by a tough-guy culture, and a lot of artists seem to come out of the poorer segment of society (e.g. Jay-Z, Biggie, Eminem).
      1. The more-middle-class / higher-educated rappers I can think of off the top of my head (Ludacris, Drake, Kanye) also seem to veer away from the more-violent / drug-related rapping.
    4. The poorer accent and grammar simplifies the pronunciation and grammar and changes the sounds of many words in such a way that words and phrases that would normally not rhyme do rhyme.
      1. Example: Biggie rhymes "picture" with "get you" on "Warning" → "pick-cha" and "get-cha"
      2. Because the ubpringing of other cultures focuses heavily on pronouncing words "properly" and using "proper" grammar, it may not be as easy for people of those cultures to sound "natural" while bending words the way rappers do.
        1. It's not impossible, and it's getting easier as the pronunciation and grammar that shows up in rap becomes more popular among non-black groups, but it also seems to be not as easy.
        2. Asher Roth's "I Love College" actually shows some interesting ways that white rappers can bend words and not sound like they're pretending to be something they're not: "I am champion, at beer pong / Allen Iverson, Hakeem Olajuwon"
      3. Counter-argument: Is Tupac really articulating his words less than Marvin Gaye?
    5. Internal rhyming sounds became dominant in the mid-80s and all through the 90s.
    6. Teen guys were drawn to buy rap records that made them feel pumped up / excited and powerful, and conveyed an image of being a tough guy.
    7. Rules for what was acceptable to play on the radio became more relaxed.
Criticisms of pop music more-generally
  • 2017.08.05 - YouTube - Thoughty2 - Why Is Modern Pop Music So Terrible?
    • Rough summary based on my memory:
      • He begins by talking about how experimental "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" is.
      • Timbre variety has been dropping. "Most music today is created with the same combination of a keyboard, drum machine, sampler, and computer software." (Based on a study by the Spanish National Research Council.)
      • TODO: Finish summarizing this video. I was at around 4:20. All the stuff below is from my memory, while the stuff above is based on writing stuff down as I go through the video.
      • Louder music tends to do better (is perceived as better?) and so there's a "loudness war". But because music often gets normalized to the same maximum volume (when played on the radio?), musicians are making their music seem louder by raising the volume of the quieter parts of their song, reducing the "dynamic range". But this is like trying to make an image bigger than it originally was, in that the new louder / larger version is clearly lacking detail, and so it looks / sounds worse.
      • Two guys have written "the overwhelming majority" of pop songs over the past ~20 years.
      • Producers are relying more on familiarity to get you to like the music, and so they arrange to have it playing on all the radios, in all the shopping centers, in all the movies, etc.

Books

  • Books that are neither a 'how-to' for writing lyrics nor about analyzing certain songs' lyrics (I have those books listed on the pages for those activities):


Courses


Articles


Tools


Terms

  • punching - A technique used when recording a track where the rapper will start rapping part-way through the song, and then multiple recordings of them rapping will be stitched into a single track. This allows the rapper to correct mistakes more quickly. It's criticized by some people because it seems to make it possible to record raps that the rapper isn't actually able to perform live, because there's not enough gaps in the rap for the performer to breathe or because it's simply too difficult to get through the song without making mistakes.

Good Amateur / Underground Rappers

  • Andrew hartman - Good flows, but half-nonsensical lyrical myricals, and they're trying to use a persona that doesn't fit with their likely upbringing.
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