response 51 of 133:

Nov 7 13:01 UTC 1993

re #42: Power
I find it amusing that you offer as proof of grunge music's ability to
affect it's fans, the fact of all the people wanering Ann Arbor with 
long hair and goatees! Their has been people wandering Ann Arbor with
long hair and goatees since 1965!

response 53 of 133:

Nov 8 02:27 UTC 1993

#50: "Complexity" never came up because I usually don't judge the quality of
     music by how complex it is. I am not sure why you are bringing it up
     now. Dr.Dre will never, ever, ever in a billion years be half as popular
     as the Beatles were. He might have a following in 20 years, but the size
     of that following is debatable and I doubt many teenagers will be fans.
   
     On a related note, what do you think will happen in 100 years? I contend
     that at least some of the Beatles' music will be around in 100 years and
     *none* of Dr.Dre's will be around. Even Zeppelin will be around in
     2093 and possibly the Doors (but maybe not). Dr.Dre is dust in the
     wind, russ..

response 55 of 133:

Nov 9 02:29 UTC 1993

  51:  There have always been people around AA with long hair and goatees,
I know, but its become much more popular in the last couple years--especially
the goatee thing...  I know--I've had the long hair thing for 6 years or
so, now (longer, counting before the time in 7th grade when I cut it :) ),
and it's finally in style!!! :)
  52:  Yep :)... but they'll still have heard of it, just like our generation
has heard of the Village People :)...  Whether or not they laugh is hard to
tell as of yet--I think that it might be tough to laugh at some of the harder
edge of rap :)....
  53:  I still think that Dr. Dre will have some teenagers in his following
in 20 years--or if not Dr. Dre, some of the hard-core rappers (like mta
said, classics sometimes go unnoticed)...  As for 100 years from now, it's
hard to predict, and I don't think I want to claim to make any predictions...
  54:  I'm not familiar enough with Nirvana to cite songs in which Kurt
Cobain talks about his heroin addiction....  I can cite some other non-rap
songs where the singer talks about how great drugs make him feel, though...
All the way back to the Beatles.......... :)

response 57 of 133:

Nov 9 18:28 UTC 1993

  I don't think that music necessarily lasts entirely because of the tune--
if something needs a tune to last, how does one account for the endurance
of poetry?  Wordsworth has been around for more than *100* years, let alone
20--there's no music there!  Who can say whether the same won't be true
of Dr. Dre or Public Enemy or whoever?  Or, for those who feel I'm blaspheming
romantic poets, The Doors are still listened to, at least in part
because they have some most cool lyrics....
  Not all hard rap glorifies drugs or violence either.  Much of it does,
but so does much of hard rock-type stuff.  Rap and hard rock are equally
violent (particularly so in that I am mostly citing fairly mainstream rock
artists, but we are citing rap which tends towards the violent edge).
  I don't find it at all unlikely that the youth of 20 years from now will
still listen to some of today's rap--at least not any less likely than that
I, an 18 year old of 1993, would listen to the Doors, Black Sabbath, Jimi
Hendrix, and so forth.... which I do.

response 59 of 133:

Nov 10 04:53 UTC 1993

  Well, Jemmie, we have somewhat different approaches to music, then.  I
appreciate the musical aspects of a song, but I tend to enjoy (at least
'pop' music) more if the lyrics have some sort of weight to them.....
Which is something I find in hard-core rap, and some of the other stuff
that I like to listen to, and something that I don't find in the radio-rap
mainstream....
  And there is music there, anyway...  Not super complex, but then, a lot
of music we appreciate BECAUSE of its simplicity--like the classical
music you mention :)....  Rap has some tonal music to it, but tends to be
more rhythms'n'stuff... Rhythms isn't exactly what I mean, maybe--I don't
refer as much to the drum/whatever beat but to the rhythm of the voice...
  As for the subject matter of hard-core rap being boring, that is a matter
of perspective.  I find it somewhat interesting.  And apparently a lot of
the people who listen to it also find it somewhat interesting.  I don't
think that you can make a case that this music will not be listened to
in 20 years, just because you don't like it now--tastes obviously differ.

response 61 of 133:

Nov 10 18:11 UTC 1993

#59: Obviously the mass majority of people agree with me. The librettists 
     for the great classical composers are unknown except by the most
     dedicated and, to give a modern day example, no one knows (or cares)
     about who wrote the words for Phantom of the Opera and many people know
     Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote the music. Some people even know some of the
     people who played the parts (Michael Crawford, Sarah Brightman), but
     no one knows who wrote the words. What does that tell you, russ? Perhaps
     even more people know who the head caretaker for the London show was...

     Music is music. If you do not have the notes to please the ear, it
     doesn't matter what the lyrics are. It's as simple as that. Rap simply
     doesn't have the notes. Get a bass beat, some synthesizers and maybe
     a drum beat here and there and you have yourself a rap hit. Is that 
     music? 

response 63 of 133:

Nov 11 00:44 UTC 1993

  Hawkeye:  I agree that folk music and punk don't have an incredible
comeback going, and rap could conceivably fall to the wayside in a similar
way.  However, I find it more likely that it'll stay around for a while.
I see no sign of the social issues that rap addresses (a predominantly
black underclass, the racism remaining in our society) going away.
  I wish I could remember some of the songs on the list for my school's
Prom theme (we don't really have a homecoming theme much)... but I'm sure
some of them were rap.  Not hard rap, admittedly... so not really a very
good argument.  A better argument would be, show me were, for example,
Black Sabbath had a song that was a homecoming theme or an 'our song'
type thing... I doubt there is such an instance... yet, *I* listen to them,
and I'm finding that more and more people have heard of them... (ok, maybe
partly thanks to Beavis and Butthead, but also due to the general rise of
grunge, which is quite similar to Black Sabbath and such music)....

  Jemmie:  The Phantom of the Opera isn't a very good comparison.  I'd
thought that Andrew Lloyd Weber had written the lyrics himself, but, in
any case, this is more of a focus than in rap.  In rap, who really cares
who created the tonal aspects--what you care about is the rhythm and the
words, which are the creation of the rapper.
  And music is in the ear of the beholder...  I think that it is obvious
that rap *IS* music, although you can (as you do) disagree with whether it
is music that you would want to listen to.

  I'm not swearing that any particular rap group will be known in 20 years,
but I *AM* saying that it will be around, to one extent or another....
Peter Paul and Mary are still around, and listened to somewhat by the'
younger generation, and while the Sex Pistols are gone, there's still a
bit of a following...  rap may be like this, or it may be something bigger,
where Fab Five Freddy gets the following that Jim Morrison has now...  One
simply can't say, from the perspective we have now....
  You guys seem to be making a fairly subjective argument, that, since
you, a particular person, don't like rap, that it must be a passing fad, and
that it will be dead soon.  This is similar to someone objecting to
heavy metal's chance of lasting because they don't like it.  And heavy
metal has already been around for 20 years or so......

response 65 of 133:

Nov 11 17:04 UTC 1993

I very strongly disagree with the contention that folk music is a "dead"
genre.  Life in the commercial fast lane is not the only kind of life for
a genre.  Who are all these people who troop into the Ark most every
night?

response 67 of 133:

Nov 11 18:31 UTC 1993

don't tell nanci griffith folk is dead, or a thousand others. what 65 said.

response 69 of 133:

Nov 11 23:29 UTC 1993

Er, Seeger?

response 71 of 133:

Nov 12 10:24 UTC 1993

Nanci Griffith says she does folk, who am I to argue with her? She also says
she does country.
( cite: _Spin_,1/88:))

response 73 of 133:

Nov 12 18:09 UTC 1993

For all those who got in a huff:  I define "folk" as The Weavers, Pete
Seeger, Kingston Trio, early Dylan, et al.  Yes, there is an *audience*,
but the genre has little impact on the Music In{{dustry.  That's
the point being made.