Seriously, would you accept anything less from a fan of Jurassic Park who has a crappy sense of humor?

Seriously, would you accept anything less from a fan of Jurassic Park who has a crappy sense of humor?

That's Not A Song^TM

An amazing poem and song.

@Mara Well for the most part rap isn't, but it still pops up in here every once in a while. And just to live up to my username…

@Otaku95 Tips Fedora I, too, am an intellectual that REFUSES rap as a medium. What plebian society would call such noise music?
I could not fathom such droll ever being as melodic as the classical tones of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert! The lack of any real substance could only be equated to such pitiful composers in the likes of the modernists such as Ligeti or Crumb. These so-called "musicians" which produce rap simply lack a fundamental understanding of nuance in their approach to composition.

@Scrub Mage Don't get me wrong, I still listen to it, but 97% of the rap I listen to has been in movies or video games I enjoy. Examples:

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But a rap hook can ruin a perfectly good song too.

Fought Darkeater Midir for 2 hours recently, so....

@Otaku95Yeah, don't get me wrong though either, I'm not just trying to be a RUDE BOI and argue with you, but I would've made that same exact comment a little over a year ago, and that version of me was missing out on a ton of good tunes because of that. What's written below is a mini rant (that could, in all honesty, be much more interesting/valuable if I took my time with it) that's pretty much an overreaction to what was clearly a joke. Really, I wrote this whole thing for myself as a sort-of refining of some ideas I have, so feel free to ignore it, especially because I'm not actually a huge music buff. Anyways, because I'm @ing you, I'll start this out with something aimed at you in particular, then I'll turn my rant into something more broad as if I were writing a really half-hearted essay for a music class or something similar:

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Everything I'm trying to say below is, perhaps, better explained in this video by Andrew Huang, so I'll open up with it:

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But a rap hook can ruin a perfectly good song too.

Well, you can say that about anything really. A Bebop lick can really make a piece sparkle, but it can also take away from the music if it's done poorly, or if it doesn't fit with the tone. Blues licks are the same. Hell, you can say the same thing about instruments, or even lyrics. But that's looking at it through a rather negative lens. Instead, why not focus on how it can improve a song? Consider this: Rappers themselves are instruments, and an instrument is only as good as the context surrounding it. Compare the following:




and




There's also this song, which would otherwise feel very generic if not for the rappers on top of it:

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While I've (thankfully) never had to have an argument about Free Jazz with someone, I've heard second-hand accounts from friends much more involved in the topic than myself about how there are some circles which refuse to acknowledge it as a legitimate genre. This infuriates me to no end, because Free Jazz is some of my favorite music. Of course, that's just my musical preference, which is wholly a subjective thing. But, that being said, there's a difference between musical preference and music. For example, I find Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker suite to be really boring, but that doesn't mean that it's not music.


I seriously cannot express how much I hate Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, but I (unfortunately) cannot refute that it's music just because of that. While I think it's evidence that Tchaikovsky was a huge sellout, there are plenty of people who see things I can't in it, and I can come to tolerate it when I have those reasons explained. This, I would equate to the statement of "Rap isn't music" in that what is intended is not a total swearing off of the whole musical concept, but rather, a glaring disinterest in mediocrity which makes itself known in every genre of every thing.



These two pieces, in stark contrast to Tchaikovsky's droll, challenge plenty of musical ideas established by older generations. And, even then, these are relatively tame to us who live in a world where music was built upon the combined legacy of those who chose to push the fold in these ways. Rap, and any genre of music for that matter, is simply another stepping stone forward along the path of cultural growth, and for that reason alone, cannot simply be discarded as not being music. Like these two examples, Rap began as a challenging of contemporary cultural values, and has now become a contemporary medium which will, inevitably, be challenged, which I think is solidifying its importance as music.

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These are some of my favorite compositions, but I'm always hesitant to show them to others out of a fear that they'll say things like "this isn't music" (but, in truth, that's because I'm seeing a former aspect of myself reflected back at me which I loathe). But as culture advances forward, music changes as ideas become more complex. It's a lot like language (there's a huge sub-talk here about Music as language that I'd love to delve into, but I'll hold off on that). The point I'm making here is that the idea of "this isn't music" is a very outdated mindset that clings to the traditions of art. There's a great book by Leon Trotsky about the role of art in revolution (here's a link if you're interested), and even if you don't share similar political views with Trotsky, there's an important thing that can be taken away from it: So long as society clings to the traditional way of defining art, it will stagnate. (That's a horrible way of paraphrasing, but I can't come up with anything else super quickly.) Now, that's really strongly worded to my own personal biases, but the point I'm trying to make is that once you open up to other forms of art, particularly the "newer" things which might at first be offensive to the eardrums/eyeholes, you can begin to appreciate them for what they're trying to express, and that just opens up this whole new realm of possibilities. It's important to seek out these new, interesting attempts at expression instead of just letting them come to you, otherwise you'll only wind up with things which speak broad truths instead of personal ones, which can really turn one off from otherwise interesting mediums. It might also be worth while to appreciate the bad music, so that the good music is even better. I took a couple of Creative Writing classes with the same teacher last year, and as critique was a huge part of those classes, I had to read a piece she selected which discussed the love of critique. I can't remember the whole thing, or even its author, but I will paraphrase the main idea here: "Critique is an act of love. Instead of simply discarding something because you don't like it, one should instead focus on what the piece itself is attempting to do, and evaluate it based on whether or not it is doing that well." Now, I understand this doesn't apply so well to casual music listening, but it can really open up one's mind to things they might not have otherwise appreciated. Just a little over a year ago, I wasn't really fond of Hip-Hop as a whole, but I came to really appreciate it when I began to listen to it in different ways. To really drive in this point, I give you this quote:

To ears conditioned to traditional jazz, or traditional music of any kind, this music is chaos. To ears that can listen in other ways, it is a fascinating and exciting collage, rich in detail, that changes with each hearing, depending on which instrument or instruments one listens to most closely.

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As a closing note, I'd like to introduce you (if you are not already acquainted) with what is, perhaps, one of the things which led me to my own personal reformation of how I evaluate music, Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica:


It's... well, it's something. It's certainly not an easy listen. And yet, this piece of music went on to have a huge influence on music. Seriously, there's just so much to list. Here, just take a link to the Wikipedia page which goes more in-depth than I'd like to right now. There are so many musical concepts happening here that are really impressive, but they don't sound it at first. It's a huge experiment, and it's worth a study in-and-of-itself. To be perfectly honest with you, it's grown on me. It's not an album I listen to every day (for obvious reasons), but it's something which I can rely on to help me get into a creative mood. I'd recommend it to anyone, full well knowing the consequences, based solely on the fact that it challenged a lot of the presuppositions I had about music. It takes the bounds, and operates within them, but stretches them into a shape that's hardly recognizable. It's downright fascinating.