Get Crackin', Get Get Crackin': or, How I Rediscovered The Beat
In the beginning, there was Punk. (Ok, it wasn't the beginning, but it is for this story.) Punk came along because Rock had become fat and lazy. But it didn't last - The Sex Pistols imploded and Blondie hit the big time. There was some nifty Post-Punk stuff going on, but it got all a bit icky as the 80s progressed. Guitar-ish music hit a funk and was taken over by the fun-lovin' 80s pop charts. But, huzzah! - there was this new-fangled music they called Rap, or The Hip-Hop. And it was good. And there was Grunge and, following the demise of The One They Called Kurt Cobain, Britpop. They were good, too, but short-lived and everything after it became a sad copy of stolen sounds. In the States, Rock bands were increasingly bloated versions of Nirvana and Pearl Jam until they eventually became Staind and Nickleback. In the UK, S Club Seven and Atomic Kitten took over and anyone with a guitar went into hiding.
But there was still Hip-Hop, so teenagers with ears still had something great to listen to. There was Missy Elliot, and The Fugees (for a little while), and Busta Rhymes, and Outkast, and Mos Def, and the Wu-Tang Clan, and The Roots. Most of those guys are still around, but now they're considered some sort of Alternative Hip-Hop. They used to be Top 40.
There seems to be some sort of see-saw thing that goes on with Rock and Hip-Hop. For the first time since Britpop fizzled out, Rock is interesting again - and, whether you're fans or not, we have The Strokes and The White Stripes to thank for it. But while Rock is up, Hip-Hop is down - in a major way. (I'm speaking of Popular/Chart music here. I know there's always good underground stuff to be found, in any genre.) Who exactly is going to save Popular Hip-Hop now? 50 Cent? The Game? Even Eminem is getting tired. And don't even get me started on The Black Eyed Peas.
Hip-Hop all sounds the same now, and it's all ass. There was once a time when it was good to sound different.
“Nowadays everybody tries to copy what the hot style is. There are guys out there that are like Frankensteins, this kind of ghoulish pastiche of Jay-Z and Biggie and Nas and whoever else they feel they need to sound like to get paid,” said writer/historian Brian Coleman. “In the ’80s you’d get laughed off the stage for copying someone else’s style. That was considered heresy.”
(qtd. in "Remembering The Golden Age Of Hip-Hop")
Personally, I blame Ja Rule. He started the whole skinny-R&B-singer-chorus thing, and now it's all anyone does, song after song after song.
I stopped listening to Hip-Hop after The Strokes and The White Stripes changed everything, but not because I stopped liking it. It stopped being good.
But I've rediscovered The Beat. Everybody's already blogged their asses off about this, but we should all have copies of both Dizzee Rascal albums, and of M.I.A.'s Arular (which got robbed at the Mercury Awards).
And it's not just hip-hop beats that are blasting out of my stereo right now. You should all go pick up the Cut Copy's Bright Like Neon Love - it's like the 80s, only better. And I was lucky enough to get a copy of The Infadels' We Are Not The Infadels a few weeks ago, and I've been playing in non-stop ever since. It was officially released this week - if you know what's good for you, you'll go out right now and get yourself a copy. The Infadels do funk-punk not unlike The Rapture and LCD Soundsystem, but with a lot more punch and more consistent quality. (I love about half of both The Rapture's and LCD Soundsystem's efforts, but get a little bored with the other halves.) If you don't believe me, check out "Love Like Semtex" and "Topboy", two songs that are already on my Best Of 2006 list.
I sure did miss The Beat.
posted by Bean at 9:06 PM
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