sophie
Break My Heart
NSFW: Language (It's hip-hop music, what did you expect?)
Spoiler :
Love and boning. Right.
Do you like bro-country? Does anyone?
- Thread starter jackelgull
- Start date
NSFW: Language (It's hip-hop music, what did you expect?)
Love and boning. Right.
And why not?At least you're honest about it.
I'm a child of the '60s and '70s who grew up listening to my parents' and grandparents' kind of music (country/western and folk and the kind of dance music my grandparents liked in the '40s).
I'm pretty sure that a lot of the music I'm into is probably "just noise" to people here. After all, I love listening to Yanni.
hangman
almost-scientist
Man, I miss when Kanye was more than some idiot on TV. More than half of College Dropout is... the exact opposite of "mostly boning." Same with Talib Kweli and Mos Def. But I guess it makes sense, the stuff on the radio is just what plays in clubs/dancehalls, not necessarily what's most intellectual or even authentic. I mean, what are the chances of hearing bluegrass on some Nashville-style radio station?
Zack
99% hot gas
Are you implying that yeezy isn't still making great music?
sophie
Break My Heart
He still is. Yeezus was a superb album. Possibly his best to date.
As to the other side of things: it's true of literally any genre of music. People sing about what inspires them. What motivates them to express their feelings to an audience. Love, sex, and social interaction is at the heart of the human condition. It's something universal that everybody deals with at some (or most) part(s) of their lives. So it's little surprise that it's going to come up a lot in art of any kind. 99% of Bluegrass is "I lost my love/my woman doesn't care for me, but I have Jesus so it's ok", just as 99% of oldschool country is "I lost my love/my woman doesn't care for me, but I have this bottle so it's ok", just as 49% of blues is "I caught my woman out with another man", and another 50% is "I'm having sex with a woman while her husband is away/my woman's husband caught me in the house and now I have to sneak out the window". What are the big Beatles hits? "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "She Loves You", "Something", "Can't Buy Me Love", "Please Please Me", "Ticket to Ride", "I Feel Fine". A butt-ton of music (the vast vast majority, I'd say) deals with love and boning because it's a hardship the vast vast majority of people have to deal with.
The thing I like most about Hip-hop is that its thematic roots lie in the civil rights movement and the realities of life in poverty/the ghetto. It's a different kind of hardship. I find myself gravitating towards the more socially conscious artists like Tribe Called Quest, Nas, The Wu Tang Clan, Biggie Smalls, 2Pac, Kanye and the like precisely because what they are expressing is something so fundamentally different from what you get in most other genres. And more importantly it's done without the pretension of the Claptons and Lennons of the world.
It's precisely why I don't like so-called "bro-country". It feels cynical. It feels inauthentic. It feels like a boardroom full of writers with a checklist of buzzwords that need to be hit in order to achieve maximum penetration of the pop charts. It's not music, or at least, not the sort of music that is appealing to me. The thing I like and gravitate towards in music is rawness. When you hear Hank Williams or Johnny Cash sing you can hear the sorrow pouring out of every line. You can hear the abject misery and heartbreak in every line of an Etta James or Sam Cooke song. You can hear the decades of hard life Muddy Waters lived through in his slide guitar play. And with guys like Kanye and Nas and Ice Cube you can hear the rage, the disgust, and the outrage for what white society has wrought on the black world. That is power. That is moving. That is interesting.
And it doesn't all have to be sad, of course. I also love the haughty braggadocio of The Wanderer or Built for Comfort or the joyous cheesiness of You Got What I Need. To me it just has to feel like it's coming from a genuine place. It may be that I'm just disdainful of more heavily produced works. But there you go.
Zack
99% hot gas
Well let's not get carried away. It was good, but I still think it's probably his worst album.
Spoiler quick rankings :
sophie
Break My Heart
Putting things into tiers I'd say:
1st Tier (A Joy to Listen to from Beginning to End; album(s) of the decade/generation/ever):
College Dropout
Late Registration
MBDTF
2nd Tier (Like 80% good songs; one or two skips, but the highs points are fantastic)
Yeezus
Graduation
3rd Tier (intriguing concept, but really there are like 3-4 songs I listen to regularly off this album and that's about it)
808s
1st Tier (A Joy to Listen to from Beginning to End; album(s) of the decade/generation/ever):
College Dropout
Late Registration
MBDTF
2nd Tier (Like 80% good songs; one or two skips, but the highs points are fantastic)
Yeezus
Graduation
3rd Tier (intriguing concept, but really there are like 3-4 songs I listen to regularly off this album and that's about it)
808s
Zack
99% hot gas
Beginning to end with no skips? I guess you're not counting the skits then.
sophie
Break My Heart
The skits are actually kind of funny! And in Late Registration they're thematically relevant as the album is about whether it's moral to keep your hood identity when financially and socially you've grown beyond that (and also arguably Kanye never had the hood identity to begin with), so for that album it contributes to the overall quality of the album very much. I mean they're not Wu Tang Clan (and assorted solo albums) quality stuff. But at least they're not 2 minutes of sex noises like you get in Ready to Die or The Chronic.
hangman
almost-scientist
I sort of was, but I'd only really listened to that goofy music video with him and Kim Kardashian on that motorcycle, I forget what it's called. It's more the perception though, it seems like he went from being a legitimate artist to a tabloid target some time circa mid-2000s. Whether or not that's his fault, idk.
And
I need to listen through Yeezus. Even if it's not the best, gothic/industrial is my go-to genre.But yeah... on topic, I guess bro country isn't too bad if I'm not paying attention. It's mostly the steel guitar that really forces me to notice the awfulness of country.
EDIT: Bound 2. I found it!
Farm Boy
I hope you dance
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Hold up for just a minute Owen. So the video of the bro-country song in the OP is idiotic, but I tend to think that of a lot of songs I like. I'm not entirely certain where this genre ends, like I said I don't keep up well, but lets look at it again. I minimized the window so I could just listen to it without the visuals. Still not wild about it but I wouldn't switch the station if it came on in the car. If I was in a good mood I might turn it up.
If somebody doesn't like the vocals or the instrumentation that's fine. That's just taste. It's why I can't stand much of jazz, give me cats fighting in the alleyway, at least they feel real to me.
But this sort of bro-pop-country seems like it would resonate with an audience for good reasons. As mentioned earlier the biggest market for this sort of stuff isn't going to be people like me minus a decade. It's going to be the umbrella of people who, for whatever reason, identify with small town rural America and a lot of them are going to wind up living in cities. They're the people the tred in both worlds. Or maybe they came from one and moved to the other. Rural people spend a lot of time in vehicles if they want to get anywhere, see anyone, so you've got a song about "what is the best in life?" Brand new truck, pretty girl next to you, radio up, windows down, and open highway to floor it on and feel free. Sure, it's lightweight, it's gleeful rather than deep, but seriously, do you hate dance music for being exultant and exuberant instead of brooding? Which is what this really is, it's a listen in the car song, or a song for while you're out and about. You shovel manure to old country, you drink fireball or whatever that crap is to this sort of thing. Hopefully not while driving.
If somebody doesn't like the vocals or the instrumentation that's fine. That's just taste. It's why I can't stand much of jazz, give me cats fighting in the alleyway, at least they feel real to me.
But this sort of bro-pop-country seems like it would resonate with an audience for good reasons. As mentioned earlier the biggest market for this sort of stuff isn't going to be people like me minus a decade. It's going to be the umbrella of people who, for whatever reason, identify with small town rural America and a lot of them are going to wind up living in cities. They're the people the tred in both worlds. Or maybe they came from one and moved to the other. Rural people spend a lot of time in vehicles if they want to get anywhere, see anyone, so you've got a song about "what is the best in life?" Brand new truck, pretty girl next to you, radio up, windows down, and open highway to floor it on and feel free. Sure, it's lightweight, it's gleeful rather than deep, but seriously, do you hate dance music for being exultant and exuberant instead of brooding? Which is what this really is, it's a listen in the car song, or a song for while you're out and about. You shovel manure to old country, you drink fireball or whatever that crap is to this sort of thing. Hopefully not while driving.
jackelgull
An aberration of nature
Here's the thing though- this is a horrible song to listen to while driving. Why would I turn this on when there are much better driving songs out there?
And I've noticed something about bro-country. It has really clever marketing. I mentioned before that the genre is shaped by young males who grew up listening to both country and hip hop. These young men then try to use their more culturally diverse back ground as an advantage, by painting themselves as these non-conservative artists. They're not afraid to take country out of its usual roots. They're forging a bold new path. I mean if you listen to this sub genre long enough you'll notice they mention mix tape with both rap and country- a calculated pose to brag about "look how tolerant and culturally diverse we are". They're basically country trying to appeal to people by presenting themselves as something new and exciting. I have nothing against them. I just feel their boasts are misleading, and their music rather than being new and exciting becomes a mix of country and hip hop without any of the flavor that makes either genre exciting. In short, it becomes your run of the mill pop song.
And I've noticed something about bro-country. It has really clever marketing. I mentioned before that the genre is shaped by young males who grew up listening to both country and hip hop. These young men then try to use their more culturally diverse back ground as an advantage, by painting themselves as these non-conservative artists. They're not afraid to take country out of its usual roots. They're forging a bold new path. I mean if you listen to this sub genre long enough you'll notice they mention mix tape with both rap and country- a calculated pose to brag about "look how tolerant and culturally diverse we are". They're basically country trying to appeal to people by presenting themselves as something new and exciting. I have nothing against them. I just feel their boasts are misleading, and their music rather than being new and exciting becomes a mix of country and hip hop without any of the flavor that makes either genre exciting. In short, it becomes your run of the mill pop song.
Farm Boy
I hope you dance
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How is it a bad song to listen to while driving? The vocal style is easy to hear(gogo nasal quality) and the hooks are repetitive and simple. It's a really good song to listen to turned up over the roar of all the windows down at 75-80mph. It is a run of the mill pop song. Sowut? 
jackelgull
An aberration of nature
It doesn't have any flavor. This is like chewed bubble of pop. I don't require my music to be deep especially my driving music, but it should sound interesting.
Farm Boy
I hope you dance
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I get it, I think. My wife says the same thing about any and all instrumental-only music. It's pop that doesn't appeal to you on the hooks and misses the tone on any cultural references that you find particularly meaningful. Nothing wrong with that, it's just not your music! Took me ages to start coming around on Hip Hop.
Oruc
Reactionary
Sounds like any pop song to me, singing about the same stuff too.
I take it she's not into classical, celtic or other folk instrumental pieces, or stuff you'd hear in a symphony?
Kozmos
Jew Detective
Lol no. You just have to take the side road into metal and you'll find most of them are either fantasy or the BDSM style of love and boning. It's mainly my observation from what I hear being played usually. I like that kind of music though. Especially lyricless stuff becomes the bomb when you get old and tired and drunk at 22 PM.
Link to video.
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