Bulleted Notes on Shitty Rap and Why I Love It

-

  • There are some songs that I would never listen to on my own, but when I hear them in a car with the windows down and surrounded by friends I love the most, it feels like I’m in the presence of greatness.
  • This is some type of weird personality crisis for me because occasionally I’ll have a split second thought that YBN Nahmir is the artist of our generation, and then look at myself as if from above like what the fuck is wrong with you.
  • High Fidelity, one of my favorite movies, poses the notion that it’s not what we are like that matters, but what we like. Superficial, yes, but as someone who wants to discuss intangible things for a living I would have to agree to an extent. I also believe that the things people consume and absorb the most can be a great reflection of who they are as an individual, because we often present ourselves through what we enjoy.
  • This theory established, my crisis becomes apparent.
  • I didn’t even listen to rap music until this past calendar year because I thought it would be straying too much from who I am as an individual. This was bullshit. I was just uncomfortable.
  • Is it wrong for me as someone who wants to make my job pointing the public towards people who create great art to spend a significant amount of my time enjoying what couldn’t even be allowed to be called art? Especially when a lot of the pop/rap stars will get thirty times the attention and profit than any of the struggling, hustling artists that would never even consider using autotune?
  • I think it’s okay to separate the part of myself that scours Pitchfork for hours and the part of me that just wants to know the fucking words at a party.
  • I often feel like I live in a duality of interests. Everything that makes me who I am my friends haven’t heard of. I think this newfound enjoyment is just a manifestation of my social self onto my auditory. Growth.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tame Impala’s Love/Paranoia is a Shakespearean Tragedy in Three Parts

-
Image
The informality of the slash in this title initially threw me off. It casted a shadow over the track’s first listen as being a slur of ideas or emotions, without a cohesive train of thought. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Rather, in being so blunt the title displays exactly what the work discusses without a flashy or derailing sling of words like I have done for this piece. Love/Paranoia represents the two sides of a theatre mask, without being traditional opposites. Love/ Heartbreak, for example, might make more immediate sense as one of the oldest cycles of time. But that isn’t what Tame Impala's mastermind Kevin Parker is talking about. He depicts a three part tale of infidelity, potentially over the course of an extended amount of time. By titling the track Love/Paranoia, Parker tells listeners the narrative theme from the get-go, identifying the intended meaning of the verses rather than just explicitly saying. In doing so he creates a story. Or, rather a tragedy. Lik...
Read more

The Regrettes Ask Us “How Do You Love?”

-
Image
In a time where all the good band names have seem to run out, it’s good to see someone is still carrying the torch.  The Regrettes are a four piece band whose eldest member is just old enough to be a college graduate. They create a blend of pop punk that hasn’t quite been done before, previously dubbed with the tagline “Bikini Kill meets the Supremes.” The force and power chords of punk with the sincerity and backing vocals of doo-wop, it’s a mix that comes off as nothing short of charming. But unlike the glorious Riot Grrrl anger of the 1990s, The Regrettes no longer have to scream to be heard. They are telling you their demands of respect and you have no choice but to accept.  Spearheaded by the incomparable Lydia Night, the group met at a School of Rock program in California while still attending high school. Soon after, The Regrettes were recording together and released their debut album “Feel Your Feelings Fool” in 2017. Though it didn’t get much mass attention from...
Read more

The Flaws and Flourishes of Bohemian Rhapsody

-
Image
I was hesitant to see Bohemian Rhapsody because I could feel my inner defense mechanisms against the superficial popularization of great rock and roll flaring up. I heard all my self-proclaimed “I don’t like old music” friends praising the film and claiming Freddie Mercury as their new god. For better or for worse events like this make my blood red-hot, considering I have spent the entirety of my short life scouring the records and personas that gave rock and roll its name in the first place. But I decided to put any misplaced bitterness aside, because I’ll be damned if I pass up any opportunity to see a guitar being played. I think it is utterly foolish to try and tell the complete story of almost any one thing on the big screen. Especially when that thing is a career and life spanning decades. How could one summarize the complexities, dangers, thrills, and intricacies of show business in just two hours? And this was a major problem I had with the first portion of the movie. To...
Read more