I know I shouldn't go here but this has occurred to me more than once. A recent conversation I had with a cabbie crystallized this for me in a new way. He wasn't such a pleasant guy really-very much a Negative Nellie really, never has a good thing to say about anything or anyone. However, he made a good point.
I had mentioned to him my 'scoop' on Nick Minaj's family stiffing cab drivers here in Baldwin.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2014/05/nicki-minajs-family-lives-right-here-in.html
He of course hates her and thinks she's a no talent hack. I mentioned that some now say she's the best rapper there is. He scoffed that she's not a rapper of any type and the fact that she's called the best shows how far rap has fallen.
He's probably too harsh on her-this is the guy's calling card, he's down on everything. I think she's pretty good-for what she is. I think though he's dead right though that what she is certainly isn't a rapper. She's kind of an amalgamation of things but not a straight rapper. Rap is basically over with. This is notable in itself.
Let me make the controversial, certainly not politically correct point that today there are no men in music. Sure, there are many males in music but they don't sing like their males. Basically these two rule have wide application.
A. Men in music today sound like women or at best hermaphrodites.
B. White people sound like black people.
We could also add that everyone wants to sound transgendered. I mean think about it. There is no masculine energy in music today. Who are the biggest male stars? Just hang out on Twitter or Instagram for about 5 minutes the answer is obvious as every teenage girl in America will tell you.
A. Justin Bieber
B. Harry Styles
C. Justin Timberlake
Music is becoming more and more feminine. The old masculine type has just about died out. Now understand that what I mean by masculine I mean someone like Mick Jagger, Jim Morrison, Axl Rose, Kurt Cobain. In my view masculine energy is always something a little off putting for polite society. It's polarizing-Howard Stern is masculine energy. What I might call feminine energy is non-polarizing-it doesn't like the idea of messing with people or being divisive.
Look at our three stars I listed above and their all very acceptable to this feminine energy. They play well with others, don't rock the boat and even look like girls or transgenedereds themselves.
Or take rap. I think that when you look back on the 80s you had a very much 'bifurcated' music scene. You had young white boys in their suburbs listening to heavy metal and you had young black kids in the inner cities listening to rap. Note that I mention gender on rock-my sense is that for the most part heavy metal appealed more to the boys generally speaking whereas rap appealed to both genders.
What we've seen over the last 20 years though is that heavy metal to the extent that it exists today-and there is good stuff if you know where to look for it-is pretty much underground while rap has pretty much taken over society. However, notice that rap became 'hip hop' and much of hip hop slowly evolved into the very large and dominant R&B genre.
This brings me back to the point about Nicki Minaj and the end of rap. Rap may have won vis a vis heavy metal but in victory rap itself has dissolved Rap is over now too. If you want to know what I have in mind by 'masuciline energy' or 'masculine presence' see this link below of Chuck D or Public Enemy at his peak in 'Rebel Without a Pause'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erj9g4Or1rU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djuc0kg97yo
Everything is about being combative with society and the listener. What I mean by 'feminine energy' is something like 'I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.' Incidentally this is a pretty good song-I'm not saying it isn't just observing that it's the quintessential feminine song in that it seeks to 'bring people together' rather than fight them.
Lets look at a few of Chick D's lyrics for example:
"Smooth not what I am. Rough cause I'm a man. No matter what the name, your still the same, pieces in one big chess game."
Name me one male start today who is in any sense "rough?"
"Radio. Suckers never play me.'
A very unfeminine thing to say-it's putting people down calling them 'suckers.' The feminine type says 'These aren't suckers. They're just people like you and me. They have children. Don't call them names.':
UPDATE: The deeper point here which I forgot to mention is society. Women tend not to like criticism of society as such. It's ok to criticize individuals to the extent they may deserve it but not whole groups of people. Like if you say society is cheating you by not playing your music they assume that society must have a good reason for this-if society doesn't then that would be a moment of major dissonance because they think of society in the social contract sense that 'we all have agreed on'-though in reality that's not how society originated.
However, I say 'feminine type' as it's not just women who may have this sentiment. I think someone like Noah Smith seems to have this sensibility which is why perhaps he's never bee.n a Diary of a Republican Hater fan.
Not to say I don't have lots of female readers. Judging by my analytics my biggest readers are college girls-if only I could meet one of them. LOL. Yet, it seems to me that they are less likely to leave comments. Like t seems I have lots of female readers but they never leave comments. My commentators or just about always male.
I'm using the concept of feminine here in a specific way. As really the tendency against things that are anti-social. Like this is what 'anti-social' means. Chuck D:
"You can't angle us-I know you're listening, I caught you pissing in your pants. You're scared of dissing us, the crowd is missing us, we're on a mission y'all.'
Still in retrospect, I'd argue that rap was never-though some conservative activists didn't get this-as anti-social as heavy metal. Rap was always about a more uplifting message. It wasn't totally social nihilistic. Which is probably why I always preferred heavy metal. Though I really liked rap in the heyday of the 80s-the Fat Boys, Run DMC. LL Cool J, Public Enemy of course.
I guess what it comes down to is that women dominate music-I mean in terms of what music becomes popular. Specifically when I say 'women' I mean 16 year old girls. These 16 year old girls usually don't like aggressive anti social angst.
To an extent this has always been so-since the start of modern teenage dominated music-which goes back to Elvis, before that the adults dominated music, can I hear Laurence Welk? LOL.
What's changed now is the music industry. Girls control the mainstream Top 20 charts as they always have. However, now there is much less scope to make it outside the mainstream and really get a following.
Actually, to the extent that the conventional wisdom is correct and the American Idol phenomenon is a thing of the past, it bodes badly for would be music stars as at least shows like that really did get the people who got somewhere on these shows a chance to become stars. Without this it's even harder. The next phase some say is just posting stuff online.
P.S. If you want real masculine energy, you got to check out stuff like Slayer or Annhilator. or Nine Inch Nails or the like which I neglected to mention.
I had mentioned to him my 'scoop' on Nick Minaj's family stiffing cab drivers here in Baldwin.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2014/05/nicki-minajs-family-lives-right-here-in.html
He of course hates her and thinks she's a no talent hack. I mentioned that some now say she's the best rapper there is. He scoffed that she's not a rapper of any type and the fact that she's called the best shows how far rap has fallen.
He's probably too harsh on her-this is the guy's calling card, he's down on everything. I think she's pretty good-for what she is. I think though he's dead right though that what she is certainly isn't a rapper. She's kind of an amalgamation of things but not a straight rapper. Rap is basically over with. This is notable in itself.
Let me make the controversial, certainly not politically correct point that today there are no men in music. Sure, there are many males in music but they don't sing like their males. Basically these two rule have wide application.
A. Men in music today sound like women or at best hermaphrodites.
B. White people sound like black people.
We could also add that everyone wants to sound transgendered. I mean think about it. There is no masculine energy in music today. Who are the biggest male stars? Just hang out on Twitter or Instagram for about 5 minutes the answer is obvious as every teenage girl in America will tell you.
A. Justin Bieber
B. Harry Styles
C. Justin Timberlake
Music is becoming more and more feminine. The old masculine type has just about died out. Now understand that what I mean by masculine I mean someone like Mick Jagger, Jim Morrison, Axl Rose, Kurt Cobain. In my view masculine energy is always something a little off putting for polite society. It's polarizing-Howard Stern is masculine energy. What I might call feminine energy is non-polarizing-it doesn't like the idea of messing with people or being divisive.
Look at our three stars I listed above and their all very acceptable to this feminine energy. They play well with others, don't rock the boat and even look like girls or transgenedereds themselves.
Or take rap. I think that when you look back on the 80s you had a very much 'bifurcated' music scene. You had young white boys in their suburbs listening to heavy metal and you had young black kids in the inner cities listening to rap. Note that I mention gender on rock-my sense is that for the most part heavy metal appealed more to the boys generally speaking whereas rap appealed to both genders.
What we've seen over the last 20 years though is that heavy metal to the extent that it exists today-and there is good stuff if you know where to look for it-is pretty much underground while rap has pretty much taken over society. However, notice that rap became 'hip hop' and much of hip hop slowly evolved into the very large and dominant R&B genre.
This brings me back to the point about Nicki Minaj and the end of rap. Rap may have won vis a vis heavy metal but in victory rap itself has dissolved Rap is over now too. If you want to know what I have in mind by 'masuciline energy' or 'masculine presence' see this link below of Chuck D or Public Enemy at his peak in 'Rebel Without a Pause'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erj9g4Or1rU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djuc0kg97yo
Everything is about being combative with society and the listener. What I mean by 'feminine energy' is something like 'I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.' Incidentally this is a pretty good song-I'm not saying it isn't just observing that it's the quintessential feminine song in that it seeks to 'bring people together' rather than fight them.
Lets look at a few of Chick D's lyrics for example:
"Smooth not what I am. Rough cause I'm a man. No matter what the name, your still the same, pieces in one big chess game."
Name me one male start today who is in any sense "rough?"
"Radio. Suckers never play me.'
A very unfeminine thing to say-it's putting people down calling them 'suckers.' The feminine type says 'These aren't suckers. They're just people like you and me. They have children. Don't call them names.':
UPDATE: The deeper point here which I forgot to mention is society. Women tend not to like criticism of society as such. It's ok to criticize individuals to the extent they may deserve it but not whole groups of people. Like if you say society is cheating you by not playing your music they assume that society must have a good reason for this-if society doesn't then that would be a moment of major dissonance because they think of society in the social contract sense that 'we all have agreed on'-though in reality that's not how society originated.
However, I say 'feminine type' as it's not just women who may have this sentiment. I think someone like Noah Smith seems to have this sensibility which is why perhaps he's never bee.n a Diary of a Republican Hater fan.
Not to say I don't have lots of female readers. Judging by my analytics my biggest readers are college girls-if only I could meet one of them. LOL. Yet, it seems to me that they are less likely to leave comments. Like t seems I have lots of female readers but they never leave comments. My commentators or just about always male.
I'm using the concept of feminine here in a specific way. As really the tendency against things that are anti-social. Like this is what 'anti-social' means. Chuck D:
"You can't angle us-I know you're listening, I caught you pissing in your pants. You're scared of dissing us, the crowd is missing us, we're on a mission y'all.'
Still in retrospect, I'd argue that rap was never-though some conservative activists didn't get this-as anti-social as heavy metal. Rap was always about a more uplifting message. It wasn't totally social nihilistic. Which is probably why I always preferred heavy metal. Though I really liked rap in the heyday of the 80s-the Fat Boys, Run DMC. LL Cool J, Public Enemy of course.
I guess what it comes down to is that women dominate music-I mean in terms of what music becomes popular. Specifically when I say 'women' I mean 16 year old girls. These 16 year old girls usually don't like aggressive anti social angst.
To an extent this has always been so-since the start of modern teenage dominated music-which goes back to Elvis, before that the adults dominated music, can I hear Laurence Welk? LOL.
What's changed now is the music industry. Girls control the mainstream Top 20 charts as they always have. However, now there is much less scope to make it outside the mainstream and really get a following.
Actually, to the extent that the conventional wisdom is correct and the American Idol phenomenon is a thing of the past, it bodes badly for would be music stars as at least shows like that really did get the people who got somewhere on these shows a chance to become stars. Without this it's even harder. The next phase some say is just posting stuff online.
P.S. If you want real masculine energy, you got to check out stuff like Slayer or Annhilator. or Nine Inch Nails or the like which I neglected to mention.
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