Crap Music

Twista's on Fuse right now. Gawd, somebody shoot me. Fortunately a good dose of Incubus' Megalomaniac is still keeping me through this video and the previous one, Chingy. Now that there is a missssserable piece of musical crap if there ever was one.

Now, let me clarify something. I don't hate good, innovative rap. Missy Elliot does some interesting stuff, Black-Eyed Peas are pretty good, ol' Marshall Mathers. I think the standout group of the genre these days is Outkast. Their stuff is inherently musical, the rap is interesting, catchy and their songs actually have structure and an arc.

Take those few innovators out of the scene, though, and what you have is a tired formula that is just churning out by the truckload and the proles are buying it.

It reminds me of the hair band scene of the late 80's. Band after band would copy the formula and the proles who couldn't wait a year for their fave's next album would just buy up the next copycat to come along. Can anyone say Whitesnake? Winger?

Ah, looky, Usher's "Yeah" is on the tube now. There's a case in point. What a piece of crap. One simple instrumental riff and a repetitive schlockfest that any schmuck and his posse could put together in an afternoon in the studio. And to make it even more beautiful, it "features" Little Joe and Ludacris... Hang on, gotta change the channel...

Okay, phew...

In the late 80's, all you had to do is grow your hair, find a couple dime-a-dozen guitar shredders, whatever drummer you could get to stick around for longer than an afternoon, and a bassist who wasn't already strung out, and bam, grab that record deal. If your singer could wail in falsetto, so much the better, you were in. Everyone thought they were rock stars and everyone thought they could go on forever, spending, screwing, boozing, snorting, shooting, and that's what it became about.

Then one screwed up kid with a week's growth on his chin, striped t-shirt, worn out cheapo sneakers, and a Fender Jag strapped on his shoulder blew it all up.

Now almost all those hair guys only get exposure when VH1 shows up for a retrospective.

There's a surreal little phenomenon that sometimes happens late at night. I can watch, say, Letterman on the nights he has the Crap Group du Jour on. There's usually four or five of 'em, with Lakers jerseys over t-shirts and bandanas under too large hats cocked sideways to one side or other. Here's the cool part: If I switch over to Leno and they have a Crap Group on, I can switch back and forth a couple of times and within a couple clicks I won't be able to remember which show or group I'm watching, cause they're all the same.

My take? I think something big is coming in the Rap/R&B segment, a coming-to-Jesus, if you will. There's too much of the same s*** out there for people even on the inside not to be shaking their heads and thinking, "There's got to be something better than this out there..." There's too much talent out there to let these stupid hacks continue to take up airtime...

The alternative set has Emo, which has yet to prove itself as a true phenomenon as opposed to simply a flash-in-the-pan sub-genre...

Is there something out there? Oh, man, I hope so... If not, I may have to commit suicide the next time Chingy comes on playing video games and whining "and you are my beh-beeeee..."

Urk! Almost puked...