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Contemporary pop music is usually hated by "underground" musician.

20 years after, it's a classic to "new" musicians. Hell I remember a DoD listening party we're a 70's disco song was super cool but a contemporary pop one sucked. If those same musician would in the 70's I bet they would say disco sucks. Some people just hate all pop music just for the sake of not being part of the mass.

Or, many musicians that like a semi-underground band but if that band becomes super popular, they will start to hate it.

For myself, I don't mind pop music but I don't enjoy more then 10% of it. Pop music is mostly what I do. That doesn't mean it's not original, it just means I want music to please to a larger audience while still remaining true to what I like.

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I liked MIA's first album (2005's Arular) a lot. Electro-meets-dancehall style and creative all around IMO.

Her current one has a few good tracks ("Bamboo Banga" and "Jimmy" are my favorites), but it has more filler that didn't move me and I don't like "Paper Planes" much at all. Gives people the wrong idea about her... Add I will agree with you that the emphasis on her voice in that track is annoying.

Oh really? I never heard of her apart from her hiphop song.

She's actually fairly intelligent (albiet, a diva) and the song has a legitimate message behind it, which is that our nation (and others, surely) have the idea that immigrants (such as her) bring harm and malice to society. The chorus is sarcastic in nature.

Honestly, I never thought that she was stupid, just her song. Oh, so it actually had a message to it? Heh, the street kids don't know that! Perhaps she could have announced it. Mmkay, even though I still don't prefer her horrible sing/rapping, it's easier to hear now that I'm aware of her message.

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Kenji was an amazing song. That's what I'm talking about when I say 'real' rap. Shinoda literally said somewhere in the song that he had a dream that he had to make this song, and he did. We got the privilege of hearing about a unique and amazing part of his family's history, instead of another rapper telling us how he's gonna take over Compton via martial force and screw everything that moves.

Completely agree, this song is excellent cause he speaks from his background and you can tell its something that means something to him.

Cigarettes is another song by him that I think breaks the mold, mostly because it lays out on the table what a whole lot of rap albums are about. He seems to actually dislike that it's the way the industry works, and its refresing to hear him talking about stuff like how Kenji and Cigarettes do on his tracks.

there's a lot of subtleties to every kind of music, it's not just DnB.

and what's wrong with not putting mind power into listening to music? i've always thought there were 2 sides to listening to music... listening with your heart and listening with your brain. i feel like listening with your heart, just feeling the music, is the most basic and primitive response to music and is always a part of the musical experience. listening with your brain may or may not come into play much, depending on how you listen to music. but i think it's not a requirement of listening to music the "correct" way.. only engaging the heart is

I don't disagree with that, some people like their music to just flow and have it be right out there. I personally like to be able to sit down and listen through a Dieselboy mix or a High Contrast CD or whatever, and appreciate the subtleties of how it's put together. I know they're not extreme, and many people have issues with on a genre level, but I like it that way, it can be nice and I enjoy it.

And zircon knows how to listen to electronic so its not a matter of listening to it wrong.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Bump de bump.

So I was in a music store and the radio announced they were gonna play a Kanye West song and I was all sad. I hadn't heard much by Kanye, but I've been selectively avoiding him, mostly because of my disdain for Pop and Rap.

But this is what played. (ignore the video, I have no idea either.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVZX-W3vo9I

And I-I like it? For a pop song, it's incredibly jarring and isolated-sounding, with the autotune vocals, and the drums and all that. Definitely not what I was expecting, at all.

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I was actually going to comment on this myself. Kanye West is a really creative producer. He specifically said with this album that he doesn't care about sales - and his fans have generally reacted poorly, as I understand it. He doesn't care that other people use Autotune - he heard it and said he liked the sound, so he's using it. I like that attitude a lot. No stereotypical hip hop claps, kicks, and snares here. Just unique production.

I've heard another track from the album, "Robocop", which is also quite creative. It uses dry orchestral strings, distorted 808 percussion, and an unusually major tonality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krxnf4WG4qA

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I was actually going to comment on this myself. Kanye West is a really creative producer. He specifically said with this album that he doesn't care about sales - and his fans have generally reacted poorly, as I understand it. He doesn't care that other people use Autotune - he heard it and said he liked the sound, so he's using it. I like that attitude a lot. No stereotypical hip hop claps, kicks, and snares here. Just unique production.

What? Kanye ego-less? Who would have thought?

j/k

Anyway, I may have already mentined this, but when I first heard the singles "Love Lockdown" & "Heartless" in 30-second-previews on iTunes I was all WTF? :dstrbd: But after I got to hear the whole song I do agree with zircon that it's creative & good production.

I really miss getting to preview a whole song in stores like the Virgin MegaStores, but that's another story.

The album reivew in the Village Voice really put it in perspective I think:

It's also his superstar-freakout album: his Low, his Trans, his Kid A. The one where he decides that frozen remoteness is the only thing that makes sense.

...

Kanye is also the first of the post-T-Pain masses to use AutoTune as something other than an ear-grabbing gimmick. On Heartbreak, it's a distancing effect, an opportunity to push his emo bellyaching to spectral levels.

BTW, who saw Kanye West's performance on SNL last night? Weird, no? With those giant video screens, silhouettes and crazy dancing... I liked it.

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I guess I'll take a break from downloading piano pieces for some rap recommendations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm7dZe0b8Rk&feature=related

Public Enemy is classic, in my book. Found them about the same time as Immortal Technique; I wonder why I had never heard of them before. Catchy stuff, and lots of great lyrics too.

Everybody needs some Jedi Mind Tricks in their lives, IMHO. This song in particular is up with Fort Minor's "Kenji" - the first verse is primarily an overview of Vietnam soldiers, while the second verse is RA the Rugged Man in the head of his dad, who actually fought in the Vietnam War.

I also find Immortal Technique to be a superior producer, but a lot of his songs are extreme leftist politics which even I (raving liberal that I am) do not agree with.

1. Put it on 2. STFU and pay attention

How many people do you honestly know that take step #2 anymore? Most of my friends song-surf when they get a new CD instead of listening to it all the way through. If more people actually paid attention to the songs they listen to, more people might actually have opinions on the music they buy and listen to.

Addendum: I hate the phrase "listen to". It tastes funny in my mouth. :(

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The original poster should have known this would degrade into a "post your favorite music" thread, complemented with "flame others' musical preference".

That was KIND OF the point... Sort of.

There hasn't really been any flaming going on. Just discussion. And arguing. But they're similar.

And the idea WAS to post music. Not necessarily just ANYTHING, but pop music of some kind or another, and most people have done just that.

Sooooooooooo...

I think it worked out pretty well. kthx.

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As an experiment, I've tried introducing OCR tunes to a number of my students, and I find that very frequently their reaction depends on who's around. When I have one girl over by the stereo and the rest are over at the bars on the other side of the gym, they'll say some of these mixes are the coolest music they've ever heard -- I have a number of girls doing floor routines to remixes this season.

Hey Geoff, hook me up with one of those floor routine girls. Quit playin', man, I know you're online, lol!

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