Comments on: Are You Not Entertained?

By: Justin Boland

Justin Boland — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 23:18:06 +0000

As an artist, I like it. Forces us to evolve and keep the standards high. I have no problem with every potential fan being an amateur critic.

Plus, the fact is I’m harder on my own shit than they are, plus smarter and better looking, so at the end of the day they can all suck a dick anyway.

By: Emay

Emay — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 22:23:20 +0000

one LAST thing since i’ve been all over this. lol.

the word “classic” is way overused now. It’s a sad sight.

By: Emay

Emay — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 22:16:55 +0000

@Saibot – “Let good music get inside you like you did when you were younger and be less critical. You will enjoy more and discover more music that way.” All I can say to this, is … word.

By: Saibot

Saibot — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:37:37 +0000

I have always felt this way about music and usually never go by what people think of it. Let good music get inside you like you did when you were younger and be less critical. You will enjoy more and discover more music that way.

By: soulsupreme

soulsupreme — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 20:12:32 +0000

@Marty “…everyone seems to be in constant competition with one another to “make it” or co-sign the next big thing.” That’s pretty evident right now.

In 2009 everything = classic or garbage the minute it leaks and we give it one spin…lol

Thanks for the comments, glad you liked the column.

1ne.

By: Marty

Marty — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:40:48 +0000

@Emay – I want to co-sign this over and over: “I think the title of “classic” is built over time. But if you don’t let me breath, then it dies before spawn.” Absolutely in agreement with that.

And since everyone else has written essays – I would, too, but I’m feeling a tad lazy – I will say this regarding criticism: The Internet allows anyone and everyone a chance to “review” music. As someone who tries to have integrity, honesty, and objectivity in his reviews, I can’t say this situation offends me or anything like that. It just makes it tough to weed out whose review or critique you should be reading.

It’s the same problem we all have with the ridiculously saturated music scene thanks to MySpace, Pure Volume, Twitter, blogs, etc… There is so much more music accessible to all of us now than there was even a year ago. I feel like that also makes it tough to enjoy music today because everyone seems to be in constant competition with one another to “make it” or co-sign the next big thing.

OK, I’ve now written a near-essay. Hope you’re happy, SS, haha.

By: Emay

Emay — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:21:03 +0000

@ankit.pain

Thank you man. Hip-hop is completely fine in my opinion right now. It’s widened extremely far, and it’s great to see. And I don’t even care if something is considered to be mainstream or underground. Both types of hip-hop have good artists and bad artists. A lot of underground fans make it seem like the underground is perfect or something. I’m not concerned about real hip-hop, or not real hip-hop…. I’m worried about good music, and bad music.

@Soulsupreme THANK YOU!!!!! Like, people aren’t allowing us artists to grow at all. It’s pretty sad. They expect everything to be classic, which is pretty much impossible if they aren’t even listening to the music in its entirety. Reasonable Doubt by Jay-Z is considered to be a classic, but at the time he made it, he wasn’t expecting it to be that widely appreciated. He only made it to impress his friends (according to himself). Then as the years progressed, more and more people were realizing how great it was . I think the title of “classic” is built over time. But if you don’t let me breath, then it dies before spawn.

By: soulsupreme

soulsupreme — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:52:57 +0000

@Ka-RaZZ Thanks for the comment, glad you liked the column.

1ne.

By: soulsupreme

soulsupreme — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:52:15 +0000

@dizzy “…how do you expect to really absorb music if your twittering the entire time you’re listening?” Co-sign on that man. Hip-hop today is beginning to resemble that song by Little Brother – “The Listening”. The music details seem outweigh the art or they create the impression of what the art should be. Void is the personal feeling from the music; that’s why I wrote the emotional connection. It’s treated so here today and gone tomorrow the way we look at now. It’s almost like we’re in a rush to make sense of it so we can move onto to the next album before we know what “we” think of it.

I’m pretty excited for that OB4CLII myself!

Thanks for the comments, glad you liked the column.

1ne.

By: ankit.pain

ankit.pain — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:37:24 +0000

Every time I hear a hot new hip-hop album or mixtape, I get excited about the fact that it finally seems to be coming around again…or so I think, until I begin to read a crap load of blogs (and comment responses) reminding me that in the eyes of the public, hip-hop is still dead.

I’m not disagreeing that some rap has gotten wayyyyy too commercial. Theres a special place for 2 Pistols, V.I.C., D4L, Soulja Boy, Unk, and Lil Jon in some hip-hop grave yard somewhere, but the first list of names I gave you are nothing like these guys. The rookie class of ‘09 is quite creative if you ask me. Charles Hamilton used a freaking 90’s video game to get popular, XV and Kid Cudi took us to outer space, Joe Budden took us to heaven, and into a padded room of crazy dreams, B.o.B. reminded us of why we loved Outkast.

Now though if you sing they label you commercial, criticize you for not being original, and then rattle off a list of “real” emcees who are now either dead or 40+ years old. I think hip-hop is probably in the best state it has EVER been. There is so much variety out there these days, you just have to dig for it.