The Guest Rapper Killed The Guitar Solo

Reverend

english_bob said:

mellowsun said:

UnclePsychosis said:

mellowsun said:

The tragedy is that rap in the RunDMC and Public Enemy days was brilliant and thrilling.

Now it is the musical equivalent of mindless graffiti 'tags'. The rhythm might be good but the content is execrable.

This is a really weird comment. Its like saying "there are no good guitar players in 2016" or "there are no good jazz musicians anymore". Why on earth would you make a generalisation on this scale? Bizarre.  

 

Yep, maybe it is an overgeneralisation, but rap did used to have a point and be political. Now it's much more about self-aggrandising. Perhaps that's valid in itself. Just not my thing any more.

There's always been both kinds (actually, before "The Message" there was really only the self aggrandising kind). Pretty much all Run-DMC's big hits- shit, pretty much all of rap's big hits- are little more than self-aggrandizement, and I wonder whether part of what was so thrilling about it was that it was so unlike anything rock fans had heard before at the time.

On a technical level- rhythms, rhyme schemes, breath control, speed, vocabulary- a Nicki Minaj guest verse on some idiotic pop song is likely far beyond anything you'd hear on a Run-DMC record too. Good rap is every bit as brilliant and thrilling now as it was in the eighties, but judging the state of any genre by whatever turds float to the top of the septic tank that is the top 40 is stupid. By that token, Bon Jovi were the apotheosis of eighties rock, right?

So yeah, there's still rap music that has a point and is political (of course, you could make a half-decent argument that a self-aggrandising rap about being successful and respected while still remaining true to your cultural heritage as a black American is political), and there's mindless bullshit about jewellery and slags.

Which kind gets used in pop songs? Well duh.

And if having a point and being political is what's important and self-aggrandising isn't, then surely guest raps are better than guitar solos anyway? It's much harder to make a political point- much less one you can expect people to understand- with a guitar.

You could say the same thing about Vai being technically better than  Kossof. I don't think k I'd ever choose to put a Vai album on.

Run DMC of course changed hip hop in a massive way. Both with Sucker MCS and then the impact of  King of Rock and especially Raising Hell.

english_bob

Reverend said:

You could say the same thing about Vai being technically better than  Kossof. I don't think k I'd ever choose to put a Vai album on.

Sure. All that says is that there are as many ways to assess the merits of music as there are listeners. That's a dead end.

Winny_Pooh

Col_Decker said:

Not much love for guitar solos on this thread. Are you sure you guys are on the right forum? 

Some of us just think that commercial rock music is lame, especially everything that came after Van Halen's 1984. Vai is cool but Yngwie & the poodle crew killed the point of guitar solos: a melodic piece within and inseperable from the song ala Brian May, Gilmour & Knopfler.

Recent players I like will never be on big commercial releases and that's ok. 
Listen to Nels Cline on Wilco's Side with the seeds, great solo. Or Dave Rawlings with Gillian Welch. Julian Lage and a bunch of jazzers are amazing too. 

UnclePsychosis

I like the implication that rock music *isn't* self aggrandising. 

Which is why none of the really big stadium rock groups ever wrote a track called "we will rock you" where the crowd were required to clap along in a form of worship. 

Oh, wait. 

Sporky

Teetonetal said:

english_bob said:

Bon Jovi were the apotheosis of eighties rock, right?

Yes. Absolutely. and they pretty much carried the early 90's.

Bon Jovi weren't even the apotheosis of eighties Bon Jovi.

english_bob

UnclePsychosis said:

I like the implication that rock music *isn't* self aggrandising. 

Heh. In hip hop you have to actually say how good at sex you are and how many necklaces you own. In stadium rock it's just taken as read that artists have a shitload of money and a dedicated stick for fighting the wimmins off with, all because of their unbelievable talent. It's just background noise. Literally- like Eddie's Ferrari on "Panama".

FelineGuitars

english_bob said:

UnclePsychosis said:

I like the implication that rock music *isn't* self aggrandising. 

Heh. In hip hop you have to actually say how good at sex you are and how many necklaces you own. In stadium rock it's just taken as read that artists have a shitload of money and a dedicated stick for fighting the wimmins off with, all because of their unbelievable talent. It's just background noise. Literally- like Eddie's Ferrari on "Panama".

Much of the blues rock and classic rock cannon was about lost love or unrequited love  mixed with other songs which are either tales of past exploits or suggestions of lets get it on and make thing happen.

Very little is the artist talking about the size or impressiveness of his man parts or how much money he has...

..except sometimes

Reverend

Vai over Malmsteen?  Madness. 

Winny_Pooh

Reverend said:

Vai over Malmsteen?  Madness. 

I hope you're kidding? Has the Yng ever done anything like Blue powder or Bad Horsie? He's the Liberace/Meatoaf love-child of guitar playing.

DLM

"Meatoaf" was a truly serendipitous typo!

Yng and Vai both have their merits.

http://lowres-picturecabinet.com.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/65/main/2/214991.jpg

Rumour has it Yng got a superinjunction to have the title of that famous Ladybird book changed to another, closely related root vegetable...

holnrew

ITT: granddads