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Review: Nerdcore Hip-Hop Compilation CD Project
The best part is that this is all available freely as bittorrents. It'll take you many hours to wade through it all, but the gems in there make it worth the trip.
What I hear on these albums really runs a wide spectrum of music, both in terms of genre and production value. Some sound like a kid with his iMac and a mic. And there's others that sound just as produced as any mainstream studio release. Of course music is about more than how expensive of a mic you used: you'll hear "Good" songs in both groups.
Besides the fact that almost all of these tracks are 'Rap', if there is a unifying feature here it's that the songs are about nerdish things. You'll hear tracks reciting Pi, talking smack about operating systems, and games from Super Mario Bros to Warcraft and Dungeons and Dragons. Much of the Post Dre rap you've heard celebrates the 'Gangsta' lifestyle. Personally I find much of this very hard to take seriously. Likewise, much of the lyrics just get campy. It's like a Weird Al mad libs lyric, where the rapper tries to rhyme whatever techish things pop into mind. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.
MC Hawking is a great example. His track essentially an MC Battle style rap that relies on the synthesizer voice gimmick. But damnit it actually works. The lyrics are tight and amusing. I wish the hook was stronger, but thats a track I'll enjoy listening to.
Monzy's 'So Much Drama in the PhD' works as well. 'I run gmake and gcc / and i ain't never called malloc without calling free'. The parts come together really well. He might not be the best rapper you've ever heard, but I really enjoy the track. But the lyrics are ultimately that of a novelty song. Very entertaining with a good beat, but very niche.
Ytcracker's "In My Time" is just a fantastic track. You'll be hard pressed not to tap your foot. His lyrics are less obvious then most anything else on the rest of the album. He might be referencing the Atari 2600 or downloading porn to a USB pen, but you could play this track outside a compilation like this and it works. He's probably my favorite on the set. I had to snag more of his stuff from his web site, and it was interesting to see that his work is actually progressing. Having mined the most extreme end of the tech/geek world, his last few songs are stronger for it.
Another common theme here is liberal use of samples. Almost everything has samples from somewhere. You'll here the sound of Mario catching a mushroom integrated into the beats of tracks, and countless game theme songs and sound effects split apart and remixed. Sometimes it's just a gimmick. Other times it works musically. In addition to liberal use of sampling, copyright issues are a common theme in many tracks as well. Sometimes it's subtle, flippant references to downloading movies. But in the case of "Fuck the MPAA"... well, not so much in the way of subtle ;) Don't get me wrong- I got little warm fuzzies hearing sounds that i haven't heard in years, back from my childhood. But after 70 odd tracks, the novelty fades.
On a somewhat related notes, Googling a few of these artists and you'll find another common theme- the remix. Many of these artists feature remixes on their own sites done by others. Doing this definitely shows that a compilation like this is only the tip of the nerdcore iceberg.
It's also worth noting that there are a number of tracks that kinda don't fit. Foreign language stuff. Stuff that falls more into the pop category than hip hop. Some of these tracks are allright, but they feel out of place in this compilation. Like the Rappy McRapper track 'Lick Your Own Butthole Dance'. It's purely goofy silly stuff. Not bad mind you, but it simply doesn't fit. That said, I must have listened to that butthole song 10 times. It's so stupid I love it.
I sort all my music using iTunes '5 Star' thingee. Anything I rate 1-2 stars, I never want to hear again. 17 tracks here fell into that category. Anything 4-5 stars is stuff that goes into my uber playlist. I currently have 1174 songs in this playlist. Of the 4 CDs of music here, 15 songs made it to that playlist. Thats better then most music I listen to.
My suggestion- just download it. Listen to a couple tracks at a time. Don't listen to 15 in a row or it'll break you. Listening to someone rap about Warcraft and followed by one about rolling D20s gets old when strung together. But the best tracks on here stand tall, taking "Nerdcore" away from being simply silly novelty tracks ready for morning zoo radio and campus CS labs, and instead showing that the so called "Nerdcore" lifestyle can be celebrated in at least as interesting way as "Gangsta". The best tracks here do just that. Finding them is fun. A number of artists here are doing just that.
But at the end of the day, sometimes you just need to find a bit of music that you can relate to. And when you hear 'join me in the basement cuz it's warcraft patch day / time for D&D a frontalittle mainstay' day, so it's time to play D&D.... well, thats my Tuesday too. There's something odd about hearing it rapped about.
I don't know, I wouldn't admit openly to listening to that. Like, I'd be OK with myself with it, but if someone told me they listened to nerdcore, I'd think "what a geek" :P
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
like mc chris
http://www.mcchris.com
or rappy mcrapperson
http://www.rappymcrapperson.com
There are great non-rap geek songs in the world. My current favorite has to be "Code Monkey" http://www.jonathancoulton.com/lyrics/code-monkey
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Or maybe geeks recognize those bands as the most overrated acts in the history of music.
But that would require social interaction!! On a serious note manufactured music is much easier for a lone artist to produce. And thats exactly what most of these artist are. Like MC Chris or MC Lars (mcchris.com and mclars.com). Occasionally they collaborate or bring in other people but for the most part it's just one guy sitting at his computer recording his voice and using loops to produce the background track.
I recently bought DDR Mario Mix for the Gamecube. While I'm not a fan of house/techno/trance/whatever music, I was impressed with the remix of some of the classic Mario songs. I'm waiting for one of these mixes to show up at the local dance club just to see how many people catch the underlying music:
"Dude, why do I have the sudden urge to jump on top of your head?"
Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies. -- Zoso
You know, he raps about downloading music, and the dangers of cybering, and how Hot Topic is not Punk Rock.
I like his songs, he has a talent for crafting great pop tunes.
What does nerdcore need to bring it in the the mainstream?... MATERIAL ITEMS -- yes I'm referring to "bling". With the ultra-materialistic and ego-centric minds of the masses, having a piece of "bling" makes one feel special (just like everyone else). What will the nerdcore "bling" be? Diamond-studded pocket protectors? Gold-capped braces? Keyboards with hydraulics? Segways with rims?
In all reality, I don't think nerdcore is geared to ever become mainstream... which is good, because mainstream usually means "mindless crap to please the masses and get them to buy things".
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
My keyboard has a special key for songs (and other things) with such ratings. I call it the 'delete' key.
Seriously, why bother rating something you never want to hear again? Why not just delete it? It this an iTunes thing?
MC Frontalot's pretty good himself, and is the official rapper of PA: www.frontalot.com And no, I wasn't getting paid for that.
There are some OK tracks on this but not near enough Frontalot or Hawking.
Enigma
Filk is a long-standing Hackish tradition, and Nerdcore is merely its latest incarnation.
But since you asked, how about blues?
Just One More Hack, and then the author of the UPS debugger will put it on the 'net...
MP3 version available at: Just One More Hack - Mark Wheadon, ca. 1991-1992.All these questions to be answered in our forthcoming slashdot discussion thread.
PS: I tend to post my wide-sweeping taste/art/style etc generalisations anonymously...
Well, basically we want to have something to define us, too.
It's cool to have some music, some lyrics, some inside jokes that nobody "gets" but you. Find me a non-nerd who could appreciate something like "2B or not 2B, that is FF".
Same with music. And its lyrics, its style, the way it works.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
was nerdcore in the 70's/80's.
I'm just sayin'
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I prefer Futuristic Sex Robotz.
http://www.futuristicsexrobotz.com/
I was an RA a few years back and we set up a murder mystery in the dorms. I wasn't in charge of setting it up but I was an actor. I was told to dress as a rapper. I had a wifebeater, an Adidas jacket, but couldn't find the bling... so a friend (who knew me all too well) took a can of mountain dew and the pop tops and made me my "bling" ...
This is a joke right?
Music is an art. You dont have to be the best with a brush to make great are. Likewise, Skilled hands dont always make the most heartfelt pieces.
An artist needs to be proficient enough to express what they want, in the manner they truely envisioned because, thankfully, art is not defined by the strict confines of scientific/mathematical perfection.
Translation:
Dream Theater is the pizza topping equivalent of DUB CHEE.
I first got into nerdcore with ytcracker's 'Nerdrap Entertainment System'. Thought there would be others out there doing the same thing and it looks like I was right.
Props to yt and the rest for making rap I can actually stand listening to.
a moron user thing.
Now 1-2 star rating on something I don't want to here, but want to share with somepeople who may like it would make sense.
When I get enough, I burn a disk, then delete.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I personally don't like nerdcore. Aparently the reviewer doesn't really like it either, and I quote: "Listen to a couple tracks at a time. Don't listen to 15 in a row or it'll break you." Generally that is a sign you find something distasteful, and are tolerating it only for some other reason (want to feel like you fit in with the nerd crowd?)
Philosophy.
I simply meant (not entirely seriously, but that obviously wasn't conveyed) that I found it amusing that nerds who are so infatuated with complexity seem to enjoy the simplest of musical genres.
I am Spartacus
This website has better music even though some of it is sixty years old. These songs deal with incompetent managers and even the United States obsession with science and the military. It also helps that some of these people actually have signing talent.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
I see, it's not music you like, therefore it's not real. How closed minded.
Once I stiopped disliking music because of it's genre, I found a lot of really good stuff.
I think EmmnEmm is a fantastic story teller who has some music that really cuts to the painfull part of parenting.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Can't say I've ever even heard of nerdcore, but The Great Luke Ski was who I thought of first. He does comedy music including parodies (a la Weird Al), and quite a bit of it is "white boy rap". But the key thing is that the vast majority of it is related to things that typically interest nerds and/or geeks, including Star Trek, Star Wars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, X-Files, The Matrix, Simpsons, Futurama, etc. His 2002 album was even titled Uber Geek, and he recorded so many Star Trek and Star Wars related songs that he eventually ended up compiling all of them onto their own privately released CDs ("Trek-Wutchyalike" and "May The Farce Be With You").
"It'll take you many hours to wade through it all, but the gems in there make it worth the trip."
Wow, i really should learn to read things properly, at first glance i thought the above sentence said "I'll take you to my house...".
The musicians deserve credit too! My favourite is Finnish producer Tero who has done live PA's with nothing but 2 Commodore 64s!
Filk is a long-standing Hackish tradition, and Nerdcore is merely its latest incarnation.
Wow. I never thought the day would come where I'd miss folk music.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Thank God I'm to old to be this much of a nerd.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
Because in any group of people there are the legits and the posers. A real geek is going to openly admit to listening to music with some musical merit like jazz, classic & progressive rock, or just about anything that rarely ever makes it onto billboard. But for the wannabe geeks, they need to proclaim this sort of thing in order to prove their geek cred. It's all about image and their way to garner respect from people.
Plus they're all middle class white boys from the burbs who don't know anything about bitchez, ho's, bling, benz, poppin' caps but couldn't buy enough Death Row records. So when they decided to be rappers the only thing they knew about rapping was geek stuff. I get this image of Michael Bolton from Office Space dressed up like Grandmaster Flash.
Nihilism means nothing to the dancing peasants
I enjoy blues, and I wasn't really attacking simple music, though it generally isn't my style. I enjoy Filk at times, as it is humorous, but I can't stand rap. Oh well, at least it isn;t country music and I still have excellent Karma! =D
I am Spartacus
I dunno....all that playing their own instruments, and composing original music, lyrics and sounds vs sampling/stealing others work hardly sounds like groups that would be overrated. Possibly they are admired for their actual talent for creating something new and musical at the same time.
I dunno, with (c)rap, it seems if you had enough equipment (sampling, drum machine, mixing) and write some rhymes...anyone can do it. Hell, I could probably do it....and if that's the case, it can't possibly be talent. Anybody can shout out phrases to a drum beat...what happened to people that can actually sing, play instruments, work in melodies and harmonies...?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Oh, i agree completely. Just pointing out that the comment could be a bit contentious and may spark some lively discussion. Which is a good thing.
Exactly what I was going for. Also, how is Dream Theater overrated? I could maybe see Rush, but commercial success isn't always overrated if it's actually good, is it? Oh, I forgot, this is /. oh well.
I am Spartacus
He's going to bust a... (whatever geek rappers bust into people)
Bigtime Consulting - "We're the best because we cost the most"
Fingers to the keys to the code I be typing
I'll bash that script, like a process I be sniping
You're lamer than some h4x0r saying "Yo! Yo! Whatsup?!"
I wish that somebody would terminate ya with a kill -HUP.
I'm flying like Apache, you're slower than concrete.
You're built like a gnome, and I ain't talking 'bout no suite.
No shortcuts'll save you, your doom is complete
No Alt-F4'll help you, no Ctl-Alt-Delete
will stop this feat, you better believe it
this ain't no superstition,
I'll open all your ports and your hardrive repartition.
So, you say you're fighting for the nerdcore crown...
But I'd say that you're closer to a nerdcore clown.
Pack it in, save your ass, yo H4x getthefuckouttadodge!
You're a Beowulf unclustered, with its power cords dislodged.
You're too l4me for this g4me, wanna fl4me? It's all the s4me
Cuz you're an Apple 2c and I'm a mainframe.
You're inept! Can't even play dead, you play sick.
We couldn't pityyoumore if you were Visual Basic.
You like that kid? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about!
It's a rout! I flout my stout clout with this cool cool cout
and I'm out.
No...I just said it wasn't for the most part...music, in a joking manner. Playing instrument, actually singing, harmony, melody...all things involved with music.
For the most part, with some exceptions, rap is nothing more than shouting or speaking over a drum machine beat, often with some samples of real musicians' work thrown in.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
What the language naturally suggests: hardcore nerdy, aka extremely nerdy. I've been using it since before I heard about this genre of rap.
Why rap anyway? Doesn't the word 'hardcore' in a musical context suggest heavy metal?
Much of the Post Dre rap you've heard celebrates the 'Gangsta' lifestyle
Alas, this is true. There is lots of other stuff out there, but it won't get much radio or club play, because Gangsta sells better.
In the words of KRS-One: "Hip hop is where it always was - underground." (sorry, quoted from memory, almost certainly without accuracy).
For some recent (well, OK, not that recent, but I don't keep up to date) non-Gangsta hip hop, check out Bomfunk MCs for some serious breaks and BBoy-centric music, "The Return Of The DJ" LPs and various other artists.. they aren't too hard to find if you know where to look (google for the above and surf - you'll find lots of stuff). And nowadays you can even buy some underground stuff in HMV and Virgin (ahhh, I remember the day when I asked for Public Enemy in Virgin juuust to see the puzzled looks)..
'No rational religion claims "supernatural" exists, that's an atheist slander.' - seen on slashdot.
http://wee-unit.mserle.net/mp3s is one of my favorites. MC frontalot is one of the best, although spamtec is fun to listen to... and of course, monzy.com made 2 mp3s that are far more geekier than anything else out there, coding-wise!
Note: wikipedia has an okay-ish article on nerdcore with other links
Senator Ted Stevens is the kind of nerd who wishes he were a geek, doesn't have the brains. He does have the sucka MC mic on C-SPAN whenever he wants to throw down the jive, so he's an artificial-hip-hopper, nationwide.
--
make install -not war
before I knew what a nerd was we enjoyed listening to Kraftwerk. I guess that makes me old.
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
Please come back and post when you've listened to several albums by The Roots, Beastie Boys, Digital Underground, and A Tribe Called Quest. BTW, rap is defined by M-W as: 1 a : the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity b : vocal, instrumental, or mechanical sounds having rhythm, melody, or harmony Thanks for your uneducated and close-minded opinion, though.
You would think that nerds, who are supposedly intelligent, would choose music with real musical value, stuff like Rush or Dream Theater, or other non-manufactured musical types, even jazz or classical.
On the other hand, it's no surprise that a nerd who values intelligence above all else would fail to realize musical taste has nothing to do with intelligence.
Not a single mention of MC Frontalot? Are you people nuts?!
http://frontalot.com/index.php
He's the most nerdcore!
It's Eminem, but I'm sure he'd appreciate your support.
"Yup, and do remember to try NOT to use the words "rap" and "music" in the same sentence, as that they are mutually exclusive terms, kind of like military intelligence."
Whew....lots of rapsters with mod points in here. Can't take a joke?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
http://www.haverford.edu.nyud.net:8090/physics-ast ro/songs/
Coral cached it so it doesn't get slashdotted.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
I wished all my favorite shows' torrents were slashdotted in that way.
Res publica non dominetur
I don't know, I wouldn't admit openly to listening to that.
From an RPG.net thread making up RPG Demotivator posters:
Gaming Humor.
(Credit goes to Opsimath on page 9. Posting AC since I copied it w/o permission.)
LOL. Download volume1 and listen to "1337 G33K B3AT - 22 - Emulation Station.mp3". Rap done by pre-pubescent kids is hilarious sounding. The High pitched voices just cracks me up.
Nerds need brains. geeks do not.
how much brains do you need to argue why a wookie would use alight saber? or discuss who is better Superman or mighty mouse. Or think that there time they ahve been playing roleplaying games counts for something? Those are geek activities.
Geeks think up, design and build the toys that allow geeks to play.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Wow, my band does a song that would fit on there perfectly. It's called Geekstylin', and it's about my favorite D&D character. Also, I'm disappointed to learn of the lack of the Buck65 track "Making Love to your Hard Drive." Every slashdotter should hear that song, at least once. Effing hilarious.
The future isn't here until I can type "car keys" into Google and have it say "You left them in your pants last night."
Wow - these might be the best seeded torrents ever.
Here's the post about it on beos news.
http://beosnews.com/?postid=137
Be sure to check out Wired in August.
If you haven't heard anything by Roosevelt Franklin, go get their album "Something's Gotta Give."
Les Horribles Cernettes are quite nerdcore in their own way. "I feel your attraction It's a strong interaction" seems quite the right words if you're the world's "one and only High Energy Rock Band".
Oh, and check the lyrics for liquid nitrogen too.
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
Read your post and explain it to me.
What are you trying to say, nerd? Abckwards, indeed.
--
make install -not war
Yeah, he should read his signature.
Anyway, if you guys haven't checked out Deltron 3030 you should. It's sort of a hip-hop sci-fi concept album with Del tha Funkee Homosapien, Dan the Automator (from the first Gorillaz album), and DJ Kid Koala.
It's not super geeky, but it's geeky enough, and honestly it's the best hip-hop album I've heard. Awesome production, great lyrics. If you like underground hip-hop and haven't heard this, GET IT NOW.
I have some nerd bling. I got it from thinkgeek.com - It's a Binary Watch. Everyone should have one, cept the nerdcore peeps need to dangle it around on their necks. Big o' flashy LED's.
Or listen to Grand Buffet. They rap about Nintendo, Mike & Ikes, and Lazer Tag with a working vocabulary bigger than Fat Joe.
--- What
Damn it feels good to be a nerdsta
A real nerdsta-ass coda flips his bits right
A real nerdsta-ass coda never runs a windowz proc
Cuz real nerdsta-ass codas write code all night
# man tar
"I dunno, with (c)rap, it seems if you had enough equipment (sampling, drum machine, mixing) and write some rhymes...anyone can do it. Hell, I could probably do it....and if that's the case, it can't possibly be talent. Anybody can shout out phrases to a drum beat...what happened to people that can actually sing, play instruments, work in melodies and harmonies...?" Whenever I hear someone say something like this, the first thought that runs through my head is that they haven't heard any rap other than what they play on the radio. In fact, I used to think the same way. The way I like to explain it is this: if you want to hear good non-rap music, would you listen to the top 40 stations? Would you watch MTV? I know I wouldn't. So why apply the same standard to rap music? Sure the mainstream sucks, it's the mainstream, that's what's expected. But if people were to actually take the time to search I think they would see that there are many rappers and MC's out there that really are creating art, I consider a lot of rappers to be some of the best songwriters and producers that I've ever heard.
nyaaaaaaaa
"Geeks think up, design and build the toys that allow geeks to play."
ah crap.
Nerds think up, design and build the toys that allow geeks to play.
"Abckwards" was intentional, albeit poor, humor.
My poorly illustrated point* was that nerds are generally smarter then geeks. Or at least in fields that take smarts.
My pore** example was indicating that what geeks are known for doesn't take a lot of smarts;However, it does take a lot of immagination and free time. Noth of which are good things.
*when people miss the point, it is ALWAYS the speakers fault.
** it was full of holes***
*** hence porous.****
**** over use of notes is an indicater that I've been reading too much Discworld~
~ By Terry Pratchet~~
~~ damn funny~~~
~~~Not like this post.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Dream Theater rocks my socks. That is all. =P
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo!
without mentioning the aquabats? they are your average ordinary super-human, punishers of evil rock and roll band. and they were invateing nerdcore way before any of theese guys were around. www.theaquabats.com www.myspace.com/theaquabats
Also, get off my damn lawn!
Right... because drum machines & samplers aren't instruments and speaking in complex rythmical patterns is not a vocal skill.
There's a lot of lousy, uninspired rap out there but that doesn't mean the whole genre is devoid of artistic talent.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
And while we're at it, perhaps you'd like to sail on back to the late 50s/early 60s and read what reviewers thought of rock and roll. It would be a surprising parallel to your viewpoints.
As you get older, tastes become more rigidly defined and the ability to adapt to "new" weakens. You're demonstrating that admirably.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
do bands like 'HORSE The Band' count as nerdy enough to satisfy you folks? they're more surrealist 8-bit screamcore, but there's some nice references to early videogames in there: well after I started playing around with computers, certainly, but they're definitely throwbacks to the 80s. their media page is here: http://www.asssnake.com/horsetheband/media.html and most of their radio-borne songs are to be found on their myspace page (sorry folks). if you like weird hardcore, they're good to listen to. my personal favourites are 'cutsman' and 'bunnies'.
:D
incidentally, thanks to all of those that pointed out MC Frontalot: very cool
http://xkcd.com/313/
"2B or not 2B = FF"
I don't get it?
T'ain't rap/hiphop... but Nerf Herder will always be the kings of Nerdcore to me :)
You are correct....could not have phrased it better myself.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
These goddamn trolls interrupting my flow. These niggas don't respek us with a +o. They gotta color spam and fake invite, bombing with asciis in yellow on white. Shit yeah. it's bright, you 12 year old kiddie. You ain't got pubes and you ain't seen titty. I'll jupe your chans and ban your ass. Don't message me with plz unban, your chance has passed! Other opers crappin up our relay net. Why haven't you delinked your 386 yet? ircd needs xeons and dual cpus. When it comes to irc hardware, you can't be a jew. Shit, nobody knows the trouble I've seen. On invites for websites with naked teens. Begs for ops and packet attacks. Shit from users who use vi, not emacs. Another long day of patrolling the IRC. Eating my doritos, and having a jerk, I chat with TheWalrus and #nanog faggots. All this niggas do is complain "the lag it's-- bad, chat is slow, and we're getting harassed." Shit, trolls, this k-line is your last. Once more and it's "G" and you're gone for good. Banned from the internet chatting neighbourhood. It's lonely at the top. Just me and CHANFIX. Day in and day out. Banning trolls with my linux. We give safe harbor to chatters world wide. From pedophiles to hacker thieves. Yeah, I won't lie: IRC is a cesspool of e-misfits. EazyCheezes and bagel-cutters like that nigga BitS. But at least we're the best. Disagree and you're gone. BRB, mom just told me gotta mow the lawn.
a drum-machine is an instrument, a synthesizer is an instrument... lots of people make ©rap with drum-machines and synths, but how many make pure sh!t with guitars and violins?
What is good/bad music?
I think music is whatever people make it. If you like a particular genre more than others, then that's your 'good music' whether people agree or not. If you don't like a certain genre, it's your idea of 'bad' music.
Personally, I like funk, rock and jazz music. To me, that's great music, and especially funk because of the heavy emphasis on bass (which I play, and like.). I dislike any music in which no instruments are played, because I think it lacks talent. Rappers who join together but who have no musicians are a singing group to me, but as soon as you add musicians, they're a band. That's just my opinion, and I respect any other views.
My sister, for example thinks it's all shite, and listens to R&B and Hip-hop. It's all about taste.
If you prefer rather twee nerd-pop, there's always Barcelona's 'I've Got The Password To Your Shell Account', mentioned here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerd
Nerd, as a stereotypical or archetypal designation, refers to somebody who pursues intellectual interests at the expense of skills that are useful in a social setting, such as communication, fashion, or physical fitness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geek
A geek (IPA: [gik]) is a person who is fascinated, perhaps obsessively, by obscure or very specific areas of knowledge and imagination.
*without notes..damn
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
True dat! Frontalot is the greatest. Heck, that final paragraph referring to "Frontalittle" playing D they were inspired by Frontalot. They're like his own posse that he never involves himself with. Sort of like how David Lee Roth never really involved himself with Van Halen after he left them, but only if David was never a member in the first place. That's how Frotnalot works with Frontalittle. :-)
I dunno, with (c)rap, it seems if you had enough equipment (sampling, drum machine, mixing) and write some rhymes...anyone can do it. Hell, I could probably do it....and if that's the case, it can't possibly be talent. Anybody can shout out phrases to a drum beat...what happened to people that can actually sing, play instruments, work in melodies and harmonies...?
As someone who is close to the music business, no its not that easy, although it seems that way. Like people that play "real instruments" there are as much or more "rappers" out there that don't make a dime off of it.
To me, the best thing that has ever hit the music world in the past 100 or so years has been the Grateful Dead. No band has been able to sell out almost every show every year for 30 years. Sure, people will say it was all of the good drugs, and yup, they helped, but even that is not a single variable to sell out almost every show you play on the order of about 100 shows a year.
My slashdot name is a hack of the Grateful Dead song, Jack Straw.
To me, the Grateful Dead perfected the concert experience. They were known for having the best sound systems in the business. They pioneered the now common time delayed towers for larger outdoor venues, and used quadraphonic sound systems in smaller indoor venues. They pioneered the "Open source" kind of mentality of allowing fans to freely record and distribute those recordings for non-commercial gain. They brought the improv of jazz and fusion into rock. They even rapped in the late 60s and maybe early 70s. Early incarnations of "US Blues" before the song was even named that, and other Pigpen songs before he died were rap-like.
I could go on for a long time on this, but my point is that nothing that gets any kind of widespread popularity is easy. No matter how simple, cheesy, or horrible that it may be.
Nor indeed does "real musical value" have anything to do with genre, or whether music is "non-manufactured".
Learn your Shakespeare and your logic, young geek...:)
0x2B || !0x2B == 0xFF
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You meant to say "0x2B || ~0x2B".
The Aquabats rock. Other nerd rockers I like are: Nerf Herder and Atom and His Package.
Click here or here.
Rap isn't about simplistic crap where lines are grouped together in equal length and in pairs where the last words rhyme. Thinking it is shows a total ignorance of where the real talent lies in the artform and honestly the reluctance to actually figure this out reeks of racism IMO.
A great rapper is like a great jazz drummer. The talent is in the rhythm and delivery, not in funny metaphors.
Yes, and it takes absolutely no talent to steal parts from common household gadgets and pout them together into something with a function unrelated to any of the original items (that would be using samples to create new music)
Feh, after I went back in time and invented "middle C" 2703 years ago I've never seen a damn cent from all the people who sample it and all the derivitive works.
Oh, and if you realy want to someone to be "admired for their actual talent for creating something new and musical at the same time." perhaps you should find people who had to invent their own instruments (and musical notation system and scale, oh and they should probably make up their own language, wouldn't want them using words that other people have ever used) rather than use guitars and pianos and drums, because those are just analog versions of sampleing with very old technology.
--- As to make my comment seem, by comparison, more intelegent... doodie doodie doodie poop poop poop!
so what you're saying is, as long as the rhythm and delivery are there, the words are meaningless. nope, try again.
Maybe you mean something like: http://images.google.co.uk/images?svnum=10&hl=en&l r=&q=goldie+looking+chain&btnG=Search
And then consider some of the lyrics to "Half Man, Half Machine": http://www.lyricsdomain.com/7/goldie_lookin_chain/ half_man_half_machine.html
(Any song that mentions a ZX-81 is pretty frinkin nerdcore in my book!)
oh, and saying that "people who couldn't figure that out are racist" implies that rap music is a "black" thing, which is racist. just in case you couldn't figure that out.
"how many make pure sh!t with guitars and violins?"
A lot. Trust me.
If you haven't heard 8-Bit, there are a "robot gangsta rap" group from LA. They are pretty funny, rapping about video games and robots with a ton of cursing to play on the whole gangter rap thing, all set to video game beats. They wear these huge silver costumes when they perform, too. If you can find the song to the zelda tune, it is probably the best.
They also mixed that song "Hell Yes" for Beck.
i feel it's inappropriate to even mention nerdcore/hiphop without including eyedea and abilities. with countless references to schroedinger's cat, quantum mechanics, and other things that only slashdotters would rap(sing) about.
Cut your hair and get a job, hippy :-P
Seriously, though, the best music in the past 100 years is the Grateful Dead? While I respect your opinion, and the contributions of the Dead to music (personally, my favorite GD song is China Cat Sunflower), that seems like a bit of an hyperbole to me. If nothing else, the Dead lose a ton of points for the zillions* of "jam bands" that so many of my peers seem to like that they've influenced.
Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, James Brown, John Coltrane, Miles Davis (who arguably owes some influence to the Dead), Mingus, George Clinton et al, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Beatles, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, hell, even Karlheinz Stockhausen...If you say the Grateful Dead are the best thing to happen to music in the past 100 years, I say they've an awful lot of competition.
Actually it would be "0x2B | ~0x2B" if you want to go C, if I'm not mistaken.
:)
I guess that's what they mean when they talk about riding a joke to death... GEEK!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
if you had enough equipment (sampling, drum machine, mixing) and write some rhymes...anyone can do it.
That's the idea. Lower the barrier to entry.
You get a lot more crap, but you also get more gems.
The reason I love hip-hop is that the only requirement
for excelling (not the same as getting rich) at it
is to have something meaningful to say...
Which, if you think about it, is what separates the people who sing,
play instruments, and have a grasp of music theory from those whose
producers do. Compare, say, Johnny Cash to Alan Jackson; or The Temptations
to Milli Vanilli.
Since this is rapidly becoming a "post your hip-hop recommendation" thread...
everyone download some Micranots. While they are no longer performing
as a group, MC I Self Divine and DJ Kool Akiem define, for me, everything
that is legitimate about hip hop. They will cling to the top slot in my playlist
until my last breath wheezes from my lungs.
That said, I'll pass the mic...
Some of it is inspired by trip-hop, others from 80s hip hop or 90s gangsta. A lot of it is really bad.
No need to get redundant on us, now.
Cut your hair and get a job, hippy :-P
Done.
If you say the Grateful Dead are the best thing to happen to music in the past 100 years, I say they've an awful lot of competition.
Sure, I'm into most all of those bands. I don't like the "jam band" label, and am not as much into the derived bands, but aside from the improv and jamming, the only real influence the Dead have left is the format of live concerts into orchestrated sets, which even the Dead didn't solidify until the late 70s.
Its not just the music, but the concert experience that they had that I should have qualified better. Their studio albums were average at best, but when the Dead got the first and second sets stable from the late 70s to the end of their career, well that was brilliant. And like I said their career is second to none in their appeal over 30 years the way they would retire songs, bring them back, and introduce new songs, and modify/keep fresh the old ones.
I saw a Rush concert on cable a couple of months ago, and WOW! The way they have freshened up their music is amazing. Teases and loosening up their anal retentiveness blew me away.
I'm still upset that Jerry is dead. The last time I saw them in 95, one of the last shows before Jerry died, I knew it was over, or at least it was for me, and then I got the news that Jerry was dead, and poof, so was the Grateful Dead.
RIP buddy. We still miss you.
Long live Weird Al!
-PM
With the decline of Urban being hip (see the other Slashdot post), and this compilation, it sounds like Geek is the new hip thing. So here's my idea for a new game. You play the life of a pro gamer. The game would just be like a random tournament of old-school games, like Asteroids, Pacman, Pong, Frogger etc. When you get an end game, you start again straight away, but with a score of zero. You get 2-3 minutes for each game, and the person at the end of 2-3 minutes with the highest score wins.
What kind of "nerd" RARs files in a torrent? Fucking noob.
All in all, it looks like far too many nerds think that the only way to make credible rap is by pretending to be a black gangster, which is sad.
Another problem was the volume. Why should I strain to hear your lyrics? Why would you want to hide them under your music in the first place? DELETED
50MB of music from nearly 400MB of torrents. Disappointing.
Damn.
:)
In my defense, in C that wouldn't be a 1-byte number so we're all wrong
Well, it would be whatever you make it. Declare it unsigned char and go with it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I tracked down a friend with some bootlegs of their concerts. As I've encountered the Dead, and most of the other bands I listed, only through their recorded works, it was easy to overlook the experiential aspect of their music. I appreciate your point much better now.
It's still white... :)
Big booty