Thursday, June 02, 2005
Punk vs. Rap
Watched a DVD on eighties punk music the other night. Back in the day I was about as hip as an ex-jock medical student could be. I listened to the alternate music including punk. I hated the pop crap like Michael Jackson. You can guess my spin on "Beat It." I hung on the edge of that crowd of artists, musicians and even gays.
But I got older and more conservative. I lost interest in being cool and the hip crowd. I started down a more personally determined path, not that of the mainstream culture or conforming to some alternate culture.
Punk and other eighties alternative movements essentially died as the decade went on. The Reagan years and rise of the Yuppies. The tail end of the Baby Boom grows up. Gen X has to get a job. Snorting cocaine turns to crack and armed gangs. Casual sex meets HIV.
At the same time rap slowly was growing. The early stuff was creative and even funny at times. Rappers Delight. Fight for your right to party. It has now become the dominant youth music. Of all races and social classes. Alt rock has a strong rap part too. Movie sound tracks. TV commercials. White boy rap. Christian rap. Gangster rap.
Well I hate the shit. Most of it sucks. I am sick of hearing it. At the gym. On TV. And especially booming out of car sound systems. A small amount of it is tolerable. Even smaller amount is good. Most of it is crap. I have listened to it. I have "given it a try." If only I in my forties could be so cool as to play it. Fuck that.
So the thought becomes why did I like punk and hate rap? After all both are fuck you to the rest of society. Both are less than pleasant music. Both are less than great creative artistry.
Am I just too old? Hard to believe I used to read and study to punk. I can't read to lyrics of any kind now. I read to classical or jazz. Rock or punk is for driving or working out or working in the garage. Perhaps its just that like most people, the music at that stage was a more central part of my life and I "imprinted" on it. We used to mock those who spoke of The Beatles highly. "Phony Beatlemania has bit the dust."
But there are three differences of importance. First is music itself. Punk is played in old garage band heavy metal style. Rap is synthetic music with no musicians. A drummer vs. A drum machine. Guitars vs. Digital samples. Punk may be primitive and often simple, but rap is the same damn thing in every song. Boring. While the poetry can be creative, rap doesn't even sing.
Second is that rap is conforming to its social sub-group while punk has minimal conforming to any group at all. The majority of rap is the typical ghetto themes. Abusing the bitch. Fucking the bitches. Killing people. Selling drugs. Respect and disrespect. Kill the cops. Revenge. The style is pimp. Flashy clothes. Status cars. Jewelry. Expensive but tasteless.
Punk themes ran the gamut from masturbation to suicide to breaking the yokes making fried eggs. The emotions ran from love to heartache to depression to anger to damn funny. Short hair, long hair, painted hair, spiky hair, no hair. The clothes were all over the place.
Third and final point. Punk rejects and rebels against the mainstream culture. Rap actually is quite conforming to it. Punk says fuck your materialistic shit. Your TV sucks. I'm bored of the consumer society and insipid status seeking. Rap is right in line with consumerism. The main thing is to buy status symbols like cars and houses. To be the big spender. Money and the power that goes with it. And they don't care how they get it. Parasitism is the rule. Or outright violent theft. Or selling out. They are no different from two-bit dictators, ambulance chasers, stock manipulators, conmen and many of our elected officials.
So there it is. Punk was a stage of the less brainwashed members of my generation at the Boomer/X juncture. We looked beneath the lies and propaganda and saw the rotten growing tumors in this society. This has only gotten worse. The economic boom over twenty years really helped cover it up.
Rap on the other hand is that rot itself. The combination of worship of Mammon that destroys all else and eventually destroys the prosperity itself. The moral decay. The anti-intellectualism and rejection of reason and science. The destruction of the planet. The rise of violence. The dearth of quality art.
The future makes me shudder.
But I got older and more conservative. I lost interest in being cool and the hip crowd. I started down a more personally determined path, not that of the mainstream culture or conforming to some alternate culture.
Punk and other eighties alternative movements essentially died as the decade went on. The Reagan years and rise of the Yuppies. The tail end of the Baby Boom grows up. Gen X has to get a job. Snorting cocaine turns to crack and armed gangs. Casual sex meets HIV.
At the same time rap slowly was growing. The early stuff was creative and even funny at times. Rappers Delight. Fight for your right to party. It has now become the dominant youth music. Of all races and social classes. Alt rock has a strong rap part too. Movie sound tracks. TV commercials. White boy rap. Christian rap. Gangster rap.
Well I hate the shit. Most of it sucks. I am sick of hearing it. At the gym. On TV. And especially booming out of car sound systems. A small amount of it is tolerable. Even smaller amount is good. Most of it is crap. I have listened to it. I have "given it a try." If only I in my forties could be so cool as to play it. Fuck that.
So the thought becomes why did I like punk and hate rap? After all both are fuck you to the rest of society. Both are less than pleasant music. Both are less than great creative artistry.
Am I just too old? Hard to believe I used to read and study to punk. I can't read to lyrics of any kind now. I read to classical or jazz. Rock or punk is for driving or working out or working in the garage. Perhaps its just that like most people, the music at that stage was a more central part of my life and I "imprinted" on it. We used to mock those who spoke of The Beatles highly. "Phony Beatlemania has bit the dust."
But there are three differences of importance. First is music itself. Punk is played in old garage band heavy metal style. Rap is synthetic music with no musicians. A drummer vs. A drum machine. Guitars vs. Digital samples. Punk may be primitive and often simple, but rap is the same damn thing in every song. Boring. While the poetry can be creative, rap doesn't even sing.
Second is that rap is conforming to its social sub-group while punk has minimal conforming to any group at all. The majority of rap is the typical ghetto themes. Abusing the bitch. Fucking the bitches. Killing people. Selling drugs. Respect and disrespect. Kill the cops. Revenge. The style is pimp. Flashy clothes. Status cars. Jewelry. Expensive but tasteless.
Punk themes ran the gamut from masturbation to suicide to breaking the yokes making fried eggs. The emotions ran from love to heartache to depression to anger to damn funny. Short hair, long hair, painted hair, spiky hair, no hair. The clothes were all over the place.
Third and final point. Punk rejects and rebels against the mainstream culture. Rap actually is quite conforming to it. Punk says fuck your materialistic shit. Your TV sucks. I'm bored of the consumer society and insipid status seeking. Rap is right in line with consumerism. The main thing is to buy status symbols like cars and houses. To be the big spender. Money and the power that goes with it. And they don't care how they get it. Parasitism is the rule. Or outright violent theft. Or selling out. They are no different from two-bit dictators, ambulance chasers, stock manipulators, conmen and many of our elected officials.
So there it is. Punk was a stage of the less brainwashed members of my generation at the Boomer/X juncture. We looked beneath the lies and propaganda and saw the rotten growing tumors in this society. This has only gotten worse. The economic boom over twenty years really helped cover it up.
Rap on the other hand is that rot itself. The combination of worship of Mammon that destroys all else and eventually destroys the prosperity itself. The moral decay. The anti-intellectualism and rejection of reason and science. The destruction of the planet. The rise of violence. The dearth of quality art.
The future makes me shudder.
