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Culture: Song Lyrics
Adult-contemporary rap   (+15, -2)  [vote for, against]
Boring, conservative hip-hop for staid grownups

Some decades ago, rock'n'roll was born. It was the more or less natural result of the rise of consumer mass media and the emergence of a large demographic of teenagers with pocket money. As such, it was about teenage rebellion, about greasing one's hair and wearing leather jackets, about high-school crushes and provocative hip-swaying dancing. The oldies saw it as a threat to decency and protested it, which made the teenagers all the more eager to identify with it.

Some decades later, those teenagers became middle-aged, many with well-paying white-collar jobs and more grown-up tastes to spend their discretionary income on. Now a lot of them didn't graduate to classical music or even jazz, but maintained an interest in the rock genre; on the other hand, they weren't rebellious teenagers any more, but rather the voices of age and wisdom contrasting with hormonal brats of their own. So the recording industry invented adult-oriented rock; stuff like Michael Bolton and Bryan Adams, with all the staid conservatism of a genre that knows it's part of the status quo, not its overthrowing. (And then the Rolling Stones issued their own platinum credit card, but that's another story.)

In the past few decades, hip-hop has been one of the fastest growing musical genres; born in the inner cities of America and influenced by Jamaican sound systems and an ethic of improvisation, it has reached out into suburbia and the charts. And to an extent, it has been adopted into the mainstream; witness rappers like Will Smith, gangsta rap made with rebellious white kids in mind, and even hip-hop elements in manufactured boy/girl bands. However, that is still marketed at Generation Y.

The kids who grew up listening to Snoop Dogg and Ice Cube will, in their own time, grow up and become comfortable fourtysomethings with kids, mortgages and air-conditioned SUVs. As such, someone will have to formulate adult-contemporary rap so they have something to put on the car stereo when commuting to work, taking the kids to the equivalent of soccer practice, or just kvetching about how they can't understand the noise their kids are listening to.
-- acb, Mar 31 2001

"It's All About the Pentiums" http://www.thepentiums.com/
Something like this, maybe? [Uncle Nutsy, Mar 31 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

MC Hawking's Crib http://www.mchawking.com/
Slightly off-topic, yet worthy. [Meowse, Mar 31 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Pat Boone's metal album http://www.amazon.c...etail/-/B000005KOE/
So close. He's the man to lead the charge. [yppiz, Oct 04 2004]

MC Pitman http://www.digitald...atures/mcpitman.htm
Northern England ex-miner rap [hippo, Oct 04 2004]

I think that this is the first idea that I've read where the whole annotation argues against posting the idea in the first place. Perhaps this could be the basis of a whole new website. Please_don't bake_it.com?
-- DrBob, Mar 31 2001


Hey there sir, I pay off all my balances
your credit card debt rivals Jack Palance's

Your SUV's finish is a little spotty
you make your instant while I purchase my latte

Hold on, step back I'm not done with your vehicle
you got no surround sound and your clearance in minimal

Your PDA is something like medieval
and I'm sorry to say your kid's reading is remedial

I download at T1, I ain't ever late
you still connect at 28.8

You see a therapist because you know you can't hack it
your investments
the Rogain
your lower tax bracket

-- blahginger, Mar 31 2001


blahginger, represent! That's one hella phat rhyme, yo! Word to your broker!
-- 1percent, Apr 05 2001


blahdinger, I dig that joint.
-- Op, Apr 18 2001


I am aware that it's not *precisely* topical (being neither staid nor boring); but those of you who are not familiar with MC Hawking should remedy that lack immediately.

www.mchawking.com

"Creationists always try to use the second law,
to disprove evolution, but their theory has a flaw.
The second law is quite precise about where it applies,
only in a closed system must the entropy count rise.
The earth's not a closed system' it's powered by the sun,
so fuck the damn creationists, Doomsday get my gun!"
-- MC Hawking, "Entropy"

Yeah. Repruhzent, mutha-fucka.
-- Meowse, Oct 06 2001


Word to your mother.
-- brewmaster, Mar 13 2002


So the obvious question becomes, how does the music industry come up with something nastier and more rebellious than rap? Maybe our kids will perform the ultimate rebellion against taste and decency: Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits.
-- RayfordSteele, Mar 14 2002


barry manilow is too tame. the next wave of music that adults won't be able to stand (hopefully) is pop. i believe it's gone full circle. i happen to be a part of the generation that put WWF on MTV. i don't know what to do about it, even though i know 5 or 6 karate masters who could probably take the whole pro wrestling gabal down with only a few well placed kicks and insults about their honor but i'm sorry people, that's not gonna happen. the problem we face now is that basically the rap blahginger made up is basically a sarcastic delivery of what mainstream rap is now. all they talk about is how rich they are. pretty soon you won't be able to start off as a rapper unless you can rap about how rich you are. only the rich will be able to rap. what will rebel against this? one word: NORWEGIAN BLACK
-- duran, Mar 17 2002


...METAL! sorry about that.
-- duran, Mar 17 2002


"For many, blue-chip-hop began with the oft-ignored, "Fear Of A Gap Planet" album, but only became widely recognised as a musical force when the board of directors at Columbia Records took the revolutionary step of bypassing their talent roster completely, and recorded "Requiem For The Forgotten Affluent", which burst into the top of the charts, thanks largely to the group's 85% ownership of the Gallup Corporation.

"Many rival groups followed suit, and sub-genres popped up faster than the Boards could bankrupt them. From Mothers Against Nudity In Cinema and "Rap Up Warm Or You'll Catch Your Def" to the Wilmington PTA's seminal "Fund Razor", it seemed that the middle classes had finally found their voice.

"The darkest hour came when Enron B.O.D. released their ill-advised single, "401-K (for Kenneth)", which was met with such astonishing critical and commercial vitriol that its producers came close to facing actual criminal charges. But the unpleasant incident was quickly hushed up, and the scene is now more vibrant than ever."
-- friendlyfire, Dec 12 2002


Meowse: My high school chem/physics teacher used to do this. I think he did one about Niels Bohr to my name is. Ssuch a funny little man. . .he played the sitar for us when we were doing wave-physics.
-- notme, Dec 12 2002


Hang on... didn't Tom Lehrer bake this one?
-- Ventilator, Apr 09 2003


Will the Real Pear-shaped Shady please stand up?
-- egbert, Apr 09 2003


If you hear Limp Bizkit's "Nookie" covered by Musak in an elevator and like it...you MUST be a grown-up!
-- muzer, Nov 07 2003



random, halfbakery