Why is most American pop music rubbish?

[E_Irizarry]

If you wanna help DJ Kool Herc has Kidney Stones and can't afford to have them removed, so his sister is looking for donations. I'm super broke and unemployed but for those of you that are old school hip hop fans, we wouldn't be here today without Herc's pioneering DJ style.

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/201 ... ord_s.html

Damn. Not to be disrespectful with intention, but dude must have consumed a lot of food with sodium in it. Those shits hurt..I had one before. I just cannot help him out. People in the industry should be up on it to save one of the pioneers of Hip-Hop!!

[E_Irizarry]

Ahh Music!

"American Idol" is the biggest threat to Western Music in my mind. While you MIGHT have good or great singers, it's really not about their VOCAL talent as in their MARKETABILITY talent. Music is really about the business instead of creativity it seems these days. It's always been that way, perhaps it was just hidden more in the past. I'm just surprised I haven't heard any "product placement" lyrics yet, I 'm sure they are coming!

Product placement [template] lyrics! I know, right!!!!?

Thank God the Internet has greatly destroyed the old music business models of the past. Back then, whom got played on the radio seemed to be rigged to a certain extant. Nowadays, ANYONE can make a quick video, post it, and try to build a following. Of course, with the old gatekeepers dead, alot of stuff gets through that is just horrible BUT whom am I to judge?

I also think the novelity of Auto Tune has come and gone. While it was OK on the first record I heard it on, which was "California Love" by 2Pac in the 90's, it just gets on my nerves to hear it these days, and makes me think the singers or singers are just creatively dead and/or using it because other people are. Anyone else agree?

Yeah Auto Tune is ok with subtle usage and sometimes helps to make a song sound updated if the beat is somewhat old-school yet still hot. Actually, the late Roger Troutman used "Auto Tune" on his records back in the day along with George Clinton/Parliament and Funkadelic, too.

As far political songs and such? Most people seem to want to only eat the frosting, and not touch the cake.

TruthVille

P.S. I remember when "rap" and hip/hop were about solving/identifying social issues instead of creating/perpetuating social issues.

Yeah you had your goofball rap (e.g. Kid N' Play), but we had "edutainment rappers" like Paris, Chubb Rock, KMD...even the initial stages of thug rap like Mobb Deep, Capone-N-Noreaga, Wu-Tang were fuckin' explosive

[DaRick]

Some of the popular music I've heard from America would make Lou Reed proud. Atonal and autotune-heavy. Basically, it's about as listenable as his Metal Machine Music album was. The only thing is that Reed intended for his album to be that way - these guys don't.

[Winston]

Great explanation of why modern music has gotten so bad and less diverse and less creative.