Tuesday, September 5, 2006
Who Will Be Hip-Hop's Nirvana?
This question comes from a great conversation I had with Mrs. Donnybrook over the weekend while flipping through this year's disastrous incarnation of the MTV Video Music Awards.
We've come to the conclusion that hip-hop music circa 2006 is the equivalent of heavy metal circa 1992.
Back in 1992, the charts were overrun with cookie-cutter bands that looked like this...
...and were more interested in the image they portrayed than the music they played. These bands took the great sound of the metal acts that came before them (Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Def Leppard) and watered it down to nothing.
Now, in 2006, the rap community has apparently reached that same critical mass. You've got any number of rap artists that are trying their best to portray an image that looks roughly like this...
...and making music completely lacking in creativity. Again, it's a watered down version of a formerly inspired musical movement led by bands like Public Enemy and N.W.A.
Rock music needed a big change in the early 90's and got it in the form of an unwashed malcontent named Kurt Cobain. I fucking hate Nirvana and most of the bands that became popular at that time, but I completely understand why their movement succeeded.
So who's gonna come along and save rap music now that it's entered it's very own Britny Fox/Enuff Z'Nuff/Steelheart period?
The names that come to my mind are OutKast and Gnarls Barkley, if only because they actually put out music that sounds like music and not a millionaire pseudo-thug screaming over a drum machine.
Any thoughts?
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