Week 4: 50 Records that Changed Music. [Archive] - Audio & Video Forums

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Swish
08-07-2006, 04:28 AM
This week's entry is NWA - Straight Outta Compton (1989).

Like a darker, more vengeful Public Enemy, NWA (*****z With Attitude) exposed the vicious realities of the West Coast gang culture on their lurid, fluent debut. Part aural reportage (sirens, gunshots, police radio), part thuggish swagger, Compton laid the blueprint for the most successful musical genre of the last 20 years, gangsta rap. It gave the world a new production mogul in Dr. Dre, and gave voice to the frustrations that flared up into the LA riots in 1992. As befits an album boasting a song called "F*#k the Police", attention from the FBI, the Parents' Music Resource Centre and the (British) Metropolitan Police's Obscene Publications Squad sealed its notoriety. Without this there would be no Eminem, no 50 Cent, no Dizee Rascal.

This is a genre of music that is among my least favorite. I suppose it's the fact that I grew up in white, middle-class suburbia and cannot possibly relate to the themes that most rappers incorporate into their songs. In addition, I don't care for the usual bad rhyming and "talking" as opposed to singing, and the on-stage antics and posing of the performers. It's not my thing and will never be, although I admit that some of the modified rap, tinged with R & B, isn't too bad, but the typical fodder just doesn't appeal to me. If rap never existed, I could not care less, but this is about influence, not whether or not we like the music.

Swish

Stone
08-07-2006, 04:50 AM
This week's entry is NWA - Straight Outta Compton (1989).

... Without this there would be no Eminem, no 50 Cent, no Dizee Rascal.



Ya know, I would be fine without them. However, I do really like this album and I also believe it really sparked the gangsta rap movement. Some others were already in that direction when this came out, but this was no-holds-barred, tell-it-like-it-is unadulterated violent rap, and they left no doubt about it. I can't relate to it either, having grown up in rural Iowa, but I do enjoy the intensity and it is hard to deny its impact on music to this day.

bobsticks
08-07-2006, 05:26 AM
I have a copy of the list and I have been dreading this entry, if only because I have to admit that at 15 I loved this album. This and PE. Whereas Public Enemy evoked thought NWA was pure rage set to a great beat. As a white kid growing up in the suburbs--and having a level of anger comensurate to the average white kid in the suburbs--I was moved, literally. And if I was moved, then I can only imagine what the disenfranchised youth of the inner city felt at the time. I recall the heavy metal of the day being largely an affair of sword and sorcery. With gangsta rap you just turned on the news and it was real.
The influence of this album has been massive, though I tend to view it more in societal terms than in musical terms. Insofar as their style was more one of co-optation of a set of behaviors than commentary, NWA perpetuated a state of self-negation within communities that could least afford it.

... Ya know what ahm sayin' byatches...

nobody
08-07-2006, 06:47 AM
I liked this one, and I think its pretty impossible to deny its influence. Was this before or after Ghetto boys?

However, I think its interesting and quite a shame that it gets talked about in the same breath as Public Enemy in the sense that they were both revolutionary for their time, but the callous anger of NWA has seemed to greatly overshadow the political conciousness of Public Enemy for its influence on subsequent generations. Gansta rap had its place in bringing the harsh realities of the ghetto to mainstream American, but after that...what's really left to say? Public Enemy had a lot more to say, and rap with a political conciousness can keep making valid statements for any time or generation. rap just rehashing the same thing...no matter its import, just gets stale.

DariusNYC
08-07-2006, 08:37 AM
My twin brother and I couldn't get enough of this album when it first came out and we were in high school (white, middle-class, midwestern, suburban) -- and we introduced all our friends to the album while driving around in my parents' car. The beats were so big, and the lyrics were so badass and funny. And the different voices in the band played off eachother so well. To hear Eazy-E's high-pitched voice and coming in after the deeper Yella or Ren, say, had just such a jazzy kick-a$$ contrast effect. I listened again to this album recently and was surpised how simple the meter and the rhyming of the rapping is compared to what would follow, and how soulful and smooth the R&B beats were. This album was a huge influence, for better and worse. Much bigger than Public Enemy (which of course made quite a big impression on us white high-schoolers as well).

3-LockBox
08-07-2006, 09:10 AM
I think its influence is undeniable...that being said, I believe its lasting influence is a very negative one. Just as a movie like The Godfather gave viewing audiences the wrong impression of organized crime, where thugs and murderors are elevated to esteem, this new gansta-rap served to glorify a major problem, rather than serve as the cautionary tale that many rap albums in the past had.

Of course, its not the album's fault if hundreds of copycats have been churned out by the record companies. An album like this (and PE's 'Nation Of Millions...) were popular because they were so flagrant in their violence, but as far as commentary on social injustice and politics, that had been done before by other rap acts. It seems this album's lasting impact on rap (and popular music) was it's acceptance and embracing of this violence, and while other acts preached and lamented on the harsh realities of the ganster life, acts like NWA and PE seem to glorify it, by portraying themselves as gansters.

But isn't so much the lifestyle that gets over-romantisized, it's also the black on black crime and abuse of women. No longer would rappers just brag on their sexual prowess, money and ryhming ability, but how badly they'd beatdown or kill someone that crossed them (which seemed easy to do). Also, there is no mention of females unless its accompnied by the word b!tch and they're referenced as gold diggers and ho's.

Unfortunately, the chest thumping wasn't limited to artistic expression, but rivalries were springing up twix rappers as to who had more street cred; whether art imitated life or life imitated art, these weren't friendly rivalries. And there would be a backlash against rappers who had no street credibility because their records didn't exhault the gangsta life.

This was also a landmark album in that this was a west coast act that was exerting its influence and being hugely successful, helping to magnify a west/east coast rivalary that instead of being solely limited to business, would resort to widespread viloence that would rival the Mafia, resulting in 'hits' that would end the careers of the genre's biggest acts.

3-LockBox
08-07-2006, 09:30 AM
My twin brother and I couldn't get enough of this album when it first came out and we were in high school (white, middle-class, midwestern, suburban).

I can understand how someone could appreciate the innovative mixing and the infectuous beats. I can appreciate driving around listening to someone on tape use profanity and laughing at it (we did it with Richard Prior and later, Eddie Murphy). let's face it, where would the car subwoofer industry be without rap?

What I couldn't understand was that so many kids who come from white, middle-class, suburban America seemed to indentify with, and want to emulate, what they were listening to, as if they had any idea what that life was like. I see these kids now, walking around wearing black sweats and black stocking caps in the middle of summer, trying to act all bad-assed and disenfranchised while sweating through their clothes, and the worst social-injustice perpitrated on them is that they've been duped into wearing black sweats and stocking caps in the middle of summer.

Ex Lion Tamer
08-07-2006, 04:15 PM
I can't relate to it either, having grown up in rural Iowa.

Is there any other kind of Iowa? (rim shot)

SlumpBuster
08-07-2006, 07:34 PM
You can't talk about rap, and you definately can't talk about NWA without talking about race. White America has stolen/misappropriated every major musical format to grow out of black musical traditions. Jazz, blues, R&B, rock & roll, even funk have all been mainstreamed by white artists.

Straight Outta Compton drew a line in the sand and said "You ain't gettin' your hands on this one!" It is the album that forever made it virtually impossible to be a white rapper. Beasties, Eminem, Bubba Sparxx is all I can think of, not counting all the crappy one hit wonders. And they all made it by celebrating their "whiteness" rather than trying to push some fake azz street cred.

superpanavision70mm
08-07-2006, 09:45 PM
thank goodness...I think all of our lives are better now because of Gangsta Rap. I mean when a person looks back at the marvels of the 20th century...flight, space exloration, advacements in technology, medicine, music, etc.... there is no doubt that Gangsta Rap has had a superb influence in all of us. Mark Twain (if still alive) probably would have been a huge fan of Lil' Jon. Einstein would most likely lean towards the West Coast though...probably Bangin' on Wax by BLOODS & CRIPS.

superpanavision70mm
08-07-2006, 09:47 PM
Just in case my sarcasm wasn't dripping off your screen enough in my last post...I'll just submit this quite post so I don't actually get people asking me if I am for real.

3-LockBox
08-07-2006, 09:52 PM
You can't talk about rap, and you definately can't talk about NWA without talking about race. White America has stolen/misappropriated every major musical format to grow out of black musical traditions. Jazz, blues, R&B, rock & roll, even funk have all been mainstreamed by white artists.

zzzzzzzzz........


Straight Outta Compton drew a line in the sand and said "You ain't gettin' your hands on this one!" and I haven't


It is the album that forever made it virtually impossible to be a white rapper. Gawd, I wish that were true


Beasties, Eminem, Bubba Sparxx is all I can think of, not counting all the crappy one hit wonders. You forgot rap and country music darling, Kid Rock. and don't forget Flava Flave's homey, Vanilla Ice (obescure Arsenio Hall reference). Aaron Carter (he sure sounds like a playa) and of course the latest flavor, hippety-hop artists Big & Rich with their 'gangsta style' videos.


And they all made it by celebrating their "whiteness" rather than trying to push some fake azz street cred. Except that Kid Rock seems to have ditched his black roots for hippety hop, Aaron Carter apes gangsta rap (with a touch of Joey Lawrence thrown in), Vanilla Ice lied about being in gangs and "throwin down and shlt" and getting stabbed, Eminem rides the coattales of Dr Dre and sells more than any rap artist before him, and all he does is talk smack about other rappers now; the only whiteness he ever celebrated was his trailor trashness. And The Beastie Boyz weren't gangsta rap.

But really, Gangsta Rap isn't as scarey as it once was. Most of these gangstaz and playaz from back in tha day are TV whores; seen Flava Of Love? That show should be rated 'E', for eeewwww!!! Snoop Dog has made commercials making lite of his famed lingo.(forshizzel).

Influencial? Yes, Straight Outta Compton was indeed. Does it carry a negative legacy within its own ranks? Yes. Has it too, been co-opted by big business? I've already mentioned Big & Rich. Before you know it, you're gonna be watching a rodeo (yeah, right) and a hip-hop-a-long cowboy's gonna jump of his horse, rope-n-tie a little calf, then jump up and yell "Take that Biotch!" while making east/west fingers into the camera.

Stone
08-08-2006, 06:14 AM
Is there any other kind of Iowa? (rim shot)

Ha ha ha.

NO CORN FOR YOU!

nobody
08-08-2006, 06:41 AM
You can't talk about rap, and you definately can't talk about NWA without talking about race. White America has stolen/misappropriated every major musical format to grow out of black musical traditions. Jazz, blues, R&B, rock & roll, even funk have all been mainstreamed by white artists.

Straight Outta Compton drew a line in the sand and said "You ain't gettin' your hands on this one!" It is the album that forever made it virtually impossible to be a white rapper. Beasties, Eminem, Bubba Sparxx is all I can think of, not counting all the crappy one hit wonders. And they all made it by celebrating their "whiteness" rather than trying to push some fake azz street cred.

I'm of two minds about this. I certainly see shadows of this theory all over American music. However, when does this whole stealing/misappropriating thing start and legitimate artistic, cross-cultural influences stop?

I mean, yeah African slaves brought polyrhythmic exploration and other common traits to the new world and fused them into new musical forms. But, if the white folks in America had no influence...why the heck didn't any of this new music come out of Africa in the first place? There has always been cross-pollination of music.

And, I may argue that gansta rap has been just the opposite of something black musicians could keep their own as it has become one of the biggest selling genres out there today, often codified into cookie-cutter sameness by white record executives to sell to wanna-be-rebellious, suburban white kids music made by black folks still falling for the ol' do a jig for whitey thing.

Then, there’s the realization that hip hop is far from a black only thing considering most musicians of the age where you expect popular musicians to make their greatest impact, whether black or white, have grown up hearing hip hop from childhood. So, its influence certainly stretches across cultural lines.

Not really sure where I fall on this one, to be honest. I see lots of evidence on both sides of these arguments, but just thought I'd toss 'em out there...

DariusNYC
08-08-2006, 07:16 AM
You can't talk about rap, and you definately can't talk about NWA without talking about race. White America has stolen/misappropriated every major musical format to grow out of black musical traditions. Jazz, blues, R&B, rock & roll, even funk have all been mainstreamed by white artists.

Straight Outta Compton drew a line in the sand and said "You ain't gettin' your hands on this one!" It is the album that forever made it virtually impossible to be a white rapper. Beasties, Eminem, Bubba Sparxx is all I can think of, not counting all the crappy one hit wonders. And they all made it by celebrating their "whiteness" rather than trying to push some fake azz street cred.

I think you can definitely talk about rap music without talking about race. I don't think it was in any event a big subject to NWA's music, nor in most rap music. However, I don't think you can intelligently discuss white people's, and white America's reaction to rap music without discussing race. (But maybe that's what you meant.)

I hear your point on your second paragraph, but would consider Pall Wall as a good contrary example. I think it comes down to not faking being part of a different culture than you are. He doesn't do that -- he's not faking his culture -- and he actually sounds black to most people with his Southern drawl. Eminem and Beasties definitely do not sound black, and they're not faking it either.

The glorification, and the vilification, of this album or ones like it as a cultural event as opposed to a piece of music -- like the arguments over the revolutionary and/or destructive potential of punk in the mid-late 70s -- has gotten a bit boring to me. It's all so exaggerated. Rebellious, purposely offensive music and lyrics and image, etc., will always rile people up -- and a large portion of the youth will always respond to that. But maybe I'm jaded but I don't see record albums any more as drawing these significant cultural lines in the sand.

Sort of a mixed, random collection of thoughts, I suppose, but what the heck.

bobsticks
08-08-2006, 08:50 AM
The glorification, and the vilification, of this album or ones like it as a cultural event as opposed to a piece of music -- like the arguments over the revolutionary and/or destructive potential of punk in the mid-late 70s -- has gotten a bit boring to me. It's all so exaggerated. Rebellious, purposely offensive music and lyrics and image, etc., will always rile people up -- and a large portion of the youth will always respond to that. But maybe I'm jaded but I don't see record albums any more as drawing these significant cultural lines in the sand. .

Hey Darius,
I agreed with the majority of your post. I will, however, have to respectfully disagree with your closing sentence. I think what NWA did was different than what PE was doing simultaneously, and the output of those to follow.
The difference lying in the execution and nature of the themes. With PE you got a stream of consciousness involving an entire spectrum of thought. Violent?Occasionally, but within context. PE's violence was based largely on scenarios set within the work.For instance, "Back Steel in the Hour of Chaos" is, indeed, violent. But its violence is aimed at a specific and oppressive target.
What NWA did was to make violence the first, not the final, recourse. And when you look at "cultural lines" I don't think it's as simple as black and white. I think you may need to look in terms of socio-economic--upper, lower, and middle classes.
The message becomes, consciously or not, that it's OK to be uneducated. That mysogeny is acceptable and that each day holds kill or be killed situations. It has been said before, and I agree, that this album and its progeny have been seen not as commentary but as advocacy.
It's socially irresponsible to beat into people the idea that if you'r edisadvantaged you can never work your way above it. It's socially irresponsible to glorify self-negating behavior. And, we've seen that historically messages repeated often enough will come to fruition, for good or ill...
Cheers

3-LockBox
08-08-2006, 11:07 AM
.
What NWA did was to make violence the first, not the final, recourse. And when you look at "cultural lines" I don't think it's as simple as black and white. I think you may need to look in terms of socio-economic--upper, lower, and middle classes.
The message becomes, consciously or not, that it's OK to be uneducated. That mysogeny is acceptable and that each day holds kill or be killed situations. It has been said before, and I agree, that this album and its progeny have been seen not as commentary but as advocacy.
It's socially irresponsible to beat into people the idea that if you'r edisadvantaged you can never work your way above it. It's socially irresponsible to glorify self-negating behavior. And, we've seen that historically messages repeated often enough will come to fruition, for good or ill...

That's kinda what I was getting at a few post ago. While social commentary has always been at the core of rap (as well violence) it was done in a cautionary or parable context. NWA changed that by portraying the worst the culture had to offer. I can't say whether or not they meant it to sound cautionary; maybe they were just trying to portray the life on the street senario to it's most violent conclusion. But it does seem that the audience for this brand of rap embraced and held to esteem the characters being portrayed on these albums; instead of those thugs being the bad example, they became the example.

But its like someone already mentioned, its almost become a parody of itself, much like the punk movement did, although, gangsta rap lasted a lot longer than punk ever did. And I do think fans of rap are coming around and taking these newer gangstaz with a grain of salt. Perhaps the gangsta rap era will give way to brand of rap that will eschew violence, much in the same way 'punk' eschewed the hedonistic phoniness of Disco, and the way grunge railed against the conspicuous consumption of the '80s. Let's face it, nothin glorified self-negating behavior more than the heavy metal scene of the '80s, but the rock audience got tired of it and moved on. I hope the same thing happens in rap (though pop-muzak seems unchanged since the '80s)

MasterCylinder
08-08-2006, 11:15 AM
Rap is crap.

Rap sucks.

I understand this thread is about influence and this release may deserve credit.

All I can tell you is that it did not influence me.

Resident Loser
08-09-2006, 12:19 PM
...little to add to the overall tone of the thread all I have to say is:

Is it time for number five yet?

jimHJJ(...huh? is it?...huh?...)

BradH
08-09-2006, 01:22 PM
You can't talk about rap, and you definately can't talk about NWA without talking about race.

That's arguably true about NWA but not rap in general unless you take the excruciatingly dull and narrow view that social commentary is the most important thing in music. It is possible to talk about rap in strictly musical terms regarding styles, influences, etc.


White America has stolen/misappropriated every major musical format to grow out of black musical traditions. Jazz, blues, R&B, rock & roll, even funk have all been mainstreamed by white artists.

Would it have been better for those genres to stay isolated? Dare I say, ghetto-ized? And btw, black musicians helped mainstream those genres too.


Straight Outta Compton drew a line in the sand and said "You ain't gettin' your hands on this one!" It is the album that forever made it virtually impossible to be a white rapper.

Thank GOD! It's like....a permanent ghetto!!


Beasties, Eminem, Bubba Sparxx is all I can think of, not counting all the crappy one hit wonders. And they all made it by celebrating their "whiteness" rather than trying to push some fake azz street cred.

But isn't it ironic that NWA also spawned so much fake a$$ street cred from black rappers?

There's no question that this album "changed the face of music". But I'll take the Africa Bambataa and Natives Tongues strain over Dre anyday. I don't see NWA as having more credibility than De La Soul describing arguing with the "Bitties in the BK Lounge", an experience more common to the black community than dragging them into the alley and beating the hell out of them. The fact that De La dismissed gangsta rap as being phony just lends more real credibility to them imo.

Swish
08-10-2006, 10:59 AM
...little to add to the overall tone of the thread all I have to say is:

Is it time for number five yet?

jimHJJ(...huh? is it?...huh?...)

It's one per week for 50 weeks, as I mentioned when I posted the first one. Yeah, some of you have already seen the list and know what's coming, thereby spoiling some of my fun. We keep seeing a bunch of lists on this board (top 100 guitar records, top 50 of the year) and we see them all at once. I think that revealing them one at a time would work better, so we can concentrate on each one rather than the whole stinking list, diluting the effect in my opinion. So let's see if you can hold hold your horses and wait until next Monday for # 5.

Swish

nobody
08-10-2006, 11:22 AM
I don't see NWA as having more credibility than De La Soul describing arguing with the "Bitties in the BK Lounge", an experience more common to the black community than dragging them into the alley and beating the hell out of them. The fact that De La dismissed gangsta rap as being phony just lends more real credibility to them imo.

I agree with ya here.

Sure, you got some real thugs tossed in there, but I figure you've got about the same percentage of real gangstas in gangsta rap as you do satan worshippers in heavy metal.

Resident Loser
08-11-2006, 09:30 AM
It's one per week for 50 weeks, as I mentioned when I posted the first one. Yeah, some of you have already seen the list and know what's coming, thereby spoiling some of my fun. We keep seeing a bunch of lists on this board (top 100 guitar records, top 50 of the year) and we see them all at once. I think that revealing them one at a time would work better, so we can concentrate on each one rather than the whole stinking list, diluting the effect in my opinion. So let's see if you can hold hold your horses and wait until next Monday for # 5.

Swish

...not quite champing at the bit to continue but, ever since the Velveteen Underwear debacle, these threads have sorta' lost their thrust IMO...little or no debate results in ZZZzzz...and this one thus far is the ultimate sleep inducer...

I mean, I could say (c)rap in general is like the beat scene...bad angst-ridden, socio-political poetry with the occasional bang on the bongo of sorts...with plagiarism to boot...but that would just draw the whole thing out well past it's useful lifespan...which pretty much is anything past your intro to the selection in question...

jimHJJ(...TGIF...)

Swish
08-11-2006, 10:56 AM
...not quite champing at the bit to continue but, ever since the Velveteen Underwear debacle, these threads have sorta' lost their thrust IMO...little or no debate results in ZZZzzz...and this one thus far is the ultimate sleep inducer...

I mean, I could say (c)rap in general is like the beat scene...bad angst-ridden, socio-political poetry with the occasional bang on the bongo of sorts...with plagiarism to boot...but that would just draw the whole thing out well past it's useful lifespan...which pretty much is anything past your intro to the selection in question...

jimHJJ(...TGIF...)

...left me with little to say. I look forward to a more stirring selection next week, although I have no idea what it will be...really. I don't look ahead, or at least I don't commit them to memory.

Swish

kexodusc
08-11-2006, 11:26 AM
I remember being young and very much into PE and NWA when this stuff hit the shelves.

At the time (1990-94) I was bouncing around between 3 different countries. My Dad was stationed at AFB Minot but ended up getting posted for training exercises in Canada (Edmonton, Alberta) and Lahr, Germany off and on for a few years. I have family who live on a reservation not far from Minot, North Dakota, so I stayed with them while Mom and Dad bounced around. Went to school there for a year (I'm half Cree Indian, but I look like a white dude with dark complexion, IMO).

I remember this album really struck a chord with the kids on the rez. It was cool to be "tough", pissed-off, and violent. It wasn't anything about American history, black oppression, growing up in the ghettos, or anything like that to them, it was just an accessory for the tough guy image. Being a bad ass is cool. Teenage girls liked badasses. And we liked teenage girls. It's been that way since at least the 50's probably way, way earlier. I can remember the school forming a bunch of tough guy gangs - schoolyard bonding really, a few fights here and there, nothing too elaborate. Point being this was all done to mimmick the gang wars on the West Coast etc.. There was a certain thrill to the gangsta life-on-the-edge or whatever. I think this thrill hit it's peak around the time Boyz 'N the Hood hit theaters, but that's another story.

Personally, I always felt that NWA just applied the violence and aggression theme to Rap the same way it had been applied to Metal and Punk. This was nothing new, really. The labels were expecting it to sell - there were already so many artists in the pipeline working on albums that I don't believe they had time to be influenced much by NWA. The violence was a hit among the youth in the other 2 genres, but damn it really took off and captured the 6:00 PM bews when it was rappers spewing it.

Whatever. Maybe there was something culturally significant to the music, maybe the "social commentary" was being heard by disenfranchised youth, and that's why it took off...

But why then was it also such a big hit in Edmonton, Alberta (and Canada in general). NWA and PE tapes helped me make my first new friends at a new school. It was every bit as popular there as I recall. Except Canada doesn't have nearly the same history as the US does when it comes to black/white issues. In fact it's pretty much polar opposite. In my school of 1000 (junior high) there might have been 10 black kids. There were way more kids of Asian, Ukranian, Native Canadian, and Latino decent there. Yet al the kids of whatever nationality/race/etc there sure loved NWA and seemingly identified with it (or just liked the tough guy image like I did - not really "getting" the social commentary, or where all this music came from).

That's cool...Canada's pretty close to the USA, gets TV, movies, music from the US, etc, so maybe it's not that much of a stretch - maybe there was enough spill over of culture into Canada for people to get caught up in all the rage NWA was delivering - and identify with it?

On to Germany. Who woulda thunk it - NWA, Public Enemy, Ice-T etc, were just as huge with the youth here. (except metal was still cool, and kids could listen to both metal and rap, not one or the other like the US/Canada for whatever reason). I'm at a loss to explain what possible cultural roots NWA could be appealing to with the youth in Germany in the early 90's...but it was there.

Not sure what all my rambling's contributing here - except is it possible that the music really wasn't about race/culture/social commentary/black vs white/ etc, but instead was more like the 90's verion of the James Dean bad-ass image, and the music itself? This stuff was currency among young males with raging hormones and no idea how to vent whatever biological energies puberty can create.

Anyhoo. I'm not sure this album was really all that revolutionary - though it certainly was evolutionary and extremely popular...it was packaged, not the first time music was violent, but I think the key here was that the source of the anger in the music was perceived as being "believable", even though it might not always have been legit (see the the metamorphosis of M.C. Hammer to Hammer). And I think that's why Gangsta rap has endured for so long compared to other genres.

FWIW - I've long since outgrown the gangsta rap music, though I do like other forms of rap.

Cool topic this week!

BradH
08-11-2006, 02:47 PM
...ever since the Velveteen Underwear debacle, these threads have sorta' lost their thrust IMO...

The list is "50 Records That Changed The Face Of Music", not "50 Records That Changed The Face Of Music Only If Resident Loser Likes Them."

Painful, I'm sure, but most people here are able to deal with it.

bobsticks
08-11-2006, 05:35 PM
Hey Kex,
I think your post shows what a perspective-based thing musical influence can be and how evolutionary this album was.

In your last lines of your posting you state that you have outgrown gangsta rap but are still interested by other forms of the genre. Assuming that NWA was one your first exposures to rap music,it evidently acted as a gateway for further musical exploration. It did for me and I would suggest that this was a good thing.

You also mentioned that during your youth there was the formation of schoolyard gangs sometimes exhibiting minor fisticuffs. Boys will be boys and this stands to reason. However, remember that this is a universal reaction to youth, rebellion, and general mischieviousness.Pretty normal coming from your perspective.

OTOH a certain segment of the gangsta rap audience lacked two key qualities that many/most of us on this forum were blessed with. Discipline and hope. Take a kid, any kid and make him poor. Then give him part-time parents (usually just one) and surround him with substance abuse and abusive behavior. Then put him in an overcrowded school. Finally, feed him messages of victimization and self-victimization...and make guns easily attainable. The outcome is predictable.

Two warehousing facilities under my purview are in the inner city. When I make an appearance in either I try to actually get to know some of the young people that work there.Most are bright and friendly enough, but man, you look in their eyes and there's something missing. Some of these kids just seem like they're waiting for something to happen. Something usually consists of shootings or jailings. Hope and aspirations just seem to be choked off.

I haven't lost anybody yet, but I have had two shot and they all know someone who has been murdered. I've lost many to the criminal justice system.

I'm not blaming this or any other album for the state of things within the poorer classes in this country as everyone is to be held accountable for their behavior. I can say that Straight Outta Compton didn't make anything better. Anytime you repeatedly pummel a message into someone's brain they are eventually going to internalize it. If they behave on it it just exacerbates existing conditions and thereby reinforces stereotypes.

That's just my perspective. Who knows, I could be wrong...but I doubt it.

Take it easy,
M

3-LockBox
08-11-2006, 06:33 PM
...not quite champing at the bit to continue but, ever since the Velveteen Underwear debacle, these threads have sorta' lost their thrust IMO...little or no debate results in ZZZzzz...and this one thus far is the ultimate sleep inducer.

Well then, the VU thread wasn't a debacle, since it did generate discussion, however polarized or heated. Not enough fans of rap here to argue with I suppose. But I'd rather wait it out than to try to digest the list in one thread anyway.

So, my vote is to keep it to one per week.

MindGoneHaywire
08-11-2006, 08:54 PM
I've been a fan of this rec for a long time, but it has unfortunately had a rather destructive influence, the way I see it. I thought it was hysterically funny, but a lot of people who similarly took the wrong message from the movie Scarface apparently took it seriously. Bad news.

I've long thought that, for the most part, these guys were not gangsters, they just enjoyed playing that role. Eazy-E was involved with some stuff, but I think the rest of them were raised under circumstances that I think would be considered decent, if not middle-class. But I could be wrong. That's what I remember about it.

I think they were willing to play it either way. If people chose to view it as cartoonish, I think they would've been willing to roll with that. I do think it's cartoonish & exaggerated to a decent extent, though not totally. But whatever the quotient of art imitating life, before long life was imitating art to way more of an extent than I would consider healthy in any respect.

If Ice Cube hadn't left, does anyone think they have that incident with that reporter? I have a feeling it might not have happened. Ice Cube had a plan & took it seriously. And considering that I don't think he's much of an actor, it's quite the B-movie film career he's carved out for himself. I think he's moved into producing at this point, as well.

Is that a guy who is the tough guy character you hear on this rec? I don't think so.

I've never understood how people could listen to this rec & take it seriously as they did, but then the Scarface issue...I rented that when it came out on DVD & there was a documentary, and I believe Ice Cube was in it, and he did apparently choose to view the Tony Montana character as a hero, rather than a vicious, thuggish criminal. I don't get it, especially since this is in conflict with the idea of Ice Cube as canny professional.

But ultimately I don't care. Hip-hop followed this bizarre interpretation of this record down into a sewer it remains in. The Geto Boys? Geez. The Chronic? Ugh. I've come to appreciate some of the first Snoop Dogg, album, but Tupac...good as he may have been, it became formulaic, and Biggie wasn't good enough, and didn't live long enough, to do anything about the unbelievably rapid decline of this genre.

Eminem is great in spite of the people who hear this record differently than I do, not because of the genre it helped spawn. Outside of him, I haven't heard one new hip-hop artist in the past 15 years who's impressed me beyond one album, and since outfits like A Tribe Called Quest are so few & far between (Outkast doesn't do it for me well enough to rate them as highly), the genre's long been a washout.

I enjoy this album for what it is, at least relative to what I hear in it. I deplore its influence. Gangsta rap worked best as novelty, heavy on the comedy aspect, for me at least. Keeping it real is mighty overrated.

This album deserves its placement on this list. Acknowledging its influence is not a problem. Celebrating it is distasteful.

JoeE SP9
08-12-2006, 11:07 AM
West Coast Connection said it all with So many Rappers In Love. Most just talk the talk . They can't walk the walk or live the life.:ihih:

bobsticks
08-13-2006, 08:02 AM
It just occurred to me that gangsts rap is a lot like pro-wrestling with guns...

dean_martin
08-13-2006, 08:45 PM
I've come to appreciate some of the first Snoop Dogg, album,

It's confession time - I was going through the vinyl at a Virgin Recs. store in Orlando (Disney West Side of all places) and found Snoop's Doggy Style. Heck, I knew it was out on vinyl and had considered ordering it. But since it was right there in my hands I went ahead and bought it. Lodi Dodi!

Resident Loser
08-14-2006, 06:05 AM
The list is "50 Records That Changed The Face Of Music", not "50 Records That Changed The Face Of Music Only If Resident Loser Likes Them."

Painful, I'm sure, but most people here are able to deal with it.

...Rocket Man...consensus breeds snore-time...Differing opinions make for interesting threads, and the length of the threads bear me out...unless,of course, a mutual admiration society is what you seek...

Week one was the high point...everything else has been second-rate, if even that...this one being the zz-topper...

The inclusion of most of the remaining albums on the list are a mystery to me (I envision a widening consensus on that count that I'm sure will become painfully evident as things progress) and I simply suggested when the traffic fades and interest wanes (as in this one) we simply kick it over to the side of the road and move on...

jimHJJ(...if you don't like my POV well... la-di-freakin'-da...)

Troy
08-14-2006, 08:32 AM
Yes, you can't talk about this without talking about race . . . . and that is the problem.

Because that's really ALL it's about. There's really very little there except crude proselytizing and chest-beatng. Musically and spirtually it's pretty much empty.

Yes, you can argue that it's cartoonishness been misinterpreted in the same way that the movie Scarface was in the last 10 years, but that doesn't make it good either. Nothing worse than a joke no one seems to get.

The fact that the genre degenerated so quickly should lead one to realize just how limited rap is as a musical form.

Yes, it influenced a lot of things, I suppose, but certainly nothing that I care to listen to or be associated with.

nobody
08-14-2006, 08:49 AM
Rap is unlimited as a musical form...been around over 30 years now...anything can be subject matter and has been in the past...spiritual, political, personal...anything. It assimiliates music with samples and grafts itself onto other forms when turntables and loops get used across genres.

Now, gangsta rap, I see as a short-lived entitity as far as having any vitality, which is now a severly limited genre all about making big record labels rich and duping suburban white kids into thinking they're being rebellious by buying it.

But, rap, or more largely put hip hop, has been a musical evolution the likes of which the world hasn't seen since rock 'n' roll came bubbling up.

3-LockBox
08-14-2006, 09:13 AM
Yes, you can argue that it's cartoonishness been misinterpreted in the same way that the movie Scarface was in the last 10 years, but that doesn't make it good either. Nothing worse than a joke no one seems to get.

Its this same arguement that fans of Andy Kaufman used over and over again; that somehow we need to acknowledge him as one of our generation's greatest comedians, even though few ever found him funny. I for one, was a fan of his when I was a kid, but then I grew up and got tired of explaining him to everyone that didn't 'get' him, and in the end, I failed to 'get' him anymore. People who though he made a wrong turn with the wrestling thing don't realize that it he was in his his true element there; a place where he didn't have to be clever, just antagonize the hell out of people. And time wasn't kind to Kaufman either. When Danny Devito made that boring film of him (Man On the Moon), the movie goers still weren't interested in 'getting' Kaufman. Could you imagine if Kaufman ever wielded as much influence on pop culture as gangsta rap did?

Speaking of "pro" wrestling...when the WWE was in its glory 6 or 7 years ago, there was a concern about its influences on younger children and teens, even though everyone with half a brain could tell it was cartoonish and fake. (Backyard 'wrestling', a short lived fad, had caused some serious injuries amoung teens and parents were getting nervous about pro wrestling encouraging thuggish behavior).

But whereas most people can look at pro wrestling and its fanbase (or a performing artist like Kaufman) and dismiss them as moronic and unimportant, we're still somehow suppose to hold some measure of respect and import for gangsta rap, despite the moronic behavior associated with it. If all gangsta rap did was affect its own in the way of violence, I could write it off as natural selection. I do hope its on the wane.