Listening To Music As With Griffin Weston

Mother of Fuck.

God Damn It Quincy Jones One Of These Days. The credit you earned from Thriller and Soul Bossa Nova is running out, my friend.
Corrupting Akon with your latest abomination is stretching it a little fucking thin.


Now, I mean, if you take it at face value, it isn't that bad.

And I have nothing against Akon! Akon is alright! Akon...successfully uses the correct amount of Autotune, and he's allowed to because his voice is actually quite versatile and good and blah blah good businessman as well as good voice-man.
Do every single one of his songs sound the same? Absolutely.
(Does the song he did with David Guetta sound exactly like every other Guetta guest star song? Yes. But that's beyond the point, because it's exactly what I want to hear when I step into the club. With or without a bottle full of bub. Why do I have to say that every fucking time.)


However, I've discovered another interesting phenomenon exclusive to me.
I like Akon because he's real.
Now, that's a highly specific word in the overarching hip-hop terminology.
Authenticity is one of the most highly prized characteristics for American music artists today - especially in hip-hop, where the song content often has to do with personal representation, bragging, storytelling, etc etc I'm whiiiiiiite.
Growing up in the ghetto is one of the greatest things that can happen to you as a rapper. Fuck, you could make the case that it's mandatory.
(And that might be a legitimate claim, actually. If you want to connect with that audience you sure as hell better be able to give them a reason to listen to you)

For American artists in particular, this means New York City (Run Fucking DMC,Jay-Z, B.I.G, etc). MAYBE Chicago (Kanye, Common, etc.) or Philly (The Roots, Will Fucking Smith In west Philadelphia, born and raised...?), or Los Angeles if you're lucky (N.W.A, Dr. Dre, etc).

You're pretty fucked if you aren't from the nasty part of a major city.
Which I don't like, of course, because it results in authenticity being such a peacocked characteristic that it masks a lot of personality in stereotypes. Oh, you're from Brooklyn? You're going to rep the FUCK out of Brooklyn, aren't you. You're going to have stomping beats and splashy snares and your music videos are going to have a lot of panning shots of graffiti.
Because that's Brooklyn, goddammit, and that's fine!

But I've developed a new....tic, a new tendency, because of this:
If you're a hip hop artist from OUTSIDE the United States, you automatically have me won over to a significant degree.
If you're any good at all, you will garner my respect much much faster than your respective stateside equal.

Is this bad? It just seems logical to me. It's a continuation of the thought process.
You think you're tough in Ohio? Go to Los Angeles, they're rough as shit.
You think you're tough in L.A., go to Brooklyn.

You think you're tough in the U.S.?
Go to fucking AFRICA.

International artists have an automatic win card.
Back to Akon, for example. He's from Dakar,Senegal.
So, in fact, is MC Solaar.
M.I.A. is, of course, from Sri Lanka.
This guy, Blitz the Ambassador

is from Ghana.
Fuck, man! I don't even know where Ghana is.
50 Cent got shot nine times? Who gives a dick. This guy is from GHANA.
(Also he's got a live horn section on his tracks and is actually quite good regardless of his country of origin. I'm using him to prove a point.)

Hell, even Rihanna is from Barbados, and that makes me like her more because sometimes it shines through! It's legitimate!

("Rude boy", of course, being the Anglo/Jamaican term for either a street-level gangster-type or a fat white boy who likes ska way too much. You decide which one she was going for here. The giant pixelated Rastafarian lions in the background might help with that decision)

You can't let it define the musician, though.
That's stereotyping. Is Was Nujabes good because he was Japanese? No. Can you tell absolutely that he's Japanese when you listen to his music? Absolutely.

More importantly, are there a shitload of really shitty international artists? F'sho.

It's just like everything else, I suppose. It's a beneficial characteristic on those characters who are already beneficial, and it's null and void on those who don't have anything else.

Makeup makes pretty people look prettier, and boring people look like they're wearing makeup.

How depressing.

Oh, and by the way - the reason I'm pissed disgruntled with Quincy Jones and Akon (remember? remember from the beginning? go. go listen. go check em.)
is because it's a shitty cover of the song "Strawberry Letter 23" by The Brothers Johnson, one of the greatest funk duos of all time.


SO MUCH BETTER.

intentionalstrikeouttexthtmlfailure

I don't listen to the words of hip hop.
Wait for it.

I mean, I do, I acknowledge that there are words being said and often I will follow along - especially if the flow is well done and if the wordplay is hilarious.

Does Jay Z "check cheddar like a food inspector"? Absolutely.

Does Kanye West have a "Jones like Norah for your sorror'"? Fuck, of course.

Is NOE in a rush, so should you "show the money like Maguire, or get your ass nestled in a trunk like a tire" because the "situation's dire" and he's "not a new buyer" so should you better get it or "you can feel the Cannon like Mariah"?

....Goddamn. Let me run that past you - NOE is performing a drug deal, and he wishes to just get it over with easy and quick. He references the movie Jerry Maguire, in which Cuba Gooding Jr's catchphrase is "show me the money!", and threatens that if you do not comply he will shoot you - a play on the slang "cannon" for giant ass handgun being exchanged for Nick Cannon, who married Mariah Carey in 2008. Holy fuck.

However, I isolate exemplary shows of master wordsmithing. I don't listen to the song as a whole, I don't follow the "story" that songs apparently follow. The title isn't a preview and I don't finish agreeing with the singer.

This is not exclusive to hip hop, it's just most evident there. Words account for more mean weight per song than in, say, rock music.

Now, of course, the moment I realized this trend of mine I immediately began reversing it. I've been listening earnestly to the message songs are (I assume) attempting to convey to me, the listener.
This is exactly what our old Republican tightass ancestors feared. Obviously I'm going to surround myself with hookers and blow and the blood of innocents.

Actually, I'm going to immerse myself in music I A)listen to fairly frequently and B)consider the vocals to merely be another instrument, unladen with greater significance than as a rad noise element.

What I've been finding out is, song lyrics are usually basically the equivalent of literary fluff in essays you used to write for English Lit.

To sing for several minutes about a single subject is pretty damn intensive, and apparently the modus operandi is to say the same damn thing over and over again until a sweet guitar solo picks it up.

This is most evident in "older" music like general rock and roll or blues.

Led Zeppelin's "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" is basically Robert Plant wailing about how he absolutely has to leave his lady, for no apparent reason. For six and a half minutes.

Jimi Hendrix's "Foxy Lady" is, as you can guess, Jimi basically soundfucking this girl with his guitar and voice. This girl is a stone cold fox, and Jimi (noticing this) makes the case that he needs to get on top of that like immediately. For three minutes he advances until the song just sort of anticlimactically fades out. (Actually, the Experience always had a real hard time deciding how to end this song. Fun History Fact)

(Not implying, of course, that all rock is straightforwardly titled. Paul McCartney is recorded as saying "Let the fuckers work that one out." while writing I Am The Walrus, and so on. Usually rock going pear-shaped is a direct measure of how drug addled the singer is at the time.)

This travels to the hip hop genre pretty fluidly.

Notorious B.I.G. raps in "Big Poppa" about how he loves it when girls call him Big Poppa.

But it goes so much farther than just matching song content with the title.
He says the same goddamn thing for four minutes:
He calls the attention of all the honeys in the club. Informs them where he'll be, and drops hints about how horrifyingly stuffed with cash money his pockets are. He assures the women of his stupendous sexual prowess - and as well, indeed, the sexual prowess and economic status of his entire crew.
That's verse ONE.
Verses two and three further compound on this general idea. He actually lays down a gameplan for the night in verse 2 and fits in time for a little self reflection on how nice his life is now that he doesn't have to sell drugs for a living (not to imply that he's some kind of pussy fag, he still straps gats cause he's a hardass thug).


I guess what got to me is the concept of saying the same thing for multiple minutes, considering that that's such a cardinal sin in any other medium.
As well, the fact that I listen to these songs so often and yet completely ignore the overarching message that (I can only assume) the musicians intentionally crafted me to listen to.
That's why hip hop distinguishes itself - so much importance is placed on the words the emcee is delivering. It's a specific message, it's a statement, it's got weight.
At least, you know, like, decent hip hop. 50 Cent is obviously worthless

Not that that is inherently better because of that. Music doesn't always have to be such a charged bomb of importance. Jamiroquai probably doesn't give a shit about much other than dancing and fuckin' ladies and smoking cheeba. (Disregard the songs Virtual Reality and the entire album Emergency on Planet Earth, which blatantly contradicts my previous statement)

I guess what I'm saying to is that all music revolves around sex

except in the case of rock music where 10% of it revolves around just being rad(see Foo Fighters etc), 5% of it revolves around the opinions of the artists (see Rage Against the Machine etc), and 5% of it is completely acknowledged as nothing more than a vehicle for noise (see any Radiohead song, White Stripes), and the REST revolves around sex (see everyone else especially the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

except in the case of hip hop, where 20% of it revolves around how great the artist is (see[among others] Jay Z, Copywrite, Aceyalone etc), 20% of it revolves around money and ways of getting/losing it (Wu Tang, etc) 10% of it revolves around the opinions of the artists - usually on how damn racist white folks are(Mos Def and Talib Kweli, etc), 5% of it revolves around the concept of Old School Hip Hop (Jurassic Five, Soul Position), and 5% of it is completely acknowledged as nothing more than a vehicle for noise (see Outkast's middle albums, Del The Funkee Homosapien, etc)
and the REST revolves around sex.

100% of all funk music revolves around sex.
100% of all electronic music revolves around electronic music.
100% of all indie rock revolves around revolving around indie rock.

Bjork revolves around a small pebble in Iceland.
Kanye West orbits around himself.
Jack Johnson orbits the concept of frisbee golf
Yeasayer orbits the planet Glorgnarg in the Farbzee Nebula
Griffin Weston keeps making jokes only he thinks are funny