Progressive rock music & Hip Hop?

They're not on the same level in that they aren't comparable, which was my point to begin with, not because one is necessarily inferior to the other. Musically they don't have the same goals and aren't created in the same way. 

...Be real, you haven't bought a rap album since 1989, have you?

40footwolf wrote: ...Be real, you haven't bought a rap album since 1989, have you?

1989 was the last great year in the history of music, so is it any wonder that the apogee of hip-hop is from 1989?

40footwolf wrote: First of all, who is "they"? Are you presuming that all hip hop artists fall under a nebulous "they" banner? Because you're mistaken-many write their own music, many are even trained in musical theory.  Even if we were working under the (incorrect) assumption that all hip hop, everywhere, forever, is made up entirely of samples, that would still be "writing music". Let's check out the dictionary definition of music: 1.an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color. 2. the tones or sounds employed, occurring in single line (melody) or multiple lines (harmony), and sounded or to be sounded by one or more voices or instruments, or both. So even when you use samples, you're arranging them in a way that's musical. If that wasn't the case, ELP's liberal borrowing of passages from classical composers would also be this dreaded non-musical entity you seem to fear so much.

First up, my knowledge of Hip Hop only stretches to Ice T, Eminem, De La Soul, Public Enemy and erm...that band who did the Aerosmith cover 'Walk This Way' ? (Although I do like much of the foregoing's output)

The comparison between digital sampling and quoting from other composers work has been made many times before e.g. I actually read an interview with a dance music boffin who claimed that Keith Richard sampled Chuck Berry's music 'manually' using his ears and fingers circa 1963

Clearly this is facile nonsense as despite the many satisfying aesthetic results achieved by manipulation and treatment of the original analogue sources, said practitioners of this art are but ARRANGERS n'est pas ?

40footwolf wrote: octopus-4 wrote: 40footwolf wrote: ...Be real, you haven't bought a rap album since 1989, have you? Only one in my whole life and by mistake (Outkast) That was to Walter, actually, but it raises another point: If you just admitted that you don't know what you're talking about, than why are you talking about it?

Chris S wrote: No not in PA   But three cheers to Tupac, musically way ahead of his time, sadly no more.

Isn't he still releasing albums?

BTW, the first 4 Dream Theater albums and some after (Train of Thought and anotehr i can't remember) have a huge hip hop influence, both on the lyrics and the way the songs are sung. The songs LIE (from the album Awake) and Honor Thy Father (Train of Thought) are prime examples of that.

friso wrote: Ok. They stole music and now you want us to say hip-hip is innovative, or has some quality? This is hard to understand.

There's too much empty rage here against hip-hop. I'm not exactly an admirer of the genre (the only hip-hop album I ever bought was the one by the Fugees, if that counts!) but I can tell that many hip-hop tracks are MASSIVELY entertaining. If I were a teenager looking for thrills, I'd have hip-hop tracks on my ipod too!

Middle-aged prog fans raging against rap remind me of my grandparents informing me that comic strips are inferior to "real" novels.

(And I'm writing these things as a fifty year old.)

40footwolf wrote: WalterDigsTunes wrote: 1989 was the last great year in the history of music, so is it any wonder that the apogee of hip-hop is from 1989? So you're admitting you haven't heard any hip hop since 1989? EDIT: I'm going to sleep, but should the discussion, as it were, continue, I'd advise people who haven't listened to rap/hip-hop since the first Bush administration to refrain from speaking with any authority on the matter.

It is nice that hip hop artists seem to be inspired by prog rock. Still I think that just sampling a song and repeating a sample all the time is not a prog rock criteria.

Of course, hip hop may be entertaining. The following I like, but only because it combines hip hop with traditional east european music.