|
DATE: 16.05.06 WORDS: CRAIG LIVINGS
RNB music is something I know little about, and it may come
as shock for me to be writing about it, as it’s really not
my kind of scene. The last thing I intend to do is criticise
individual artists. However, watching one of the random
music channels on sky this morning whilst eating my
breakfast, I saw a video by an ‘artist’ called Chris Brown.
This sparked off a bit of a rant. Now I like most music, and
strongly believe that every genre has to have good music.
The urban scene does have good music, artists like Jurassic
5 and Dilated Peoples to name a couple. Artists that will
create unique tunes from loops and effects and rap about
life and things that mean a lot to them.
The so-called ‘underground’
scene however, seems to be producing music that seems to be
actually bollocks. ‘Artists’ are being presented as some
kind of hard gangster ‘from the hood’ when in fact they’re
some skinny lil rich kid that’s only got a recording
contract due to his friends in high places. It seems with
recording equipment nowadays you can actually take anybody
and stick some auto-tuning behind them and a shed load of
money and you will have a top 5 single. Take Pussy-Cat dolls
for example, Phil Jupitus describes them as ‘A strip club
with a recording contract’. I think this is pretty accurate,
what kind of group are they when only one of them ever seems
to sing? I use the term ‘sing’ in the loosest way possible.
Monotone warbling over an over-produced and over-repetitive
backing track that sounds like it was created using hip-hop
E-Jay. Unfortunately this can be applied to pretty much any
top 20 RNB act, with the exception of the Black-Eyed Peas,
who do indeed write all their own music and lyrics. I am
growing tired of body-popping fruit-cakes that ‘sing’ over
rubbish and will be forgotten in 3 months time.
What actually makes it
worse is the fact that people actually buy these records!
Who actually buys them? If people stopped buying rubbish
music then they wouldn’t be a market for them in the first
place. The weirdest part of the RNB scene is the influence
it has on today’s culture, particularly the sub-18 age
group. What actually happens is your local Chav (or Chavo as
he might known to his mates) goes into HMV and picks up the
latest CD in the ‘Bland Music’ section, then goes home and
plays it to his mates while being so stoned he actually
believes it’s ‘wicked’. He’ll then replicate every aspect of
the artist, from clothes, to attitude, to the way that he
talks. Someone needs to sit down with these people and say,
“No, you’re not black, or from the hood. Talking like a twat
isn’t actually going to get you the lead singer from the
pussy-cat dolls so stop being an idiot *slap*.” It’s even
affecting the way people write.
Not
too long ago the news reported that kids in GCSEs had been
putting ‘text-speak’ into their essays. Text-speak is
everywhere nowadays, phrases like ‘CU L8R M8x’ are common in
day-to-day text messages. This unreadable sub-18 language
seems unbelievably ambiguous to even my generation (I’m only
21). This is due to the RNB culture making these things
‘cool’ so the kids replicate it. Maybe if people had more of
a backbone to go out and find good music they would make
more sense. Live music is underrated in today’s society,
there are SO many good bands and artists out there, you can
go to pretty much any venue and find at least one new good
band on every week. Why do people have to buy music that’s
pushed to the masses? There are thousands of bands/artists
signed to minor labels and even unsigned bands/artists that
are amazing. All it requires is to make a little effort to
find them. Myspace and the internet are making this so
unbelievably easy so there are actually no excuses. So next
time you’re at a venue and you think the band is cool, pick
up their EP, a lot of unsigned artists give their EPs away
for free so you might not even have to pay for it. Not only
does it help you buy getting you free music, it also help
the artist in question.
Discuss this article in the
FORUM !!
|
