Far End of The Lyrical Spectrum: Whitehouse, GG, OFWGKTA

[rlrds]

[faster]

But surely it's the lyrical content which is inherently important to the genre. If not, then you may as well listen to instrumental beats.

Yeah, that's why there's never any point in listening to music with vocals in a language you don't understand.

Except OF and the other acts mentioned in this thread use a language that IS understandable to us, so i'm not sure how that applies here.

I was just trying to show that semantic content isn't the only valid reason to enjoy vocal performance. Even though rappers aren't "singing," they are doing a lot of things with cadence, breath control, and of course all the assonance/consonance/alliteration/rhyme/rhythm associated with "poetry." Much as I can appreciate the vocal performance in non-Anglophone music, I can also enjoy a rapper's performance even when I don't like/understand/relate to the explicit lyrical content.

And "might as well listen to instrumental beats," well, most hip-hop isn't instrumental, and most of the best music beats are produced for music with vocals.

[RFKorp]

Is this where I provide a link to Z-Ro's Driving me Wild video??

does anybody ever really need an excuse? this board would be a lot more exciting if that video autoplayed at the top of every page.

[RJMyato]

"C.f Big Black, Nick Cave in girl-murder-mode, early TG, Whitearse, et al, there's an argument for the defence that sometimes gets mounted, a variant on Artistic License... the idea is that the Artist is imagining how the world looks like from inside the mind of the psychopath, investigating extremes of human psychology and human experience... But, strangely, them being so imaginative and all, this sort of artist never, ever, seems drawn to imagining how things look from the victim's point of view. It seems to hold no attraction to them. Funny that! I haven't trawled through their corpus (corpse-us?) exhaustively, but I'd be extremely surprised if Odd Future have any lyrics written from the viewpoint of someone being raped/murdered."

everyone else has explained why the first part of this post was wrong, so I'll comment on this by saying that while I think "we're just exploring the dark side of human nature!" is a bad defense and kind of a dodge on the part of artists, I don't think it really applies to OF.

With Whitehouse I think it sort of works because to me it seems like part of their project was exploring the most extreme states of being possible, which combined with their interest in performance and audience uh interaction kind of necessitated a sadistic point of view.

On the other hand I think a lot of Swans songs do a good job at exploring both sadistic and masochistic extremes in a nuanced way that makes significant connections. Gira's position in a single piece usually hovers between abuser and victim, as the states of loathsome depression and self-hatred he's dealing with are expressed violently in several directions.

[johnson]

But, strangely, them being so imaginative and all, this sort of artist never, ever, seems drawn to imagining how things look from the victim's point of view.

Reynolds obviously hasn't spent much time actually listening to and considering the lyrics of those that he so lazily lumps together as "this sort of artist". All of the artists he mentions (maybe not OF; I'm still unfamiliar) have indeed imagined violence from the victim's point of view.

[Ben_]

I was just trying to show that semantic content isn't the only valid reason to enjoy vocal performance. Even though rappers aren't "singing," they are doing a lot of things with cadence, breath control, and of course all the assonance/consonance/alliteration/rhyme/rhythm associated with "poetry." Much as I can appreciate the vocal performance in non-Anglophone music, I can also enjoy a rapper's performance even when I don't like/understand/relate to the explicit lyrical content.

And "might as well listen to instrumental beats," well, most hip-hop isn't instrumental, and most of the best music beats are produced for music with vocals.

Faster, yeah I agree, lyrical content is definitely not the only element of vocals that can be enjoyed, but isn't it the semantic content that's the subject of this thread rather than timbre, rhythm etc? this seems to be going a little off the focus of discussion.

On the point about instrumental beats, you're right, they're more of an underground hip-hop thing - eg some of the work of Dilla and Madlib. And i actually prefer beats with vocals. Worth noting though that Dilla often made instrumental mixtapes so that he could produce beats unconstrained by the needs of rappers eg. some of the abstract/experimental bits on "Donuts", "Ruff Draft" etc. Hand-made beats, not quite in time and unquantized, use of five-bar loops etc

I'm going off topic myself here, but Clams Casino, who has produced tracks for Lil B and Soulja Boy, has a great instrumental mixtape out which is freely downloadable and which is apparently coming out on vinyl this year. One of the best producers of that ilk that i've heard for a while.

[leroysghost]

the artworld allows for such safe postmodern distancing. just like treadmill fetishists need. just as reduced lazy perverts spout when they're frantically trying to defend themselves against criminal prosecution. grubbing job-hunting artists and art aficionados who prefer art that "raises questions" are certainly as disgusting as those rubbered dilettantes who recognize that the answers are what you masturbate over. once you're out of elementary school, you can't appreciate mere questions, unless, of course, you'd prefer not to acknowledge the responses that those questions produce in public. so better to just shut your fucking mouth.

[RJMyato]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OoZNENl0Cg

heres a new tyler interview that deals with this question
his answer isn't gonna be convincing to anyone here but it might be worth it to hear it from the dude hisself.

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

Very good comment - was that paper in English?

funny, I thought it was, but I checked for it on my parent's computer, but it's in Dutch. 2001 already, shit, I'm getting old.

[faster]

http://www.theawl.com/2011/04/in-defens ... ensive-art

[bryan]

http://www.theawl.com/2011/04/in-defens ... ensive-art

That article is pretty half-baked and strange in that it uses examples we specifically discussed here: GG, Boyd Rice. I guess Whitehouse was too obvious. The thing that aggravates me the most about the article is offensive art as a "genre".. it is something I could care less about and am only interested in specific cases. Also, making misogyny a necessary condition for rap music is really lame (racist?). Other than that, maybe the quoted-from Ann Powers article, In Defense of Nasty Art, is worth reading: http://www.metroactive.com/papers/sonom ... -9730.html.