Great writeup. I loved the show because I deeply love the catalog of every single performer, but Tom is bang-on in how what is ostensibly a victory lap felt strangely anticlimactic and hollow.
Yes, rap is now a cultural behemoth that demands acknowledgment, but not much else has changed. Rap may now be the dominant form of music, but the economic and racial circumstances that inspired its development are, by and large, the same. The middle class continues to shrink. The economic pie continues to be unfairly cut. Race continues to be a massively disproportionate determinant of one's livelihood. So, in a sense, having Snoop and Dre on the world's biggest stage, backed by Pepsi feels hollow because it is - it's the same turd sandwich of a society, but carefully polished to look as though actual change has occurred.
I feel the exact same way. Summertime, Prima Donna, and Big Fish don’t have a single track I dislike, and the latter two are front-to-back classics for me. FM! was cool but felt a bit… low-stakes, and last year’s felt the same. Still a fan of the guy - I just love his music SO much when he swings big and goes weird. When he does this stuff over fairly standard Bay Area BPMs it’s fine, but hearing him over a crazy SOPHIE beat is so much cooler, imho
can't help but feel the sentence "rappers don’t need to follow what is acceptable socially; all they’re required to do is rap well" ties in very well with tom's discussion of kodak yesterday
Never thought about it, but kinda interesting that for as ironic and sarcasm-heavy as Dave was, his favorite 90s groups weren't the super ironic, too-cool-for-school folks, but the really sincere bands (Foo Fighters, Counting Crows) that a lot of people mocked for being TOO earnest.
this is a good take. good quote. good fellow
but also, I would have said “nothing has convinced me there is anything worth making in that arena” during tours of any of the most recent U2/Coldplay albums he produced
Incredible. This happened exactly twenty years ago and not a single Phil Leotardo joke in the article.
I'm just saying, it's interesting, the coincidence. You guys are gonna tell me you never pondered that?
Comments