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UNIT 6
Readings and Resources
Textbook or eBook:
Campbell, M. (2019). Popular music in America. 5th ed. Cengage Learning.
This unit discusses the changes in technology in the music industry and its influence on the development of electronica and rap. Additionally, it explores the new methods of processing and manipulating sound using digital technologies such as Music Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI), Sampling and Streaming audio.
· Chapter 17: Electronica and Rap (pgs. 312-331)
Articles, Websites, and Videos:
What is electronica music? This site offers information concerning electronica music.
· What is electronica music? . (2017). worldatlas.
Rap music has articulated a black aesthetic that is influencing the pop culture around the world. But does it also promote violence, misogyny, and crime? This program featuring rap master Melle Mel describes the history of rap and hip-hop from its roots in earlier oral and musical traditions to its full flowering in the mid-1990s. Commentary by Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa, rap’s early innovators; music critic Nelson George, author of hiphopamerica; radical jazz poet Gil Scott-Heron; movie star and rapper Ice Cube; former gangsta rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg; members of Public Enemy, Arrested Development, and the jazz/hip-hop fusion group UFO; and others speak out about the urban African-American experience, civil rights, social responsibility, and other pressing topics. Clips from music videos provide a visual perspective on the genre. Some images and lyrics may be objectionable.
· Digital Classics Distribution. (2009, Mar 5). West coast gangster rap .
CH. 72
The Digital Revolution
72-1 Digital Audio
Digital audio introduced a fundamentally new and different process for the manipulation of sound. Electronic technologies convert sound waves into electrical signals, process the signals, then convert them back into sound. Digital technology adds an extra step: It encodes the waveform generated by the electrical signal into a binary format, then reverses the process for output. This encoding is accomplished by sampling the wave at regular intervals, with several possible gradations. On a standard compact disc (CD), the wave is sampled 44,100 times a second; there are 65,536 (16 × 16 × 16 × 16) possible gradations of the wave. This high sampling rate, coupled with the thousands of gradations, makes it possible to simulate the shape of the wave so closely that the original waveform and the digital sampling of it are virtually identical.
Digital audio fools our ears in much the same way that digital images fool our eyes. In introducing what Apple calls the “Retina Display” on the iPhone, Steve Jobs said, “there’s a magic number around 300 dpi (dots per inch), if you hold something about 10–12 inches away from your eye, it’s the limit of the human retina to distinguish pixels.” When magnified, what seems to be a smooth image a foot away is actually a grid of squares, each a single color or shade of gray. However, the size of each square is so small that our eyes are fooled into seeing color blends, curves, and other continuous images. In much the same way, our ears are fooled by digital sampling.
This ability to encode waveform data digitally has had several benefits. First, it eliminates signal degradation. In analog tape recording, there were inevitably some unwelcome sounds: One can hear tape hiss on predigital recordings that have not been remastered, or on cassette copies of recordings. The more a tape is copied, the more pronounced the extraneous sounds become. By contrast, digital information can be copied an infinite number of times, with no loss of audio quality, as anyone who has burned a CD or used a filesharing service knows.
Second, it became possible to maintain quality despite unlimited use. Previously, the quality of sound degraded over time because of the physical contact of a stylus with a record groove, or tape with the tape head. A recording played for the one-hundredth time on a turntable or cassette player will sound worse than the first time, no matter how much care is taken. This problem disappeared with digital audio.
72-2 The New Digital Technologies
It was one thing to have the capability of using digital technology; it was quite another to actually have the hardware that made it possible. After years of research and development, three crucial technologies emerged in the early eighties: the audio CD, MIDI, and sampling. Two others, computer audio and the Internet, took off around the turn of the century.
72-2aAudio CD
The audio CD required more than the ability to convert sound into digital data; it was also necessary to apply laser technology to encode data to and decode it from the storage medium (hence “burn” a CD). Research on the laser dates back to a 1958 paper by a physicist at Bell Labs. By the early seventies, lasers were being used to read digital data stored on discs. By 1980 Philips and Sony, two of the leaders in audio research, had agreed on a standard for CD audio: 16-bit sampling and a 44.1K sampling rate.
In 1984 the first CD pressing plant in the United States—in Terre Haute, Indiana—started producing CDs. The first CDs were expensive because the production process was seriously flawed; only a relatively small percentage of the CDs produced were good enough for release. As a result, the cost of a CD was high—higher than cassette or vinyl. Not surprisingly, given the nature of the music business, the cost of a CD remained higher than that of a cassette, even though production costs were soon much lower.
72-2bMIDI
Musical Instrument Digital Interface, or simply MIDI , is an industry standard that allows electronic instruments to communicate with one another and with a computer. In theory, this seems like a natural and modest step. In practice, it was a tremendous breakthrough for two main reasons. First, it enabled a single person to simulate an orchestra, a rock band, or a swing band, using just one instrument. Using a MIDI-enabled electronic keyboard or other similarly configured device, musicians could choose from an array of MIDI-out sounds—usually no less than 128. They could perform the passage as if playing a piano or organ, but the sound coming out would be like a trumpet, or bells, or violins, or a host of others.
For just a few thousand dollars, anyone can create a home studio that can do just about anything that could have been done only in a million-dollar studio less than a generation ago.
Second, MIDI devices could interact with sequencers. A sequencer is a device that enables a person to assemble a sound file, track by track. Using a sequencer that can store eight tracks, a person can re-create the sound of a band: one track for the bass, another for the rhythm guitar, and so on.
Sequencers can also be used to create loops. A loop is a short sound file—such as a drum pattern or a bass line—that can be repeated and combined with other loops or freely created material to create a background for a song, whether it’s rap, pop, techno, house, or something else. To make this process easier, loops are usually a standard length: eight beats (two measures), sixteen beats (four measures), and so on. With these kinds of resources, assembling the rhythm track to a song can be like building with Lego. Users simply snap them into a track in their digital audio software.
72-2cSampling
A sample is a small sound file. (Please note that this meaning of sample is different from the sample of a waveform; the two meanings are related but different.) A sample can be the recorded sound of a voice or group of voices, an instrument (e.g., the Steinway grand piano) or group of instruments (such as a violin section), or some other sound. This sound can then be replayed through some other device. For instance, one can buy a disc with the sampled sound of several cellos playing every note on the usable range of the instrument, recorded in many different ways. Then the buyer can install it on a computer, activate it inside the appropriate software, and produce a passage that sounds like a recording of the cello section of a first-rate symphony orchestra.
Primitive forms of this technology have been available since the sixties. The first commercial “sampler” to achieve any kind of currency was the Mellotron. It was a keyboard instrument in which depressing a key would activate a looped tape of a string sound. It was not very flexible, but it was a cost-efficient alternative to hiring violinists. However, sampling didn’t really become practical until digital technology.
Now, sampling has reached such a level of sophistication that it is often impossible to determine whether a passage was recorded live or created using samples. In effect, this kind of sampling is a more advanced version of MIDI playback because the sounds are rendered more accurately.
Another primary kind of sampling involves lifting short excerpts from existing recordings to use in a new recording, much like a visual artist will use found objects to create a collage or assemblage. It has been a staple of rap background tracks since the technology became available in the mid-eighties.
72-2dComputer Audio
In 1965 Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel, predicted that the number of transistors on a computer chip would double every couple of years. Moore’s Law, as it has been called, has largely held true. What this has meant is that the amount of computing power one can buy for $1,000 has doubled every eighteen months or so.
Because CD-quality digital audio requires over 1 million samples per second, the first personal computers could not handle audio processing in real time. Fast-forward to the turn of the century, though, and it’s a different story. One can burn CDs at … I hesitate to write a number here, because by the time you read this, the number will be out of date. Digital audio workstations, sequencers, special effects plug-ins, notation software—there is almost nothing in the process of creating and producing a recording that cannot be done on a computer equipped with the right software and peripherals.
72-2eThe Internet and Its Impact
The first attempts to create an Internet, or network of networks, date back to the seventies. By 1980, a protocol that enabled different networks to communicate with one another was in place. During its early years, the Internet was mainly under government supervision and control; the National Science Foundation managed it in the United States. However, in 1993, the Internet backbone was opened to the private sector in the United States, and Mosaic, the first browser, became available. (Mosaic became Netscape the following year.) Browsers simplified access to the Internet by providing a graphical user interface, similar to those found on Windows and Mac operating systems.
An iPhone 7 from 2016 has at least quadruple the RAM, a CPU that’s 10 times as fast, more storage, and a display with more pixels than an iMac from 2000. It fits in the palm of your hand and enables you to access the Internet from almost anywhere.
By 2000, the mechanics of the now-familiar Internet experience were in place. Since then, the pace of innovation and evolution has been breathtakingly fast and remarkably comprehensive. Driving this growth were astounding technological advances, in computing power, storage, portability, access, and more. By way of example, a current iPhone is a more powerful computer by far than an iMac a decade earlier.
Internet access and speed have grown at a comparable pace. Between 2000 and 2017, global Internet access grew 934%, an almost ten-fold increase. In 2000, less than 6 percent of the world’s population could go online; by March 2017, almost half have access, and in North America the ratio is 8 out of 9.
Numerous new businesses and services have leveraged these technological advances to open up all aspects of commence: as author Craig Anderson has discussed in depth, “free” is now an option. Consider the cumulative impact on the music industry of these developments:
· Napster: Napster went public in 1999 as a peer-to-peer filesharing application. By 2001, Shawn Fanning, its creator, had closed down the service after several artists sued the company. However, BitTorrent sites continue to make music available (illegally) for free. Legal and ethical issues aside, such peer-to-peer networks can function much like a greatly enhanced version of the preview clips on digital download sites such as iTunes and Amazon. They give enthusiastic listeners with more time than money the opportunity to sample a large body of music by a particular act before deciding whether to buy one or more albums.
· Facebook/MySpace: Social networks such as Facebook and MySpace took off in the latter half of 2000. Users shared their tastes in music on both. MySpace started strong but quickly lost traction, shortly after Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation acquired the website in 2005. Facebook took off around the same time; a Facebook page is now an almost obligatory promotional tool for any music act.
· YouTube: YouTube, founded in 2005 and bought by Google a year later, has made everyone a potential video producer or distributor. Users of the site have uploaded not only their own music but also music videos, footage from live events, and audio recordings from their favorite acts, without much regard for copyright infringement. Google monetized viewing of videos; revenue in the United States from on-demand ad-supported streaming approached a half-billion dollars in 2016.
· Streaming Services: Digital streaming includes both free ad-supported and ad-free subscription options for radio (Pandora) and Internet audio (Spotify), or simply by subscription (Apple Music, Amazon Music). Streaming services, both free and subscription, took a while to gain traction because record companies were reluctant to license their music, especially by top acts, for such services. However, streaming, and in particular paid subscription, have proven to be a dependable revenue source, and are now the revenue stream showing the greatest growth.
72-3 A Digital Democracy
The Internet was the last piece of the digital ecosystem to emerge. Its rapid growth, along with the continuing improvement in all aspects of digital audio (and video), has created a digital democracy for musicians and their audience. The advances in computer-based digital audio have put high-end music production within almost everyone’s budget. For just a few thousand dollars, anyone can create a home studio that can do just about anything that could have been done only in a million-dollar studio less than a generation ago. Online promotion is also less expensive: the cost and ease of creating and maintaining an attractive website continues to drop, and marketing tools are comparably inexpensive.
For the aspiring creative artist, the financial investment is a small fraction of what it once was. For the consumer, it means anywhere there’s Internet there’s anytime access to millions of tracks for about 35¢ a day. And for the beleaguered music industry, it means a stable and growing income stream that has reversed (for now) the precipitious decline in revenue from the end of the last century to the mid-2010s. The larger investment for these artists is time—not only to develop the necessary musical skills, but also to master the applications necessary to create the desired result. There are plenty of role models, from Stevie Wonder, Brian Eno, and Grandmaster Flash, to Trent Reznor, Moby, Juan Atkins, Richard James, and hundreds more.
Digital technology has made it easier to make well-crafted music, both for those with well-developed musical skills and those with little or no skill. But it has also allowed for a less immediate kind of music-making. In performance or recording, there can be a world of difference between having a drummer playing and having a drum loop playing, simply because the drummer can respond in the moment. For creative artists, one challenge is to use the technology in ways that enhance the personal dimension of their music rather than undermine it. Another is to create a radically new esthetic, one that builds naturally on the innovations of digital technology. We explore this new esthetic in a discussion of electronica.
CH. 73
Early Electronica
73-1 The Antecedents of Electronica
In the twentieth century, most popular music genres have evolved through the influence of music from “below”—that is, music from “plain folk” who live outside and beneath the realm of high culture. We often use the word roots to convey this. Electronica is different. Its origins are in the most cerebral and esoteric music of the mid-twentieth century, the classical music avant-garde.
During the middle of the twentieth century, composers in Europe and the United States, using equipment as sophisticated as the first tape recorders and synthesizers, and as everyday as nuts and bolts, explored virgin musical territory. Shortly after World War II, French composer Pierre Schaeffer began creating music using recorded sounds, rather than musical ideas inside his head, as raw material. The recordings could be of any sounds at all, and they could be modified or transformed before being assembled into a music event. Schaeffer called this process musique concrète (“concrete music”).
Others—among them German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, French-American composer Edgard Varèse, and American composer John Cage—assembled compositions completely from synthesized sounds, recorded, then spliced together to form a complete composition. In 1958, Lejaren Hiller set up the first computer music studio at the University of Illinois. Among these new electronic works were the first examples of the recording as the creative document—with no performer involved in the creative process.
Much of this music was conceptual: It grew out of a particular idea that the composer wanted to explore. The results probed every possible extreme. American composer Milton Babbitt created works in which every musical parameter was regulated by a predetermined mathematical series, a process called total serialism. At the other end of the spectrum were works by John Cage, in which events were determined by chance. One famous work required the performer to sit in front of a piano without playing it for 4 minutes and 33 seconds; the composition was the ambient sounds in the performing space. Stockhausen composed a work for piano in which fragments of music were printed on an oversized score; the performer determined the sequence of the fragments during the performance. Varèse created Poème électronique, an electronic piece that mixes synthesized and concrète sounds, for the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels, where it played over 425 loudspeakers.
All of these concepts have found their way into the various electronica styles. For example, the loudspeaker setup for Poème électronique anticipates the “total immersion” sound systems of dance clubs. Stockhausen’s piano piece, where the performer switches arbitrarily from fragment to fragment, anticipates the DJ mixing on the fly. Musique concrète anticipates the found sounds that appear in so much electronica and related styles like rap. And totally electronic pieces anticipate the millions of synthesizer-generated dance tracks.
73-2 Ambient Music, the First Significant Electronic Style
Ambient music , the first significant electronic style to emerge in popular music, dates back to the seventies. Its early history includes Pink Floyd, Kraftwerk, and Tangerine Dream. The father of ambient music, though, is Brian Eno; his recording Ambient I: Music for Airports (1978) is seminal. Eno’s early music, which shares common ground with the classical minimalist composers, was a bridge between the more esoteric world of classical electronic music and electronica in the popular tradition.
As its name suggests, ambient music is more atmospheric than dance oriented, with more attention to texture and less emphasis on rhythm. As a genre within electronica, it hasn’t had a home, but it has merged with both house and techno, introducing a more varied sound world into both. In these hybrid genres, it began to catch on in the late eighties and early nineties.
73-3 Music for Dancing, Places to Dance
The dance club is the home of electronica. The dance scene that has nurtured the music since the early eighties has been an underground continuation of disco. The songs produced by Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder were among the best and most successful examples of early electronica. In essence, there were people who still wanted to dance after disco declined in popularity. The club scene, and the music created for it, gave them the outlet.
During the eighties, two major club scenes emerged in the Midwest: house music in Chicago and techno in Detroit. Both would have a profound influence on dance music throughout the world. House music was a low-budget continuation of disco. DJs like Frankie Knuckles would use bare-bones rhythm tracks as part of mixes that included disco hits and current disco-inspired songs. The Detroit scene was almost exclusively the work of three friends and colleagues—Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson—who had known one another since junior high. Despite their Detroit base, they were drawn to techno pioneers like Kraftwerk rather than Motown acts. As Atkins said in an interview, “I’m probably more interested in Ford’s robots than in Berry Gordy’s music.” As DJs and producers, they delivered a stark, dark kind of dance music under numerous guises, including Atkins’s Model 500 and May’s Rhythim Is Rhythim.
A rave is a huge dance party conducted in a large space: outdoors, an abandoned warehouse, or even a large club.
By the mid-eighties, the music had migrated to Great Britain. The event that brought the music, the culture, and the drugs up from the underground and into the public eye was the 1988 “Summer of Love,” a rave that went on for weeks. A rave is a huge dance party conducted in a large space: outdoors, an abandoned warehouse, or even a large club. Ecstasy and other designer drugs were very much part of the scene; they suppressed the need to eat or sleep. (Never mind that the drugs are dangerous—even deadly—especially when consumed with alcohol.) Indoors or out, however, electronica offered a novel musical experience.
73-4 Mixes
Dance music has defined a new performance paradigm for popular music. The nature of the venue—the dance club, rather than the arena, auditorium, night club, or coffeehouse—has fundamentally altered what is performed, how it’s performed, how it’s created, and how it’s experienced.
The obvious difference, of course, is the use of recordings, rather than live musicians, to produce the music being heard. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t the spontaneity and performer–crowd interaction that can be part of a live performance; it’s just that it comes from a different source—the DJ—and it occurs mainly in the sequencing of tracks rather than within an individual song.
The idea of stringing together a series of songs has a long history in popular music. From the thirties on, dance orchestras and small dance combos would occasionally play a medley , a group of songs connected by musical interludes. Often medleys were slow dance numbers; bands would play one chorus of each song rather than several choruses of one song. But they could be any tempo.
It was the DJ who transformed the practice of connecting songs into an art. A DJ with a two-turntable setup was able to mix a series of songs into a set, an unbroken string of songs.
During the early years of the rock era, medleys were harder to create in the moment, because the identity of a song was more comprehensive. More than just the melody and harmony, it included every aspect of the song as preserved on the recording. It was more difficult to alter songs so that one would flow easily into the next. Still, the idea of connecting songs did not disappear, as landmark albums such as Sgt. Pepper and The Dark Side of the Moon evidence. However, it wasn’t until disco that the idea of creating medleys resurfaced, in a much-updated form.
It was the DJ who transformed the practice of connecting songs into an art. A DJ with a two-turntable setup was able to mix a series of songs into a set , an unbroken string of songs that could last longer than even the most extended Grateful Dead jam.
The art of the DJ begins with music that he or she selects. For this reason, many DJs create their own music; it helps them develop a signature style. In the dance club, skilled DJs string together a series of dance tracks with seamless transitions. It is not just that they blend one record into the next without dropping a beat—unless they plan to. They orchestrate the sequence of songs, how much they’ll use of each song, and the kind of transition they’ll use to give a sense of architecture to the set. It is in this context that they can respond to the dancers’ energy, building to a climactic moment or moments as the set unfolds.
In the discussion of rock and rhythm and blues in the sixties, we noted that the record had become the document, the fullest and most direct expression of the musicians’ creative intent. This changes in dance music. The musical unit is no longer the recording—which is seldom if ever played in its entirety—but the set. The recording is the raw material for the set; recordings are the building blocks—much as riffs are the building blocks of so many songs.
This in turn changes the nature of a dance track. It isn’t just that it’s music for dancing. Instead, the dance track is often created with the idea that it is a component of a larger structure—the set—rather than an entity complete unto itself—the song. This is a radical departure from mainstream rock; rock gave the song an integrity that it could not have had in earlier generations.
Moreover, music for club use employs a different sonic spectrum. During the sixties, popular music designed for airplay concentrated on mid-range frequencies because these come across better on radio than high or low frequencies do. By contrast, dance clubs typically have good sound systems, so producers can take advantage of the entire range of audible frequencies. Electronica styles typically make full use of this, especially low-end frequencies.
This combination of a full sonic spectrum and relentless dance beat, all in an enclosed space, produces a kind of sensory inundation. It is virtually the opposite extreme of sensory deprivation, and it seems to have many of the same mind-altering consequences.
73-5 Early Electronica “No UFO’s”
This example can only hint at the range of sounds, rhythms, and textures possible within the world of electronica. Still, it highlights key features of the genre: a steadily marked beat at about 120 beats per minute; rich, complex textures featuring electronically generated percussive and pitched sounds; very little singing; subtle changes within a generally repetitive, modularly constructed form; and little sense of beginning or end.
Early electronica was the most faceless music of the last part of the twentieth century. Its creators worked anonymously in studios—often alone—and assumed aliases: Aphex Twin is Richard James; Rhythim Is Rhythim is Derrick May. The music they produced—largely instrumental and without the melodic points of entry common to other kinds of popular music—did little to encourage the listener to identify with them in the same way that they would identify with the lead singer or lead guitarist of a rock band. In many ways, this recalls the structure of the music business at the turn of the previous century, when largely anonymous songwriters turned out reams of songs for Tin Pan Alley publishers. For the most part, DJs are the stars of electronica, but it is a very localized form of stardom. However, in the latter half of the 1990s, electronica began to develop a larger audience and a more mainstream presence.
Listening Cue
“No UFO’s (Instrumental)” (1985)
Juan Atkins
Model 500.
STYLE Early electronica dance music ⋅ FORM Irregularly repetitive
Listen For …
INSTRUMENTATION
All sounds except for vocal fragments are generated electronically: drum machines and synthesizers use a variety of timbres
RHYTHM
Moderately fast beat (about 120 beats per minute); sixteen-beat rhythm with a strong beat (bass drum-like sound) and a stronger backbeat
Most other rhythms (pitched and percussive synthesized sounds) move at sixteen-beat speed; riffs and patterns map onto a rhythm moving four times the beat speed. Lots of syncopation; variation in beat keeping.
MELODY
Pitched lines are melodic in the sense that they have a contour and do not outline chords. They are not tuneful: The low pattern is too fast and syncopated to sing easily, and simply repeats.
TEXTURE
Dense, layered texture is made up of percussive and pitched patterns. Variation in texture as parts leave and return is a main source of interest.
Remember …
WHERE’S THE BAND?
Except for voice clips, all sounds are electronically generated; no one “plays” an instrument
MIXING
In a dance club, the instrumental version of “No UFO’s” would be part of a seamless mix; neither beginning nor end would be heard
NEW WAY OF MAKING MUSIC
No one has to perform in real time at any stage in the creation of the music
BUSY RHYTHMS
“No UFO’s” mixes obvious beat keeping and the backbeat with several layers of active, often complex rhythms
MANIC MINIMALISM
“No UFO’s” is high-energy music with little significant variation or change
Listen to this selection in the unit playlist.
CH.74
Electronica and the Mainstream
74-1 Electronica as a Popular Music: Moby
In the United States, Moby (born Richard Melville Hall, 1965—he took his professional name from the famous novel Moby Dick, by Herman Melville, a distant relation) put a face on electronica, in part by bringing his music closer to a mainstream pop style. This, of course, provoked cries of outrage from hardcore clubbers who felt that he had sold out. Nevertheless, his music helped the genre significantly broaden its audience base.
Moby began his professional career in 1982, playing guitar in a punk band called the Vatican Commandos; he left a year later. By 1989, he had redirected his energies to electronic music. Over the next decade, he attracted a loyal following, first in Great Britain, then in the United States, among dance club audiences as a recording artist and DJ. His first hit was “Go,” a single from his 1993 album The Story So Far. His breakthrough came in 1999, with the release of the album Play. Although sales started slowly, by 2002 the album had sold over 10 million units, earning it diamond album certification. Several singles, including “South Side,” also charted. More tellingly, every one of the eighteen tracks on the album has been licensed for commercials, films, and soundtracks. With this album, electronica, as represented by Moby’s music, found mainstream success.
Moby (Richard Melville Hall) performing in 2002. In Moby’s music, the electronic elements—including the rhythm track, the orchestral strings-inspired sound cushion under the chorus, and numerous other subtle effects—merge with rock and rap elements to create a new fusion for the new millennium.
Moby originally recorded “South Side” with Gwen Stefani (b. 1969), the vocalist with No Doubt, a Jamaican-influenced alternative band. The version that featured her did not appear on the first release of the album. However, the single version and the reissue of the album did include her. That she was present, and a key component of the song, indicates a significant difference between “South Side” and “No UFO’s.” “South Side” assimilates the electronic elements into a traditional rock song format: The song has a beginning and an end; an instrumental introduction; a (rap-inspired spoken) verse; a sung chorus with a can’t-miss hook; and a vintage-style guitar solo. In this format, the song is clearly directed toward radio airplay instead of being confined to use within a club. Indeed, the song reached No. 3 on Billboard’s Modern Rock Tracks and No. 14 on their Hot 100 chart.
The electronic elements—including the rhythm track, the orchestral strings-inspired sound cushion under the chorus, and numerous other subtle effects—are merged with rock and rap elements to create a new fusion for the turn of the millennium. However, the song follows a time-honored pattern in popular music that we first observed in the music for the minstrel show: create a new sound by assimilating outsider styles (fiddle music/techno) into the prevailing style.
It is clear that “South Side” owes much of its success to the incorporation of rock and rap elements. Historically, when a new sound emerges, audiences have first embraced versions of it that contain familiar elements—the cover versions of R&B songs in the fifties are a noteworthy example. However, it is also clear that by incorporating these familiar elements into “South Side,” Moby has abandoned the esthetic of techno, as exemplified in tracks such as “No UFO’s.” It is a song, not a dance track. Whether this is good or bad—or neither—depends on your point of view. Those who preferred their techno “pure” would be turned off by the song (and many of Moby’s longtime fans felt betrayed by his move to the mainstream). Those who were not ready to take their electronica straight welcomed the more familiar features.
Listening Cue
“South Side” (1999)
Moby
STYLE Crossover electronica ⋅ FORM Verse/chorus, with spoken verse, different versions of the chorus
Listen For …
INSTRUMENTATION
Spoken and sung voices, electric guitar, synthesized percussion, bass, and sustained sounds
PERFORMANCE STYLE
Verse is spoken, not rapped; rock-like guitar solo
RHYTHM
Dense sixteen-beat rhythm underpins slower moving rhythms in instrumental breaks and chorus
MELODY
Chorus is simple, narrow-range phrase repeated over and over
HARMONY
One chord hinted at in verse; repeated chord progression in chorus
Remember …
BUSY RHYTHMS
Active, funky rhythms, with the sixteen-beat layer clearly marked by percussion sounds
ROCK/RAP ELEMENTS
Verse/chorus form, with rap-influenced spoken verse, sung chorus; guitar solo
ELECTRONIC ELEMENTS
Synthesized sounds include not only Latin-flavored percussive sounds but also sustained sounds behind vocals in chorus and elsewhere
Listen to this selection in the unit playlist.
74-2 Deconstructing Popular Song
When the album version of “South Side” was released as part of a “single” in England on Mute Records, it was one of seven versions of the song on the CD. The others were:
· The single version
· The “Hybrid Dishing Pump Remix” version
· The “Peter Heller Park Lane Vocal” version
· “Ain’t Never Learned” version
· The “Hybrid Dishing Pump Instrumental” version
· “The Sun Never Stops Setting” version
The many versions of the song highlight one of the most fascinating digital-era developments in popular music: the deconstruction of a song. Recall that one of the significant developments of the early rock era was the emergence of the “record as document.” That is, the song was what was recorded on the album or single. However, even then multiple versions of songs occasionally appeared: the single version of the Doors’ “Light My Fire” is much shorter than the album version, which features long instrumental solos by Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger. As mentioned earlier, Jamaican record companies took this a step further when they would issue the instrumental backing of a song as the “B” side of the record so that DJs could toast over it. Still, musicians and producers were limited because of the relative difficulty in isolating and recombining tracks and song components and segments in analog mixing.
Digital technology liberated music creators from both the signal degradation and ease-of-use issues in analog recording. As computers gained speed and audio workstation software developed, it became possible to construct a song out of several components, which could be modified, added to, and otherwise manipulated to create other versions of the song, some of which can be quite different. For example, the “Peter Heller Park Lane Vocal” version of “South Side” is 5 minutes longer than the album track, and one track is an instrumental.
In electronica, multiple versions of a song do not multiply sales. Moby’s Play has been a rare exception. The large family of electronica styles commands a relatively small market share. Nevertheless, its influence on popular music has been profound. Rap, pop, rock, world music—there is hardly a contemporary sound that does not show at least some influence of the technology and tools of dance music.
CH. 75
Early Rap
75-1 Rap
Rap is a form of creative expression that uses musical sounds to help get its message across, but music is typically only one of several elements. Its most consistent features are poetry delivered intensely and rhythmically over a spare, rhythmically active musical accompaniment, usually generated by electronic sounds. But it can be more. One could argue convincingly that a well-done rap video is the first total-arts genre, because it often combines poetry, drama, visual arts, dancing, and music.
75-2 Forerunners of Rap
The practice of talking over a musical accompaniment has a long history in popular music. Al Jolson used to talk over instrumental statements of the melody in the twenties; bluesmen and contemporary folk artists like Woody Guthrie would routinely strum and talk. Within the popular tradition, the practice of reciting poetry over a musical accompaniment goes back to the fifties, when Beat poets like Kenneth Rexroth presented their work backed by a jazz combo. Somewhat later, black poets like Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) often delivered their work with jazz in the background. In the sixties, acts as different as Bob Dylan and James Brown delivered words that were both rhymed and rhythmic, using a vocal style that fell somewhere between everyday speech and singing. However, the most direct antecedent of rap was the toasting of the Jamaican DJs who ran mobile sound systems and kept up a steady stream of patter as they changed discs. Another antecedent of rap, one closer to home, was George Clinton’s funk.
Rap emerged as one artistic dimension of the hip-hop culture, along with break dancing and graffiti.
75-3 Rap and African-American Culture
There are numerous parallels between the Mississippi Delta in the first half of the twentieth century and the South Bronx in the latter half. Both regions are heavily black. Both are heartbreakingly poor; there is either no work or work at such low pay that one cannot make ends meet. They are violent, even lawless places. Health and living conditions are closer to life in a Third World country than the suburbs of New York or Memphis: out-of-wedlock children born to young teens; rats and roaches everywhere; segregated, underfunded schools, where the playground may become a battleground.
There are differences, of course. The Delta was—and is—rural. Geography, prejudice, and poverty kept the people who lived there thoroughly isolated from mainstream culture. The South Bronx is urban. Fifth Avenue in Manhattan is a short subway ride away. But it might as well have been another world for those who lived in the ghetto. In effect, there has been, in both cases, an invisible barrier that has severely constrained meaningful contact between blacks and whites. However, television brought the rich and famous into the living rooms of South Bronx residents; they had a much sharper sense of what they didn’t have than their Delta counterparts.
Both are depressing, demoralizing environments, environments that can suck hope out of one’s mind, body, and spirit. So it is a testament to the resiliency of African Americans and the vitality of their culture that the Delta and the South Bronx have been home to two of the most vital, important, and influential forms of artistic expression to emerge in the twentieth century. Just as the Delta is the spiritual home of the blues, the South Bronx is home to rap.
Ask those who listen to rap what draws them to it. Chances are they’ll say, “It’s real.” Like the blues, the realness of rap is not just in what it says, but in how it says it. Rap gives us a window into life in the ghetto: the good, the bad, the ugly … and the beautiful. There is humor; bleak visions of the past, present, and future; posturing; misogyny and responses to it; slices of gang life and pleas to bring an end to it; brutal depictions of current conditions; and forceful demands for action. Like other roots music—blues, folk, country—this is music by and for its constituency. That rap has found a much wider audience is incidental to its original mission. The power comes from its emotional urgency: As with the blues, we can feel it’s real. It has an edge, in words and sound.
Rap is a contemporary instance of a popular style’s speaking to and for its audience. In a 1992 Newsweek article, Public Enemy’s Chuck D called rap “Black America’s CNN.” In his view, it provides information and opinions for the inner city, viewpoints not available through conventional media. Chuck D feels that rap and rap videos give whites exposure to a side of black life that they could not get short of living in a ghetto.
75-4 Rap and Hip-Hop
Rap emerged as one artistic dimension of hip-hop culture, along with break dancing and graffiti. All three were unconventional forms of expression that required considerable skill and preparation. Break dancing is extremely athletic; its vigorous moves parallel the energy of the music to which it’s performed. Graffiti artists prepared their work much like a military campaign. They would plan the graffito through a series of sketches, scout out the train yards, sneak in and paint the cars, then sneak out. Their use of trains and buses as “canvases” suggests that graffiti was another way to get their message out of the ghetto.
There is a kind of defiance built into all three: rap, graffiti art, and break dancing. The implicit message is “You can put us down, but you can’t keep us down.” You—the man, the establishment—can subject us to subhuman living conditions. You can ignore us. But you can’t break our spirit. We can create something that comes from us, not you, and you can’t do what we do, even though you want to.
75-5 Grandmaster Flash: Messages and Techniques
Among rap’s pioneers was Grandmaster Flash. Flash (born Joseph Saddler, 1958) was born in Barbados but moved with his family to the Bronx at a young age. He grew up with passionate interests in his father’s jazz records and electronics, which he merged as a budding DJ at block parties and in public parks.
Inspired by Kool Herc, the first great hip-hop DJ, Flash developed the array of turntable techniques that would revolutionize rap. Even more significantly, he translated these techniques into a radically new musical conception: the sound collage . In the visual arts, an artist creating a collage assembles found materials (artifacts such as print materials, photographs, or machine parts) or natural objects (such as seashells, flowers, or leaves) into a work of art. The collage can consist exclusively of the preexisting materials, or it can be integrated into the work of the artist. What the visual artist does with found materials, Flash did with sound. In effect, he cut and pasted sound clips from recordings into his music. The clips could range in length from a fraction of a second to several seconds; in either case, Flash completely recontextualized them.
The first track in which he showcased these skills was “The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash and the Wheels of Steel,” which he recorded with the Furious Five, featuring Melle Mel (Melvin Glover) and ex-Sugarhill Gang percussionist Duke Bootee (Ed Fletcher). The track, a minor R&B hit in 1981, included excerpts from Chic’s “Good Times,” Blondie’s “Rapture,” and Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust,” as well as samples from other songs and sources; it would become a textbook for the creative possibilities of sampling. As practiced by Flash, sampling was a radical transformation of the age-old practice of musical quotation. Instead of inserting snippets of melody, Flash mixed in the entire musical event as preserved on record.
Another of Flash’s early and important contributions was “The Message,” which reached No. 4 on the R&B charts in 1982 and also crossed over to the pop charts. It was innovative in both subject and setting.
“The Message” presents a brutal picture of life in the ghetto. Its impact begins with the rap itself, which describes the oppressive and parlous circumstances of everyday life for those who live there. Another noteworthy feature was the “arrest” at the end of the track, a “slice of life” interpolation that interrupts the musical accompaniment for several seconds. When the accompaniment resumes, it is as if the arrest were barely a blip on the radar screen—a virtual nonevent in the ongoing misery of life in the ghetto. Both the rap and the arrest scene convey a much more serious message. With “The Message,” rap graduated from party music to serious social commentary.
Listening Cue
“The Message” (1982)
Grandmaster Flash.
STYLE Rap ⋅ FORM Rap-style verse/chorus
Listen For …
INSTRUMENTATION
Rapping (no singing) plus electronically generated pitched and percussive sounds
RHYTHM
Sixteen-beat rhythms kept mainly in the rap; no consistent time keeping in the instrumental setting except for strong backbeat
Clave-like syncopation in rap “chorus”
MELODY
Melodic material: repeated synthesizer riffs
TEXTURE
Open texture with wide registral gaps between bass and high synthesizer riff
Remember …
DEPRESSING ACCOUNT
Lyrics paint a dismal picture of ghetto life
EMPHASIS ON RHYTHM
Rap plus repetitive riffs and percussion sounds; no melodic development but rhythmic interest
BLEAK MUSICAL SETTING
Open texture—high synth riff, low bass, other percussion/riffs/rap in mid-range; repeated riffs (they go nowhere musically) reinforce bleak message of rap
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The spare, widely spaced sounds and the way the synthesizer riff trails off seem to communicate the desolation of the ghetto environment; the lack of change in the setting seems to imply the difficulties faced in improving this depressing environment.
Rap crossed over to the mainstream with Run-D.M.C.’s version of “Walk This Way.” As with earlier rap songs, “Walk This Way” built the rap on a preexisting musical foundation, in this case, Aerosmith’s 1976 hit “Walk This Way.” The new twist was that Aerosmith members Steven Tyler and Joe Perry participated in the recording session. This new version made the charts exactly a decade after the original, in 1986. A year later, LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys (who were signed to Def Jam Records, the most prominent rap label) found the charts. With their emergence, rap burst out of the ghetto and into the ’burbs.
75-6 Public Enemy: Rap as a Political Music
Among the major rap acts of the late eighties and nineties was Public Enemy. The group’s key figures were Chuck D (born Carlton Ridenhour, 1960), Flavor Flav (born William Drayton, 1959), and DJ Terminator X (born Norman Rogers, 1966). They surrounded themselves with a substantial posse, some of whom contributed to their work.
Public Enemy was the most political of the rap acts to emerge during the late eighties. Their look rekindled memories of the black radicals from the sixties: paramilitary uniforms, Black Panther evocations, fake Uzis carried by their entourage as they appeared on stage. The look supported the message of the raps.
In “1 Million Bottlebags,” a track from their 1991 album Apocalypse 91 … The Enemy Strikes Black, Public Enemy takes on everyone. The rap is an indictment of alcohol abuse. It takes on all of those responsible for the problem—not only those who consume it and can’t stop, but also the companies that prey on blacks by advertising their liquor products heavily in the ghetto. The language is powerful and direct; it is from the street. The frustration and anger behind it are palpable.
The rap begins with a collage of sounds: a bottle breaking, a “news bulletin” about target advertising by liquor companies in the black communities, the rhythm track, the sound of beer (or malt liquor) being poured, a beer belch, then horn-like synthesizer chords. The rap begins. Sirens and more prominent rhythm sounds signal the arrival of a chorus-like section. The end of the track simulates changing stations on a radio. Juxtaposed are a long statement about the immorality of making money off the impoverished and a scathing critique of the way in which racist corporate types dismiss the problem.
There are five kinds of sounds on the track: the rap, the spoken elements, the real-world sounds (for example, the bottle breaking), the rhythm tracks, and the pitched sounds, such as the siren screeches that mark the chorus. The siren screeches are at once a musical sound—a two-note riff—and an evocation of a too-familiar real-life sound. There is complexity in the density of information, which matches the multiple levels of commentary.
The rhythm track, which combines a strong backbeat with interlocked patterns that collectively mark the sixteen-beat rhythm, serves several purposes. It is the glue that holds the track together, through the changes of voice, the spoken clips, and other sounds. It reinforces the delivery of the rap. Because both move at sixteen-beat speed, the percussion sounds give the rap support and strength. And it creates a groove: even more than in funk, you can move to the groove even as you take in the message.
“1 Million Bottlebags” is even less melodic than “The Message.” The only easily identifiable melodic elements are the siren-like sound and the repeated chord; in both cases, the same pitch is repeated again and again. The absence of melody is a strength, not a shortcoming. Its presence would dilute the impact of the rap. It would soften the edge that is present everywhere else: in the delivery of the rap, in the rhythm track and other musical sounds, and in the sound clips.
The moral high ground staked out by Public Enemy in tracks like “1 Million Bottlebags” was undermined by incidents such as the 1989 Washington Post interview with Professor Griff (born Richard Griffin, 1960), Public Enemy’s “minister of information,” in which he made numerous provocatively anti-Semitic remarks, including claiming that Jews were responsible for the majority of wickedness that goes on throughout the world. It was the most flagrant of several anti-Semitic public incidents in Public Enemy’s career; others included an endorsement of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. The controversy surrounding such incidents created dissension within the group and a sudden decline in their fortunes. By 1993, Chuck D put the group’s career on hold; he would revive Public Enemy later in the decade, when they recaptured some of the success that they had previously enjoyed. Still, their most substantial contribution came in the late eighties and early nineties; more than any other group of the era, they made rap relevant—the black CNN—to both blacks and non-blacks, and created sound worlds that amplified the impact of the lyrics. It remained for a new generation of rappers to bring it into the mainstream.
Listening Cue
“1 Million Bottlebags” (1991)
Ridenhour/
Robertz/
Rinaldo/
Depper
Public Enemy.
STYLE Rap ⋅ FORM Rap-style “verse/chorus”
Listen For …
INSTRUMENTATION
Rap, electronic percussion, synthesizer, “found” sounds
RHYTHM
Aggressive sixteen-beat rhythm, reinforced by rap and percussion
Syncopated synthesizer chords and riffs, mainly in chorus
MELODY
Melodic fragments highlight chorus-like sections
TEXTURE
Main focus rap and percussive sounds; other sounds, low and high, are intermittent
Remember …
EQUAL-OPPORTUNITY DENUNCIATION
Rap indicts both the abusers and the producers of alcohol: the former for their unwillingness to clean up, the latter for targeting the black community in their advertising
RICH SOUND WORLD
Five different sound sources: rap, spoken elements, real-world sounds, percussion sounds, and pitched sounds—the siren-like sounds and the synthesizer chords
RAP, RHYTHM, AND MESSAGE
Rap delivery and rhythm create a sixteen-beat rhythm at a fast tempo, which conveys the anger and frustration of the rap; so do aggressive sounds (percussion sounds, siren)
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CH. 76
Mainstreaming Rap
76-1 The Case of Gangsta Rap
In rap, the boundary between life and art is all but invisible. The work of rappers often comes directly from their life experiences; the raps may simply document them. Nowhere has this been more evident than in gangsta rap.
Gangsta rap , which emerged in the latter part of the eighties, brought the violence of inner-city life into the music and out into the world. A visual image of this life was the 1988 film Colors, starring Robert Duvall and Sean Penn as police officers trying to control violence between the Bloods and the Crips, two rival Los Angeles gangs. Ice-T, among the first of the gangsta rappers, recorded the title track of the film.
Although Schoolly D, a Philadelphia-based rapper, is credited with the rap that sparked the genre (the 1986 single “P.S.K.”), gangsta rap has been perceived as a West Coast phenomenon because of the success of rap artists and groups such as N.W.A. and Ice-T, then Dr. Dre (a former N.W.A. member), Snoop Doggy Dogg, MC Hammer, and 2Pac (Tupac Shakur). The success of these artists escalated the territorial animosity from rival gangs within a community to the communities themselves. Bad blood developed between West Coast gangsta rappers and New York hip-hop artists; both groups used lyrics to dis the opposing camp. The violence portrayed in the lyrics often spilled over into real life. Snoop Doggy Dog and Tupac Shakur were among the notable gangsta rap artists who served jail time; the shooting deaths of Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. are commonly regarded as gang retribution.
Violence was not the only controversial aspect of the music. Raps were often pornographic and misogynistic, and richly scatological. Most recordings routinely earned the “parental advisory” label from the RIAA. For suburban whites, gangsta rap must have seemed like forbidden fruit; the genre would enjoy a large following among whites, most of whom experienced the rappers’ world only vicariously.
Although its audience had grown steadily throughout the late eighties and early nineties, gangsta rap crossed over to the mainstream in large part because of a musical decision: to work pop elements into hardcore rap. It first appeared in the music of New York hip-hop artists such as Notorious B.I.G. and Nas, and quickly spread to the west coast: Tupac Shakur’s “California Love,” which topped the pop, R&B, and rap charts in 1996, epitomizes this new approach.
76-2 Tupac Shakur
If ever an artist seemed destined to live and die by the sword, it would be Tupac Shakur (1971–1996). His parents were active in the Black Panthers; his mother was acquitted on a conspiracy charge only a month before Shakur’s birth; his father is currently incarcerated in Florida; and others close to his mother during his childhood were either in and out of prison or fugitives.
What made his too-short life doubly tragic was the terrible conflict between the sensitive and violent sides of his personality. He was intelligent and curious—reading Machiavelli during his prison term—and creative and multitalented, with obvious gifts as an actor, poet, dancer, and musician. Yet in his personal and professional lives, he gave vent to the violent side: run-ins with the law, a sexual abuse lawsuit, and scandal. “Hit ’Em Up” was a personal attack on Notorious B.I.G.; in it, he claimed to have slept with B.I.G.’s wife. That his life would end prematurely as a result of the ultimate violent act seems in retrospect almost a foregone conclusion.
Shortly before his death, Shakur recorded “California Love” with Dr. Dre for Death Row Records, the label headed by Suge Knight, who was also repeatedly in trouble with the law. The opening scene of the music video of the track and the action during the song itself seem inspired by the Mad Max films: They purport to present a desolate, lawless world a hundred years in the future. Although it is skillfully produced, the video has no obvious thematic connection with the song, which is very much in the present—the “ ’95” that Dr. Dre mentions is clearly 1995, and Tupac’s first words are “out on bail/fresh outta jail,” which happened to be true. Both the video and the song evidence the mutation of rap from an outsiders’ music flourishing in inner-city parks to a big business.
Listening Cue
“California Love” (1996)
Tupac Shakur
Tupac Shakur and Dr. Dre.
STYLE Gangsta rap ⋅ FORM Verse/chorus, with the chorus framing the rapped verses, and with an introductory title phrase and numerous interludes
Listen For …
INSTRUMENTATION
Vocals, raps, synthesized percussion, bass and chord-instrument sounds, “natural” percussion sounds (cowbell, whistle)
PERFORMANCE STYLE
Electronic modification of sung vocal parts
RHYTHM
Sixteen-beat rhythm kept in percussion and rap; other rhythms moving more slowly
MELODY
Sung chorus built from repetitive riff frames raps
TEXTURE
Rhythmically dense, melody-rich texture with heavy bass, high midrange percussion and synth chords, vocal in between, plus active high range synthesizer riffs
Remember …
RAP + MELODY = CROSSOVER SUCCESS
Sung chorus plus instrumental melodic fragments underneath sung vocals and raps
SLICE OF CALIFORNIA LIFE
Raps mix a salute to California with personal remarks: jail, jewelry, clothes, and the obligatory commentary on street life
RICH SOUND WORLD
Imaginative instrumental and vocal sounds, collage-like melodic fragments, and dense, active rhythms create rich, constantly varying sound world
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The rap lyrics offer a sizable dose of gangsta rap posturing. There are references to violence, gangs, prostitution, money, clothes, and jewelry. But the prevailing mood, in both words and music, is party hard, because “we keep it rockin’!” Especially in the chorus, it sounds more like a promo for the chamber of commerce than an incitement to riot.
Compared to early rap, its most surprising feature, and undoubtedly one of its most appealing features, is its melodic and textural richness. The vocal melodies are the most apparent evidence of this, but woven into the texture behind both the sung sections and the raps are lush synthesizer harmonies and multiple fragments of melody. The return of the chorus features even more supplementary melodic activity, both vocal and instrumental. Almost all of this activity, and especially the synthesizer chords and lines, occurs in middle and high register, above the vocal range of the rap. This counterbalances the characteristic dark bass sound that runs throughout the song.
Additionally, several layers of percussion sounds mark the backbeat, rock beat, and sixteen-beat rhythms or play against these regular rhythms; the whistle stands out as a source of rhythmic play. The rhythmic texture of the song is even denser than that heard on “1 Million Bottlebags,” although the tempo is considerably slower.
The rich texture created by the numerous melodic fragments and sustained chords are an important source of the enormous crossover appeal of the song. It makes the song more accessible and more familiar, and there is more to connect to—not only the two raps and the beat, but also the melodies and the sound variety. The strategy to mainstream rap through melody succeeded on both coasts, and it has remained a common practice up until the present.
Fortunately for Death Row Records, Shakur had recorded a substantial amount of unreleased material. Six albums were released posthumously, the last in 2004. All went platinum. His legacy extends beyond his recordings. Following his death, his mother, Afeni Shakur, established the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation to “provide training and support for students who aspire to enhance their creative talents.”
In the 2000s, rap would gain an even larger commercial presence. One important reason was the work of Eminem.
76-3 Eminem and the Mainstreaming of Rap
A quick glance at Eminem’s record sales might lead one to think history was simply repeating itself: white musicians co-opt a black music and popularize it without really understanding the style. It was a recurring pattern in the twentieth century, most notoriously in the 1950s, when pop singers tried to cover rhythm-and-blues songs. The reality in this case is far more complex.
There is no doubt about Eminem’s commercial success. He is among the most successful artists of the 2000s. All of his studio albums have gone multiplatinum, and all but the first peaked at the top of the album charts. He has had numerous chart-topping singles, including “Lose Yourself” and “Love the Way You Lie.”
However, Eminem (born Marshall Mathers, 1972) has paid his dues along the way. As a teen, he participated in battle raps with black rappers and eventually earned the respect of African-American hip-hop audiences. Early in his career, he teamed with black rapper Royce da 5990 to form Soul Intent. His mentor has been Dr. Dre, who has provided the musical context for his raps. And he could easily have been a child of the ghetto: raised by a single mom; moving around constantly; dropping out of school; devastated by an uncle who committed suicide; fathering a child out of wedlock; dealing with substance abuse issues; trying to hold together a tumultuous relationship with his longtime partner, Kimberly Scott, whom he met in 1989, married in 1999, divorced in 2001, remarried and divorced again in 2006; fending off lawsuits; and picking public spats with other celebrities. As with other rappers, his life has spilled over into his art: Among the numerous lawsuits that have been filed against him are those by his mother and ex-wife, who have sued him for defamation of character. Many of his songs, including “Love the Way You Lie,” are or could easily be autobiographical.
Eminem Performing on Stage in Glasgow, 2001.
Eminem recorded “Love the Way You Lie” for his 2010 album Recovery. Both the album and the single quickly went to the top of the charts. In this track, he partnered with R&B star Rihanna; she sang the chorus, and his raps provided the verse. (Interestingly, she recorded another version of the song with sung verse and chorus and with a rap by Eminem interpolated.) The track exemplifies the synergy that can result when rap and song are combined. Rihanna’s sung chorus, which opens the track and is repeated throughout, is the hook that anchors the track in listeners’ ears. The unvarying repetition serves at least two purposes. It lodges the hook more deeply even as it underscores the main theme of the track, and it doesn’t deflect attention away from the rap by introducing variety. The four-chord accompaniment that is also recycled under both chorus and rap helps glue the two together.
Eminem’s rap is musical Everclear—the 190-proof kind. It is an intense, condensed account of a tumultuous relationship. The juxtaposition of sung and rapped content highlights the power of rap. Words sung to music typically take much longer to deliver, and even when they are delivered rapidly, the musical setting can attenuate the impact of the words. The high pitch of Eminem’s delivery energizes the violent contrasts in his rap, which in turn resonates with the violence in the relationship. His vivid images flash by (in words and also in the video) like a film on fast forward. The track and the video are a gripping -minute reality show.
Eminem’s overwhelming commercial success—he was the top R&B/hip-hop artist on Billboard’s 2010 year-end chart, critical acclaim, and his widespread acceptance within the music industry and by black and white audiences evidences his almost unique position in contemporary musical life: he is a highly skilled performer in an almost exclusively black genre, who happens to be white.
In the twenty-first century, rap—in all of its manifestations and combinations—is an enduring and significant part of the rock-era musical world. The numerous rap/R&B syntheses—and rap/rock hybrids such as rapcore, rap rock, and rap metal—offer further evidence of its strong presence in popular music.
“Love the Way You Lie” (2010)
Marshall Mathers,
Alexander Grant,
Holly Hafermann,
Makeba Riddick
Eminem, with Rihanna.
STYLE Crossover rap ⋅ FORM Verse/chorus (with the raps as verses)
Listen For …
INSTRUMENTATION
Sung vocal, rap, piano, acoustic guitar, synthesized bass, percussion, string-like sustained sound
RHYTHM
Slow-moving melodic rhythm in chorus, faster rhythm in rap, sixteen-beat rhythmic foundation under both
MELODY
Repetitive melody consisting of a single high–low phrase repeated several times
HARMONY
Unusual four-chord progression underpins both chorus and rap
TEXTURE
Strong contrasts in texture between spacious-sounding chorus (wide registral differences) and more lightly accompanied rap (mainly guitar and percussion)
Remember …
LOVE PROBLEMS
“Love the Way You Lie” is about a relationship on the rocks. The title phrase highlights a central problem; the raps vividly describe the tempestuous times of a “tornado” and a “volcano.” The rap presents the problems more explicitly, more violently, and in greater detail than in pop.
MIXING IN MELODY
Part of the success of the track is the sung chorus—and Rihanna’s singing of it
CONTRASTING SOUND WORLDS
Vocal chorus has much richer accompaniment—sustained chords, more percussion—than rap verse. Chord progression helps connect them.
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Music Genre
Student Name
Institution Affiliation
Music Genre
New musical genres like disco, punk, and glam rock radically altered the traditional gender roles in the music industry, which had previously been dominated by heterosexual males singing and playing loudly on electronically amplified instruments. These styles introduced new perspectives on music by featuring a variety of voices and expressions, and they were a direct challenge to conventional gender norms. Donna Summer, a major personality in the disco scene, presented a fresh take on gender roles (Campbell, 2019). The 1970s saw her rise to prominence as the "Queen of Disco" and a symbol of women's liberty and independence. With songs like "I Feel Love," Summer pushed the frontiers of disco music with her innovative blend of electronic and dance elements. Her bold stage presence and commanding vocals shattered the stereotype that only straight males could be successful musicians. By paving the way for other women in disco, Summer helped broaden the genre's acceptance of female performers. The disco era was a safe space for LGBTQ+ musicians to be themselves.
The Village People are an iconic example of this genre, with their flashy stage outfits and dance-pop sound. Their anthems like "Y.M.C.A." and "Macho Man" gave the LGBTQ+ community a sense of pride and empowerment. The Village People helped bring queer identities into the mainstream by breaking down barriers associated with gender and sexuality in the music industry (Campbell, 2019). This response precludes the use of the mashup tool, but it is worth noting that listening to music from these genres and artists like Donna Summer and The Village People can help shed light on the role of gender in the disco era and its musical legacy.
References
Campbell, M. (2019). Popular music in America. 5th ed. Cengage Learning.
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