Rap- Music?

I like rap

MC Hammer pants. Beautiful.

I know that sometimes surprises some people that meet me. They think "good, wholesome LDS guy who studied music in college; shouldn't he have better taste?" I say this not as a matter of assumption, but from personal experience.

First and foremost, I would like to refute the erroneous idea that rap isn't music. One of my Music Theory professors at the university defined music as 

"organized sound over time" 

with an asterisk over the first word, meaning that organization as a necessity was debatable. Does rap fit this description? Absolutely. And yet, sometimes people argue "but they’re not singing, so it counts for less."

Here’s a transcription of Smashmouth's hit song "All Star":

You’ll notice that in the first four bars, approximately 2/3 of the words are on the same pitch (tonic/"do") without a lot of pitch variance elsewhere in these bars or in the other verses of the song.

Here’s Andy Grammer's "Keep Your Head Up"

First four bars again and Grammer also sings nearly 2/3 of his words on the same tonic pitch. I do not mention these examples to disparage their musical value in any way, but rather to demonstrate how much songs like this, which fall squarely in the "alternative" or "pop" category, have in common with rap.

Now here's the first four bars of Sean Paul's "So Fine"

It should be noted that Sean Paul is actually singing these pitches; this is not an approximation. The number of times Paul repeats tonic is a mere 9% higher than that of Smashmouth and Grammer, yet people count it as less musical.

And let us not forget "Gone Til November" by rapper Wyclef Jean

Here, Jean sings tonic less than 25% of the time, yet he is classified as a rapper. Oh, and that G natural in the fourth measure? It’s a borrowed minor third from the blues scale. Not too shabby for a guy who isn't a musician.

There are dozens of rappers like Jean and Paul who sing their raps as part of the songs' harmonic structure. Some high profile examples are B.o.B, Nelly, Andre 3000, Timbaland, Mos Def, C-Lo Green and there are plenty more that rap verses and sing choruses.

But what about the others? I quote William Shatner:

I can’t get behind so-called singers, who can’t carry a tune, get paid for talking. How easy is that?

These are the Kanye's, 50's and Dre's of the genre who make a living out of talking to a beat. I mean, where’s the talent in that? Here’s where:

I woke up early this morning with a new state of mind,

A creative way to rhyme without using knives and guns-

Keep your nose out the sky, keep your heart to God and

Keep your face to the rising sun.

                -Kanye West, Family Business

You woulda been much more than a mouth to feed

Someone, I woulda fed this information I read to

Someone, my life for you, I woulda had to leave,

Instead I led you to death.

                -Common, Retrospect for Life

 Come listen to my truest thoughts, my truest feelings

All my peers doing years beyond drug dealing

How many caskets can we witness

Before we see it’s hard to live the life without God?

So we must ask forgiveness.

                -2Pac, Unconditional Love

The best rappers are incredible poets with an individual and important perspective on the world's problems. I'm not going to champion all of rap music because, as with all genres of music, there are killers and there are fillers. But under no circumstances should anyone think to banish the entire rap genre into the nether regions of "not good music" or even "too unholy." All genres have goods and bads and it is up to you, reader, to keep an open mind and to find what you like and what speaks to you.

A Grammy to the Highest Bidder...

Here's a list of the Grammy award winners of "Best Album of the Year," along with its RIAA Certification based on how many units it sold. Don't pore over it if you are in a rush, just glance at the right-hand column as you scroll down.

Gold: 500,000 units

Platinum: 1,000,000 units

Diamond: 10,000,000 units

1959	Henry Mancini	The Music from Peter Gunn	Platinum
1960	Frank Sinatra	Come Dance with Me!	Gold
1961	Bob Newhart	The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart	Gold
1962	Judy Garland	Judy at Carnegie Hall	Gold
1963	Vaughn Meader	The First Family	Gold
1964	Barbra Streisand	The Barbra Streisand Album	Gold
1965	Stan Getz & João Gilberto	Getz/Gilberto	Gold
1966	Frank Sinatra	September of My Years	Gold
1967	Frank Sinatra	A Man and His Music	Platinum
1968	The Beatles	Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band	11x Platinum
1969	Glen Campbell	By the Time I Get to Phoenix	Platinum
1970	Blood, Sweat & Tears	Blood, Sweat & Tears	4x Platinum
1971	Simon & Garfunkel	Bridge over Troubled Water	8x Platinum
1972	Carole King	Tapestry	10x Platinum
1973	George Harrison & Friends	The Concert for Bangla Desh	Gold
1974	Stevie Wonder	Innervisions	N/A
1975	Stevie Wonder	Fulfillingness' First Finale	N/A
1976	Paul Simon	Still Crazy After All These Years	Gold
1977	Stevie Wonder	Songs in the Key of Life	10x Platinum
1978	Fleetwood Mac	Rumours	19x Platinum
1979	Bee Gees/Various artists	Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Sound Track	15x Platinum
1980	Billy Joel	52nd Street	7x Platinum
1981	Christopher Cross	Christopher Cross	5x Platinum
1982	John Lennon & Yoko Ono	Double Fantasy	3x Platinum
1983	Toto	Toto IV	3x Platinum
1984	Michael Jackson	Thriller	29x Platinum
1985	Lionel Richie	Can't Slow Down	Diamond
1986	Phil Collins	No Jacket Required	12x Platinum
1987	Paul Simon	Graceland	5x Platinum
1988	U2	The Joshua Tree	Diamond
1989	George Michael	Faith	Diamond
1990	Bonnie Raitt	Nick of Time	Diamond
1991	Quincy Jones	Back on the Block	Platinum
1992	Natalie Cole	Unforgettable... with Love	7x Platinum
1993	Eric Clapton	Unplugged	Diamond
1994	Whitney Houston[B]	The Bodyguard: Original Soundtrack Album	17x Platinum
1995	Tony Bennett	MTV Unplugged	Platinum
1996	Alanis Morissette	Jagged Little Pill	16x Platinum
1997	Celine Dion	Falling into You	11x Platinum
1998	Bob Dylan	Time out of Mind	Platinum
1999	Lauryn Hill	The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill	8x Platinum
2000	Santana	Supernatural	15x Platinum
2001	Steely Dan	Two Against Nature	2x Platinum
2002	Various artists [C]	O Brother, Where Art Thou?Soundtrack	8x Platinum
2003	Norah Jones	Come Away with Me	Diamond
2004	OutKast	Speakerboxxx/The Love Below	11x Platinum
2005	Ray Charles and Various Artists	Genius Loves Company	3x Platinum
2006	U2	How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb	3x Platinum
2007	Dixie Chicks	Taking the Long Way	2x Platinum
2008	Herbie Hancock	River: The Joni Letters	N/A
2009	Robert Plant & Alison Krauss	Raising Sand	Platinum
2010	Taylor Swift	Fearless	6x Platinum
2011	Arcade Fire	The Suburbs	Gold
2012	Adele	21	Diamond

Note: These statistics are units sold inside the United States only; many of these albums were even more successful globally.

I don't plan to comment much on these statistics. I just want to draw attention to the overwhelming majority of “Best Album of the Year” Grammys which were awarded after huge commercial success. I can imagine two possible explanations:

            1. The American people's taste in music is so good that we are naturally attracted to music worthy of awards and we buy it for the same reasons that it was nominated for the Grammy.

-or-

            2. An underlying requirement of this award is that the artist and album be well-known enough that the American public won’t be left scratching their heads asking “Who?”

I am more inclined to believe in the second explanation. For one, the other nominations almost always fall into the same category of household-name artists with a commercially successful album. Also, the Grammy awards are perpetuated by the American public who, frankly, don't usually like to try new things; were the Grammys overloaded with unknown indy artists foreign to the mainstream ear, the award would likely lose popularity, rather than spreading fame to the newcomers. Because many utilize music as an accompaniment in the background of life, rather than an independent art form to be appreciated in itself, we only have the capacity to opine on musics that are thrust upon us through the radio, MTV, and Spotify ads.

There is a third possibility- only commercially successful artists have the money necessary to create effective music, the sort that wins Grammys, a hypothesis supported by the extremely low number of breakout albums that are even nominated for this award. But this I refuse to believe.

So, if we assume that an album has to have enough renown to have made some money (or vice versa) to win “Best Album of the Year,” then the prize because somewhat less impressive because the competition is much less steep. Back in 1959, judging between every album released that year would have meant choosing between a few hundred records; only looking at the certified Gold albums, on the other hand (which does include all of the 1959 nominations), drained the pool down to a mere 30 (a). This strainer effect is even more drastic nowadays. In 2009 an estimated 98,000 albums were released onto the market (b), yet only 1,200 sold more than 10,000 copies which, according to the hypothesis, doesn't even qualify them for the running.

I'm not honestly suggesting that the Grammy committee endeavor to listen to every single synthesized smooth-jazz arrangement of Christmas tunes that comes out every year, nor I am I trying to sap the fun out of the Grammys. I guess I just want everyone to remember that the term "Best Album of the Year" should be taken with a big cube of salt since music is one of the most subjective art forms on the planet.

So dang the man, don't let him tell you what's good! Pick your own best albums, whatever makes you feel alive.

a: TSort- Music

b: Digital Music News