disgusting sex drums

Christ, you people wanna be retards without the unwelcome intrusion of people you talk shit about, then be retards on IM.

Trife have you heard the new Xzibit? As polished Dre-funk-commercial as he gets, it makes a pretty good case for new roughness.

simon, how dare you?? i'll have you know i listened to the whole of the last track.

anyway, track 6 contains the line "in bizarro world where co flow is the new pop sensation", so maybe you're right after all, simon!!

...

track 13: "i've been nastiest one since birth." where were nas's lawyers that day? "as i flow fluently"...um...uh...um...

(ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha)

Anyway, the new thing is the whoo-whoo theremin from Brandy's "Full Moon" which is also on the new 112.

wait...bubba sparxxx.

what does being white have to do with anything?!

julio "hip hop" is the final realization of cornelius cardew's great plan.

hey i thought it was john cage from ally macbeal!

I am incidentally reading a lot into his posts so yes I'm extrapolating but it seems to follow from what he's saying

mark s are you even trying anymore?

As I said I am extrapolating, Mr Disnee seems too angry to make points like these himself so I sort of took what seemed like an interesting accusation underneath his invective and ran with it.

jess, i don't think it has to do so much with the fact that you and ethan don't like def jux, anticon, stones throw (etc etc etc) but rather, how VOCAL you are abt not liking it

at some point it begs the question "why is ethan *so* obsessed with having us know that HE DOES NOT APPROVE?" and that's when people go looking for clues

i agree with this, but don't discount the general "the fans of this/that/the other are real offputting and have therefore put me off the music for the time being whether that's smart or silly" factor, which is as racist as saying "indie rock is full of snobbish twats so i won't listen to it" or "pop fans are vapid".

mark (s), i just emailed you. (unrelated, but thought i'd give you a heads up.)

we're going in circles here!

jess, the argument is that the thing that makes the fans so "offputting" is the fact that they're reformed indie kids (re: mostly white)..

i say you cut yr losses and explain situationism to *me*

i mean, there are generally some very obvious demographic distinctions to be made between hip-hop and indie rock; to insinuate that the fractious relationship between fans of both has absolutely *nothing* to do with class or race requires a pretty huge leap of faith

What, much better than?

Anyway, I'm not going to post in WhiteHop threads any more. My head can't cope with being rammed into brick wall anymore.

when did this become specifically about you? i had time to kill and got interested.

throwing ideas around, like

errr.. yeah. i wasn't *really* asking or anything..

*rolls eyes, whistles*

(hey it's almost the same move as "he likes britney instead of proper rock" = "he is being ironic")

so overreaction happens too

(little known fact: "pg. 68" of treatise is actually a picture of mellie mel.)

i hate el-p because he's got the flow of a constipated turtle, all random sputterings and farts until it finally loosens and he spews in all directions with little regard to the toilet bowl of my ears. i will admit that my taste in mc's does run more towards spittin game and the off the porch flow than to stringing too many syllables together undergraduate-stylee. my hatred for el-p is ENTIRELY founded on aesthetic values (i.e. i think his rapping suchs asch.)

it's very easy for el-p to say that he doesn't hate mainstream hiphop now that his label's a critical darling and he's been featured in rolling stone. it would just be disingenuous otherwise. to say that cann ox is "hardcore harlem street shit" or whatever is just goony.

saying that something is a watered-down version of something else is a valid criticism, esp. when it's being put forth as the "most challenging hiphop since public enemy" or similar foolishness (foolishness because of the comparing and the word challenging not the comparison.) (and yes, that's a direct quote, not from ilm though.)

being boring is also a valid criticism. sometimes things become interesting precisely BECAUSE they're so boring. this isn't one of those cases.

my hilarious track by track "deconstruction" of funcrusher was not intended to be kael level crit.

i don't really like anti-pop, silly goose. (well, they're kinda okay.) the prefuse record hasn't held up well at all, in my opinion. anyway, you're right, i never approached the prefuse record as "hiphop" anymore than i approached the anticon verses on the hood record.

God, that's sad.

"i hate el-p because he's got the flow of a constipated turtle, all random sputterings and farts until it finally loosens and he spews in all directions with little regard to the toilet bowl of my ears."

That doesn't tell me much. Only that you know how to shoehorn an unconventional style into the "different=bad" category and have a bum-bum fixation. OK then, where does El-P fuck up where Kool Keith and Ghostface and Eminem succeed?

"it's very easy for el-p to say that he doesn't hate mainstream hiphop now that his label's a critical darling and he's been featured in rolling stone. it would just be disingenuous otherwise."

Yeah 'cause you used to chill with him back in '97 and drink Yoo-hoo and he'd always use to tell you how much he'd like to hit Busta Rhymes in the head with a tire iron.

saying that something is a watered-down version of something else is a valid criticism,

I agree. Jay-Z, f'rinstance, is a watered-down version of Biggie. But you don't really say why it sounds watered-down, you just throw out flip one-liners. What's the point except to entertain yourself and your toadies?

being boring is also a valid criticism. sometimes things become interesting precisely BECAUSE they're so boring. this isn't one of those cases.

Uh... yeah. "Boring" is probably the single most subjective of all critical put-downs. The fact that it bores you says more about you than it does about the music. Me, I thought there was a lot of stuff going on in that album that caught my ear and fascinated me when I first heard it (and continues to do so), probably because I had no idea what it would sound like and wasn't expecting it -- I'm assuming you already had preconceptions about "indie rap" before you even heard it and let that color your boredom.

"my hilarious track by track "deconstruction" of funcrusher was not intended to be kael level crit."

Well then you won't cry if I call it one of the most self-indulgent lookitme bits of meaningless grandstanding I've read in a while. All it said was "I hate indie rap and I think El-P is a doodyhead" and it told me nothing convincing me that I should consider your arguments, much less possibly agree with them.

I suppose what my track by track thing was trying to accomplish, if anything, was to say "my god this is so incredibly tedious, why would anyone sit purposefully sit through it?" when no one has really given me a decent answer for that one yet.

Well it should take you less than an hour to find a couple dozen reviews that actually explain why people purposefully sit through it, but fuck it, the only "decent answer" for you seems to be "I... I don't know. Damn it jess, you're right, THIS IS BORING."

nate, don't go getting a big head just because you've gotten something published in a free weekly, the apex of thinking about music in the modern world. i know you've managed to cultivate this Back Against the Wall On ILM thing into a scrappy little persona for yourself to garner some sympathy for your opinions and taste, but take it outside, okay?

i have to go make dinner, so i don't have time right now to go into further detail on why el-fucking-p bores me (does anyone outside nate actually care? hell, i don't even care at this point if i ever did), but please try to remember that i don't always post to ilm in order to make sweeping critical assessments in order to Convince Nate Patrin of my opinions. (shocking i know!) sometimes i'm just pissing around.

but your little piss-fest up there carefully ignored the fact that i EXPLICITLY STATED that el-p is a turn off for me because of HOW HIS VOICE SOUNDS AND HOW HE USES IT in favor of such slices of "wit" such as "Yeah 'cause you used to chill with him back in '97 and drink Yoo-hoo and he'd always use to tell you how much he'd like to hit Busta Rhymes in the head with a tire iron." nate, you're trying too hard.

Let's get back to Autobots.

And you're the one who's responsible for my not posting here anymore. Have fun with ethan stickin' it to those evil nerd rappers, yo. Me, I'll find some other circle that doesn't make me feel like shit for liking music. I don't need this high school garbage.

jess and ethan say el-p has no flow and uninteresting production; nate is too cross to say exactly why the flow and/or production are good, or whether there's some other dimension which is what shd be being listened to

Man, I hate it when the community goes bad (and I really gotta get me that El-P record sometime.)

Now let's get to the stuff that matters- if D&D = situationists, what post-modern currents of thought are Magic:The Gathering and Warhammer?

I think I should just pretend that jess doesn't exist (also ethan) and vice versa.

Time to get my big head on the floor

PS thank you mark

besides, i haven't not illuminated (whatever the hell THAT means) anything in weeks!

(This is called "attempting to defuse the situation via stupid nonsequitirs")

god damn it, i hate missing all the big fites (start it up again, someone, please)

and that nine times out of ten when i disagree/am annoyed by the jethan massive i am thankful to have someone of mr. patrin's equally impressive knowledge and wit nearby to articulate the diss that i am neither well-qualified nor eloquent enough to construct myself?

or, what mark s, ethan and jess said (but in a more long winded way)

I listen to tons of hip-hop by people who I don't know what race they are (cause it's all on MP3 and CD-R ha ha).

terms like undie and backpacker hip hop are just as stupid as IDM and should be discouraged but of course some people lurve it - and tags themselves are necessary

but i do agree there is some pretentiousness with this type of music in the same way there was with indie...only i dont actually see it for myself - i like APC and i like more mainstream hip hop and i am just as selective about both types e.g. i see someone like Cannibal Ox and someone like Jay-Z as having the same ratio of good tracks or whatever - both are equally capable of making something brilliant or rubbish in its field...but Jay-Z or Nelly are far less to my taste. generally i prefer the more abstract stuff tho for purely artistic (find the offbeat style and lyrics genuinely more interesting) reasons

OK disconnect from any moralising cred-boost delivered by this territory's being "anti" something (a thing by assumption deplorable), and enjoy it and defend it in itself unrelated to this something, and you solve the problem, sure: question is, are you not then cutting away some of its intended content? (ie is what establishes it AS a coherent "territory" what it's against)

(i don't know the answer to the question in respect of the above btw: the dilemma comes up time and time again but i'm not sure the pros and cons always fall the same way, and i know so little about this particular zone that i'm not qualified to pronounce)

the people aint, but a lot of the biggest snobs probably are.

i.e. you can leave typically indie music behind, but typically indie oneupmanship seems to stick a bit longer.

i've come way too late into this argybargy to make an impact, but as a huge apc fan i'd like to say that mark is right abt antipop's rhetoric, but they are full aware of its implications; however they and their music are totally popcultured. it's a little clumsy, granted. but dismissing them on the basis of their name as many do is akin to PRETENTIOUS hunterkillers. likewise thinking they the shit for being so so deep is equally ridiculous.

you wanna discus? start a thread

I think he might be right there - I think in order to *be* a 'snob' about music you need an awareness of minority tastes - but I still dont think those snobs are pretending not to like modest mouse or can ox. They might be pretending that they NEVER liked them.

Isn't the logical conclusion of this an admission that hip-hop is also suburban white kids with an alterna fetish? (Or however you want to stereotype people who listen to undie hip-hop. That old "making it palatable for a college audience/you can't handle the real shit," line is too easy to throw around, with the obvious implication that, of course, the critic can handle the real shit.) Doesn't every rapper claim to be taking it to the next level? Doesn't Nas diss Jay-Z for being too commercial, not real enough, fake? Isn't the whole 5 percenter strand of hip-hop all about dropping knowledge that's too esoteric for the masses? Undie hip-hop may, for the most part, not be as good as Jay-Z, but dissing other rappers and saying you're the best is what hip-hop is all about.

All the reviews I've read of the Africa Raps compilation mention a tension felt by the peripheries in relation to the hip-hop center whose culture they're adapting/appropriating. They feel the need to claim it for themselves. Is the tension that undie rappers feel in relation to quote-unquote mainstream hip-hop so different from the tension that some rapper in Senegal feels? They're all outside looking in, and they all feel attendant anxieties of influence; those anxietes are just exacerbated a little more in the case of undie because it's (rightly or wrongly) white-identified and hip-hop, uh, discourse is always racialized.

I didn't so it was OK for me...heh, we are telepathically linked! oh no!!

if it's a legit question, the answer is zero.

time heals all wounds, tom.

(kinda like the police in respect of punk, or something, i don't know)

(ie i'm not sure that "mainstream" is any clearer than "indie" or "avant-garde": they're all terms borrowed from prior contexts, where not all the details apply => yet the details are where the argument is, resolutuion of which is why the analogies are being drawn)

mark, i don't exactly know how high nwa charted, but i doubt it was high enough to really make any sort of dent in the public consciousness. (meaning: my mom [and i at age 12] knew about "ice ice baby" and "u can't touch this", but didn't know about "fuck the police" except for maybe some quick soundbite on the newz.) a year or two later i saw the video for "express yourself" on yo mtv raps at like 1 am and it freaked the living fuck outta me.

was naughty by nature 1990 or 1991?

anyway that's problem: does mainstream rap mean THE MAINSTREAM OF RAP or RAP FOR THE MAINSTREAM?

(she also didn't know what purple rain was. sigh.)

it wasn't just the charts but also the whole debate abt protecting yer child (the parent guidance stickers) from listening to this stuff. there was also a court case here in the UK abt whether their first alb should be banned or not (as i recall).

But the thing that drives emotions so high about this one is that its always mis-cast about some sort of race and class and personal issue rather than a simple matter of aesthetics. To say that undie hip-hop is somehow there for the ears of white kids is to pretend that white kids aren't out there buying millions of Jay-Z and Busta Rhymes and Nelly records (or do they "not count" because they're actually mainstream? -- how indie would that be!): the point is that the undie stuff appeals to a certain type of kid, a kid who buys into all the rhetoric of "serious" "intellectualism" that has mainly been the province of indie -- and yes, that kid is usually white and middle-class, but isn't that sort of a separate issue entirely?

PS: except for Nitsuh's post that he inserted before I managed to post this, which is ace.

Besides, at least one of the examples you use works just as well for indie: a big part of undie fetishizes the "old-school" four elements -- a big part of indie fetishizes sixties-style guitar-pop, but that hasn't stopped its fans thinking its more clever than what's on the radio. Looking at "sound" isn't as helpful as it should be in figuring out how it's going to "feel" to people, and the fact is that even the most regressive "undie" stuff feels more clever and intelligent and special to the people who like it than the stuff that sells loads.

(Maybe that something is the feeling of cleverness - that strikes me as a rubbish reason for listening to music, though, so I'm not sure that's it, because I don't actually think that underground rap fans are stupid or misled or suffering false consciousness or anything like that.)

Blast from the past! This debate from 2-and-a-half years ago, in pre-ILM days (gasp as you see how ILM postahs have shifted!)

http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~tewing/2000_04_02_singlesa.html
http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~tewing/2000_04_09_singlesa.html

And I think something quite related actually is true, only it's a matter of foregrounding: the undie stuff is earnest and showy about its "intellect" or "progression," while the mainstream stuff I know of that has it is stuff at-face about banging beats and rocking crowds. Which is to say: it can be not-about which one has it, but about which one flauts it, which one makes it its surface-level raison.

Anyway if you want to get at the thing that's the real defining line that loads of people are scared to talk earnestly about, it's this: lyrics. Lyrics lyrics lyrics. Loads of people, white and black, find the lyrical personas of mainstream rappers really off-putting and not-likeable -- which is doubly important when thinking about the traditionalist "undie" groups (J5, or the Roots, or whomever) -- and saying that the "conscious" lyrics of Blackalicious are more "intelligent" than a lot of mainstream MCs isn't particular different from having said that Replacement lyrics were more "meaningful" and "intelligent" than "Talk Dirty to Me" or "Cherry Pie." Some people say that out loud, although they usually sound stupid because they couch it in dismissive generalizations about how all hip-hop is about "money and hos." Some people don't say it out loud, because they're afraid to sound like prudish Christian rock fans offput by "actual" rock music.

Just speaking for myself, I'm ridiculously open-minded about beats and production -- I don't care if you use samplers or MIDI synths or a fuckin' Speak-and-Spell -- if it bumps or swaggers or envelops you in sinister ambience then yay. Ask me who's better, El-P or the Neptunes, and I'll stare at you blankly and shrug 'cos I really can't choose either way. But I pay too much attention to lyrics and voices, and while I consider the "Grindin'" beat to be possibly the most mindblowing thing to be happening in popular music right now the subject matter is something I don't really have much appreciation for (you sell crack? Well get the fuck out of my neighborhood).

Idea: if the "put a pop/rap vocal on a rock track" school of bootlegging is getting tired, then get some Mos Def and Aesop Rock acapellas and drop 'em over Timbaland/Neptunes instrumentals or something.

okay, i think this whole thing, in the end, comes down to three main "types":

type a: prefers the evolution of the elements of hiphop via the petri dish of engaging with popular culture at large, the steps forward made by engaging with a dancefloor audience (anyone who denies the importance of a hiphop song in a club is being irredeemably rockist, and that seems to be most people on ilm who can't deal with anything other than dance music in a club format [barring pointless "eclectic" dj sets or the dreaded "indie disco"], the whole scenius vs. genius debate, who feel that underground hiphop - despite the sonic inventiveness, lyrical dexterity, whatevah - is contributing nothing to this progression.

type b: argues against the commercialization of hiphop, engages with a musical style that - to paraphrase sasha frere-jones again - was previously required to provide funk, talk charming shit in unison, discuss trousers (as opposed to providing semi-funk, talk ugly philosophy alone, discuss watches aka now) as a gnostic sect, a series of rites, recieved history, and "appropriate" behavior. not unlike, in it's way, US hardcore.

type c: sez, fuggit, there's little to no difference between the two, between "backpacker" and "charthop", the two are equally valid, complement rather than contradict each other, etc.

none of these three types are completely right (in much the same way none of them are completely wrong), but each refuses to admit this. MOST people on these two threads (yes, including myself and simon) fall into some nether region between the three, but closest to c.

the hardcore analogy is apt, i think; i'm not the first person to make it obviously (simon reynolds, frere-jones, and peter shapiro in discussing def jux have all made it.) hardcore is - by and large, today and yesterday - a music which DEVOUTLY (religious metaphors and language are hard to avoid here) avoids engaging with the mainstream (even when "avant-garde work requires the survival of the order it first flared against, or its full radicalism no longer properly registers"). yet, ostensibly, hardcore is the only genre which evolved rock into the 80s and 90s: post-punk, noise, post-metalcorewhatever. these are small increments, yes, and it makes no bones about not attempting chart success in any way.

maybe this is why rock is "dead" from a mainstream pov; new ideas are purposefully cut off from the center, content on the margins, so old themes-ideas continually get recycled until it all bloats up and shits blood. which is what, i think, a lot of chart rap fans are wary of happening to hiphop as well - a music who's cultural and artistic value is not yet exhausted - when the jermiahs on the sidelines are constantly predicting it's bloated, encroaching on 30 years demise. it's a forest for the trees thing, except i can't work out which is which.

(i realize this has been said, in one form or portion or another, throughout this thread. i just needed to codify it for myself.)

I'm not sure why Vanilla Ice should expect respect from anyone, even though I think "Ice Ice Baby" was pretty good.

THE MEMORIES!

Who besides 3rd Bass ever dissed Hammer on a record?

Didn't the DOC make fun of him in a video? "Mallet! MALLET!"

i hate el-p because he's got the flow of a constipated turtle, all random sputterings and farts until it finally loosens and he spews in all directions with little regard to the toilet bowl of my ears.-Jess

I agree completely, and that's why I love his rapping! I'm always confused by this antipathy to El-P's rapping as if he's doing this pretentious grad-school thing on funcrusher (and especially on FanDam on which I think his rapping is perfect) but really i love the off-the-wall ridiculousness of it. i can't really listen to funcrusher all the way thru but i'd say about 3/4ths of it is fantastic. My good friend likes his rapping too - he also likes fucking ma$e for christsakes. El-P's rapping is fun and I enjoy it and I found Jess and simon's smarm pretty off-putting even though i undoubtedly have v. similar taste to Jess when it comes to hip-hop.

i was searching ilx for the word "disgusting" and this thread popped up. i tried to read/understand it, but there is too much backstory that I don't know -- it's completely impenetrable. in one way, that is very pleasing to me. in another way, it's infuriating. but who cares because "disgusting sex drums" is the best thread title of all time.

three of my favorite things

that's why i clicked on it, but i didn't understand what was going on at all -- 11 years ago? dang. then one post from deej in 2004?
"disgusting sex drums" deserves better

someone on fb just posted a link to this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nwNqLr3_3g

i was searching ilx for the word "disgusting" and this thread popped up. i tried to read/understand it, but there is too much backstory that I don't know -- it's completely impenetrable. in one way, that is very pleasing to me. in another way, it's infuriating. but who cares because "disgusting sex drums" is the best thread title of all time.

― mambo jumbo (La Lechera), Friday, 31 January 2014 06:04 (20 minutes ago) Permalink

this perfectly sums up all of the thoughts I had when I saw the thread title and then opened the thread

what the guy playing the bass drum is doing is kinda hemiola-like

I just discovered whatever this style of music is on youtube (electro chaabi or something?) and I think this video fits the thread title:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KVmuLj0X1k

totally disgusting
that dude is awesome

also obviously i need to follow the alan lomax archive youtube feed
whoa

here's another that I found down the same youtube hole

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cu40iWLOho