YOUNG THUG vs FUTURE

but Power is still a better song than any of Mozzy's.
And I do like Mozzy.

― human and working on getting beer (longneck), Wednesday, November 4, 2015 1:34 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't agree, but "power" is at best the 34th best song he's dropped in the past year. I'd take Mozzy's "baldheaded" or "chop stixx" over it in a second

But that's not the point I'm not trying to make it about mozzy vs thug, obv thug is arguably the best rapper out rn but I do pretty strongly disagree w the idea that thug and future are the only rappers making music worth hearing right now (wait I thought everyone listened to other rap music...but now it's ok that no one listens to other rap music bc they're the only ones who matter? Stick to your goalposts)

This is what I hate about the conversation, it's like you're in camp j Cole or camp
Future and there's no in between...there's actually tons of dope rap happening that is not future or young thug

you don't say

feels kind of reductive to reduce music - esp music as personal and confessional as haze's - to such a purely utilitarian use, what makes young thug's music "useful" to you in a way that angel haze's is not?

― lex pretend, Wednesday, November 4, 2015 9:45 AM (51 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think you know what I'm talking about here, Lex. Some music is pleasant or challenging in interesting ways and after a while you find an urge to try to explore just exactly what it is about it that appeals to you - that's useful to me. Or there's music that just sounds good in a car or in a club or on the radio. That's useful too. Angel Haze just exhausts me though. I can appreciate that she's angry and confrontational and raps hard but her songs just mean nothing to me. There's virtually no situation in which I think hey, let's put on some Angel Haze, that's exactly what I need right now.

@deej

I think it's more about how a lot of the people who listen to a lot of rap music agree that future and thug are the ones they keep coming back to.
Which shouldn't be a problem unless you're trying to pitch a story about Kodak Black to some publication and no one wants it because the conversation is still about Young Thug and Future.

we're talking about future vs thug in this thread because they're two stylistically comparable hype-rofilc rappers of 2015. of course there are other rappers.

odd that because in terms of meaningfulness of lyrical content - which i know is not the be all and end all - angel haze is miles ahead of most other artists. back to the woods is about an intense relationship and break-up, mental health and an uncontrollable brain, the legacy of a traumatic upbringing, institutional racism, the ways in which religion and family fuck you up...there is a lot in there to identify with, or to appreciate even if you don't. they're telling their story in a way few other rappers are right now.

there's actually a lot of mileage for a comparison between back to the woods and ds2 as portraits of a post-break-up mind; both are underpinned by a kind of tunnel-vision self-destructive bitter nihilism.

for me, thug doesn't have any of that, what i like on SS1 and "pacifier" is purely beats n hooks rather than me caring about his persona particularly

Which shouldn't be a problem unless you're trying to pitch a story about Kodak Black to some publication and no one wants it because the conversation is still about Young Thug and Future.

this pretty much is a problem, across all genres tho

I know, but it's been that way for a while. And at least now you can write about Future and Young Thug without editors thinking you're nuts.

Btw Lex you should probably pitch the DS2/BBTW comparison piece to someone. It just might work, lol.

lex the last half of barter vi is full of personally intense shit...

I think it's more about how a lot of the people who listen to a lot of rap music agree that future and thug are the ones they keep coming back to.

― human and working on getting beer (longneck), Wednesday, November 4, 2015 4:50 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this year they're ones w/ a lot of visibility...

meaningful lyrical content doesn't make good music.

i didn't say it did

If I didn't enjoy Barter 6 is there any point my investigating the others?

yes, the people who portray it as his masterpiece are tripping

goddamn these threads are depressing as everybody works through the same script they have a thousand times before. deej comes out of nowhere telling people they're underrating chief keef, lex comes out of nowhere telling people they're underrating angel haze, etc etc.

plus, you guys are forgetting drake

i find this conversation to be pretty unhelpful but i guess personally future can get very one-note for me whereas young thug is kaleidoscopic even as his projects have gotten tonally consistent

the highs on future's records are very very high but overall his tapes can get a bit grayscale to me

seems like Future is kinda deliberately narrowing his sound at the moment, you kind of have to look to the DS2 bonus tracks or "News Or Something" to really get the kind of variety that was baked into Pluto and Honest.

Yeah I made a couple of half-hearted attempts to get into DS2 and it felt like his sound was coalescing around exactly the parts of his discography that I'd previously found the least compelling.

yeah "news or something" and "percocet & stripper joint" are two of my fav songs of his this year

same here

i guess ultimately my fav dozen future songs from across his tapes that i listen to all the time are easily in the very upper echelon of 2015 rap but i'm looking at DS2 right now and songs like "groupies" "lil one" "slave master" "blow a bag" etc i'm not really trying to put in rotation

Matt DC - on the Future thread a bunch of heads made some great personalised playlists of the best stuff from his last albums and when presented like that, the highs are really high and it's really listenable but I'd agree it can get a bit too much of a slog when you're presented with like 5 albums of mixed material

theres a bigger quantity of thugger stuff from this yr in my rotation, but the best future stuff I personally enjoy more. yeah agree abt DS2 having a lot of chafe fwiw

plus, you guys are forgetting drake
― J0rdan S.

"groupies" "lil one" "slave master" "blow a bag"

Three out of four of these songs are incredible (sorry "Slave Master")

1) thug and future have put out a lot of really good rap in the past 12 months but they are obviously just two rappers in a huge genre and there is a ton of other good rap, i would never argue otherwise, i don't really think anyone is arguing that too fwiw
2) i am listening to more rap this year than i ever have but even if i am deep into a genre i always assume i am probably only getting at like 3% of it, maybe 10% at best.
3) if you like future & thug, i imagine that you also listen to other rap besides these two. they are not, like, idk kanye or some major crossover or token rappers. i mean of all the rappers that are prob the only rappers people listen to i would probably not put thug and future in that list. that said i am not active on rap twitter. wrt ILX i would not assume just bc someone is not posting a lot about other rappers (or any musician) that they are not listening to other rappers/musicians
4) AND even if you don't listen to other rap who gives a fuck? at all???? unless you a music critic and it is your job to report on and listen to all kinds of shit who gives a fuck? there is absolutely nothing wrong in any way in going all in deep w/ a few artists (unless you are idk making stupid sweeping claims that your listening represents all that is good about a genre/scene). in 2014 i basically listened to nothing but reggae, electric miles, and joni mitchell and it was one of the most rewarding years of music listening for me. this year i am listening to huge variety of all kinds of shit and it is also super rewarding but also a ton of work tbh, it takes time to read about new artists and listen to new stuff, especially when like i am not a music critic and i have full-time job and two kids and a partner.
6) angel haze is not getting completely ignored, there was like a major fader feature on them recently iirc

i think "slave master" is great but yea groupies and lil one are tedious and i always skip them. ds2 in general sags a lot in the middle

also talking about whether an artist's music is "useful" or not weirds me out a little?

"groupies" is great wtf

idk i'm weird i don't even like "commas"

these guys have been my two favros for a while p easily voted future, even w tha tour included which i feel like it shd be just makes sense i mean when did monster come out, anyway just something abt futures vision is so hypnotic its all internalized and harmonious i love him

fwiw i voted thug bc i was listening to ss2 and really enjoying it and *just* barely starting to feel a little worn out on the future tapes but after reflecting on it i would prob vote future

still listen to my future mix all the time but its def long since entered sick of this but cant stop territory

Who needs art you can't use for something? I know other people have use for stuff I don't but c'mon you have to have some sort of use for something to give it your time, if only at some abstract level.

i sometimes skip slave master -> colossal stretch but often just as i'm reaching for the button i hear the intro and it reels me back in

its cool how mixtapes r becoming more like albums and u cn have like five albums a year from yr fav dudes

my favorites on DS2 are "Blood On the Money" and "Know the Meaning." I love those extra tracks, although the sequence from "I Serve The Base" through "Where Ya At" is impressive.

those songs are next to each other on the album lol

*"Thought It Was A Drought"

colossal has that jazzy zaytoven vibe and i love it, it is such a refresher to those piano keys

this is overly nitpicky but one moment i always :-/ at on the album is the outro/last few bars on drought when he's like "thought it was a drought thought it thought it was a drought thought we poured our actaviiiis" sounds like he had a few bars to fill but hadn't really thought of what to do idk

i like the adlib abt his struggles w data backup

ds2 is weird like i can kinda understand why its the album but not really

DS2 feels a little more solid and reinforced than the mixtapes to me...like not BETTER or substantially different but it sounds like he told the producers "it's album time."

"I do pretty strongly disagree w the idea that thug and future are the only rappers making music worth hearing right now"

Cool because nobody said that.

"wait I thought everyone listened to other rap music...but now it's ok that no one listens to other rap music bc they're the only ones who matter?"

Nobody said that either.

The point is that Future and Thug are making the most and best rap music right. It's only natural that they would occupy a lot of space in the conversation. They deserve it.

*right now

"This is what I hate about the conversation, it's like you're in camp j Cole or camp
Future and there's no in between..."

Well that's a bigger and realer problem I think but at least if you fall on the Future side of the fence you are going to be stumping for a great/the best artist and you probably listened to some other stuff in his lane before landing at that conclusion. Have many Cole or Kendrick fans even heard of Oddisee?

I don't know man I've listened to as much new rap as probably anyone in this thread and while I can appreciate a lot of it nothing has really connected with me the way Future and Thug do. (Except for the Earl tape, as I mentioned upthread, and which hits at a very different angle). And I know I'm not the only person who listens to lots of rap seriously and shares this feeling. I guess if Music Blog Content Mule was still my job title I'd feel some kind of an obligation to pretend to be more enthusiastic about 21 Savage deep cuts but it's not and I'm glad.

some dude
Posted: November 4, 2015 at 11:04:58 AM
DS2 feels a little more solid and reinforced than the mixtapes to me...like not BETTER or substantially different but it sounds like he told the producers "it's album time."

ya p much how i break it down to an extent

feel like ive said this before but the fact that he used clip art for the cover is the perfect statement on albums in the mixtape era lol