Why Hiphop is more popular than House nowadays?

harlley

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Hi There!

Well, I didn't know where to put this question, so I figure "electronic music" would be the place...

These days, Hiphop music is everywhere. This american genre is spreading all over the world, and many countries adopt this style in your native music, creating some variations. Just the way House Music did 15 years ago.

But, wait: House music grew in similar situation of Hiphop, and now seems to go nowhere. And since I'm a House Music fan and don't like Hiphop at all, I was wondering about the up and down of House. So, here's some statements:

1 - House music born underground. At certain moment it was assimiled by mainstream. So, just like Disco, everyone wanted a House remix. But Hiphop got mainstream too (very "heavy" mainstream). So what's the point?

2 - Altough House still exist, it certain isn't the most popular genre of Dance Music nowadays. It lost space for Techno, Trance, and of course, Drum'n Bass. Note I'm not speaking about "Hard House", UK Garage, Speed Garage, Progressive House, etc.. I think these styles are a bit more "techno-ish".

3 - America gave life to electronic Dance Music. Now America seems indiferent to the electronica boom in European music. If a guy was presented to Electronica today, maybe it wouldn't believe it was born in Chicago / Detroit.

4 - In United States, people seem to be very interested in "ego-heavy" and polemic artists, like most rappers tend to be. House music, like most other electronic genres, have the Kraftwerk stetic, that is, faceless artists behind electronic equipment putting singles with dozens of aliases.

What I'm trying to say is: Hiphop and House music have similar history, but only Hiphop proves to win the time / mainstream test.

Please, feel free to disagree, and give some insights about it. I really would like to see you talking about it.

Peace!
 
You answered part of your own question: I recently wrote a research paper about this, and one of my conclusions was that the main reason why there's no real mainstream success is the lack of faces to connect to the music.

Also, at least in the US, house music may still suffer from the late 70s disco backlash, where disco (and in effect, house) was considered gay music. So there could be some homophobic issues there as well. Hiphop, on the contrary, is manly on the verge of ridicule, and so it appeals to the populace.
 
I've got a PDF but it's in Swedish, so unless you know the language of the Vikings... ;) I might translate it further on, in which case I'll give you a holla.
 
Because Hip-Hop is plastered all over the tv of them living the good life with jewelry, money, cars, women etc. And unfortunately, everybody wants to be like the person on tv. Personally, I think its ridiculous. MTV, VH1 and all of those other channels are just warping the minds of everybody.


Here's a quote from Jim Morrison:

"Whoever controls the media, controls the mind"


Ain't that the truth......
 
mattu said:
I've got a PDF but it's in Swedish, so unless you know the language of the Vikings... ;) I might translate it further on, in which case I'll give you a holla.

Thanks man.:cheers:

You know I almost asked 'why did you write it in Swedish?' for a second!
 
GLopez said:
Because Hip-Hop is plastered all over the tv of them living the good life with jewelry, money, cars, women etc. And unfortunately, everybody wants to be like the person on tv. Personally, I think its ridiculous. MTV, VH1 and all of those other channels are just warping the minds of everybody.


Here's a quote from Jim Morrison:

"Whoever controls the media, controls the mind"


Ain't that the truth......

there aren't too many house hold names in house to even be plastered over the TV
 
OLSatG said:
You know I almost asked 'why did you write it in Swedish?' for a second!

Man, I wish you'd asked that! :)

My reply: to make it harder for scholars to fact-check it.
 
So, most people agree with the fact that face is important for media. The crowd tend to ignore the music itself and do care most about artists behaviour. And they don't mind if the artist was planned (Britneys, Aguileras, etc.) or not... that's a point.

But, if we remember early 90's, we had Technotronic, 2 Unlimited, Snap!, Black Box, etc. Altough it wasn't "house" at all, these acts reachead enormous success, and yes, they had a face (a stage front man/woman).

USA seems to renegate the invention of electronic music (at least at a danceable point of view), and it's really unknown for me. The "gay music" issue may be a reason, but:


Because Hip-Hop is plastered all over the tv of them living the good life with jewelry, money, cars, women etc. And unfortunately, everybody wants to be like the person on tv. Personally, I think its ridiculous. MTV, VH1 and all of those other channels are just warping the minds of everybody.


Here's a quote from Jim Morrison:

"Whoever controls the media, controls the mind"


Ain't that the truth......
(I'm learning about "quotes". So I couldn't put the name of the guy who wrote this reply; sorry, GLopez! :-( )


Seems to make more sense to me. I've heard Larry Tee speaking about "Electroclash", and he said: "Electro is popular in USA because it has artists with atittude, and USA needs these kind of people". But I think there's more to say about it! That's because I post this subject.

Thanks for all replies!

Peace!
 
Subject

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by mattu


Man, I wish you'd asked that!

My reply: to make it harder for scholars to fact-check it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

lol:p


harlley said:
So, most people agree with the fact that face is important for media. The crowd tend to ignore the music itself and do care most about artists behaviour. And they don't mind if the artist was planned (Britneys, Aguileras, etc.) or not... that's a point.

I think its more personality than face bands like tool and autechre ooze this and maintain high popularity and respect even though they shy away from appearing in interviews and the media in general.

Thinking about it i'm not sure if this is relevant to the question at all!

make of it what you will
 
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I might have to agree with that. The mystery thing can work... but I saw Aphex Twin a couple years back and he wasn't even on stage!!!! lmao. (Though I met someone who swore he was in the building because he got his picture taken with him... but it could have been a setup.) And I wasn't into it. Granted I was sober (ie drinking a beer) but then again... at least let me observe him push some knobs on a drum sequencer or something.
 
Its not all about the music though is it? As many of you have pointed out.

Hip-Hop sells a lifestyle. Everything about is lifestyle. For example lyrics in songs are normally about women, cars, 'cribs' and having a good time etc. The background of this shows Hip-Hop stars with 'bling' and attitude, out on the street or in videos with the women and cars they talk about so fondly. People are influenced by this, they want this lifestyle, and subconsiously they listen to Hip-Hop in a hope to achieve this.

House music is different. It doesnt sell a lifestyle, its purely for a person who likes House. If you like House you like it. If you dont you dont. If you dont like Hip-Hop you can be influenced to like it by the lifestyle it sells. House doesnt influence people in the way Hip-Hop does mainly because any vocals included in the music aren't about posessions etc.
 
beefy said:
Its not all about the music though is it? As many of you have pointed out.

Hip-Hop sells a lifestyle. Everything about is lifestyle. For example lyrics in songs are normally about women, cars, 'cribs' and having a good time etc. The background of this shows Hip-Hop stars with 'bling' and attitude, out on the street or in videos with the women and cars they talk about so fondly. People are influenced by this, they want this lifestyle, and subconsiously they listen to Hip-Hop in a hope to achieve this.

House music is different. It doesnt sell a lifestyle, its purely for a person who likes House. If you like House you like it. If you dont you dont. If you dont like Hip-Hop you can be influenced to like it by the lifestyle it sells. House doesnt influence people in the way Hip-Hop does mainly because any vocals included in the music aren't about posessions etc.

I can see where your coming from but not all hip hop is about possesions and a 'bling' lifestyle and not all its followers lust after that at all.

House is mostly instrumental isn't it, look at how many instrumental number ones there have been since the charts started and how many there have been with vocals, thats probably the key right there.
 
I shoudn't know. Hip hop is not my style, and I do like house music (especially all kinds of trance). But clearly more people prefer hop hop...
"Les gouts et les couleurs...."
 
OLSatG said:
I can see where your coming from but not all hip hop is about possesions and a 'bling' lifestyle and not all its followers lust after that at all.

Yea yea, but what im saying is all these tracks that are about what i was saying get people into Hip-Hop etc. Then obviously they explore it properly and find what they really like. As you said in some cases this may not be the cliche Hip-Hop we have to listen to on Radio. This is why Hip-Hop is so big in my opinion, people get into it like this and then discover it properly, which is no bad thing aslong as there willing to explore it a little, rather than stick with what got them into it.

There isnt anything like that to get people into House, you either like it or you dont.

Im not saying Hip-Hop is crap or anything, I own a lot of Hip-Hop at home. Although it's mostly old stuff, I haven't found much new stuff to inspire me, except the experimental (shadow, UNKLE) stuff.
 
beefy said:


Yea yea, but what im saying is all these tracks that are about what i was saying get people into Hip-Hop etc. Then obviously they explore it properly and find what they really like. As you said in some cases this may not be the cliche Hip-Hop we have to listen to on Radio. This is why Hip-Hop is so big in my opinion, people get into it like this and then discover it properly, which is no bad thing aslong as there willing to explore it a little, rather than stick with what got them into it.

There isnt anything like that to get people into House, you either like it or you dont.

Im not saying Hip-Hop is crap or anything, I own a lot of Hip-Hop at home. Although it's mostly old stuff, I haven't found much new stuff to inspire me, except the experimental (shadow, UNKLE) stuff.


I got into it through Shadow, Unkle, Prefuse!

But yeah most exposure of hip hop is the commercial bling stuff i suppose, so thats what most people will pick up on to begin with.
 
So, I think we have 2 points about this:

1 - lifestyle
2 - music itself

I agree with beefy. Hip hop sells a lifestyle. Of course, not all hip hop does this way, but most part of it. In Latin American countries like Brazil, the USA-influenced culture is everywhere. TV, music, movie, internet... In music, we have most of 70% of the national airplay filled by american (I said american, not english-speaking) music. We have tons of hip hop acts, but in an underground point of view, that is, the media doesn't interest in them at all. But they are huge success not only in poverty ghettos, but in rich ambients. The lyrics ISN'T about girls, money, cars, Nike tennis, etc... but about the most terrible brazilian problem: the huge social (economic) diferences between regions, cities and people. And the rappers, altough earn money, don't change their lifestyle prefering to continue in ghettos (!)

If you watch MTV, you'll see all these massive hip hop artists who sell the lifestyle mentioned by beefy. But we all know that hip hop isn't media only. However, in a musical point of view, hip hop seems more flexible than house. That is, hip hop can be fun, improvisation, dance, listen, protest, beauty, bizarre, crime, poverty... house music seems to be exclusively dance floor oriented, what makes dificult to this style to be absorbed by a crowd who prefer to listen music in his houses (no pun), for example.

In a counterpoint, house acts are rare in here. But Drum'n Bass is growing large and fast, and colides with a local musical style known as "funk melody", a kind of freestyle / electro / miami bass. We have some DJ's like Marky and Patife with some international success (most in Europe). House music was popular in Brazil as long as house was popular in the rest of the world (early 90's). Now, it seems to disapear, but the clubs still vote in house music for dance floor happiness. And some local "First Class" radio stations plays house (well, cheese house...) and trance in their saturday night shows.

When I say "hip hop is more flexible than house" I mean it can change according each culture and country, with excelent results. However, house music is a little less versatile, and resume itself to dance floors where people isn't interested in racism, war, poverty, etc...

So we have the musical question. Hip hop seems more flexible in structure and subject terms. This contributes to hip hop presence in world music.

If you agree or not, please, let us know!


Peace!
 
Are we talking about why hip hop is more popular now than house worldwide or specific to a certain area...?

like, i think it's different for different regions.
 
Maybe, but the hip hop influence in world music is notorious. However, I think each one could speak about your own country, for example.
 
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