Producers are not sticking their necks out there musically

S

Soul Caliber

Guest
Production sucks right now, with a exception to a few. Few producers are doing it for the love and the art. Most are just putting together a whole bunch of instruments, laying a pattern on top, and calling it a beat. In general: ruining hip hop and music as we speak. A lot of the stuff I hear today sounds the same. I really can't tell one producer from the next right now. I see no one being creative and defining themselves!
 
There are plenty of producers doing that. Just not on MTV. So get your ass away from the popular media ;) and listen to real music not dictated by money and what is 'cool'..

Seriously, the music industry has always been ****ed and there's no point complaining about it.. you have to be selfish and instead realise that, as long as you surround your ownself with the music you love, who cares what all the other dimwits listen to?
 
I agree 100 percent but Truth be told, I don't watch MTV or even BET for that matter. I'm tuned into real music and real Hip-Hop, conscience Hip-Hop, not those bull**** Dr.Dre or Kanye West wannabees. I would love to hear more music dictated by change and revolution, not money, cars, clothes, and h***.
 
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you will almost never find 'real' music on popular radio and TV, you will find 'made for' and fabricated stuff :)

Why not branch out of hiphop and find some other stuff to listen to? you never know until you try...
 
Soul Caliber said:
Production sucks right now, with a exception to a few. Few producers are doing it for the love and the art. Most are just putting together a whole bunch of instruments, laying a pattern on top, and calling it a beat. In general: ruining hip hop and music as we speak. A lot of the stuff I hear today sounds the same. I really can't tell one producer from the next right now. I see no one being creative and defining themselves!
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check out the warp record label..
i would recommend prefuse73, aphex twin, squarepusher..
check out planet mu..
venetian snares (kinda scarey drum programing at times but interesting) four tet, mu-ziq

these are mainly electronic labels but they are doing some interesting and innovative stuff..

umm hip hop..

check out lex its a UK based label that has released a lot of really american artists (my two favorites mike ladd and saul williams) as well as great UK hip hop..

for interesting stuff at home mush has been putting out some great tunes and anticon while not to everyones tastes is definitely pushing the limits..
 
I agree, alot of producers have a sticky finger syndrom , that cant get away from one note. And if they do get away they go a halfstep up or down and that is it. sometimes it is even hard to get simple chords progression like 1-4-5-1 out of producers.
i think you would dig this old spiritual that I rewrote(come sunday). Check it out, it is an old song, early 30s I think.
www.soundclick.com/onedependent
 
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plenty of good producers out there, not really sure whats going on in hip hop besides kottonmouth kings- if you can pick up "high society" by them, its one of the best hip hop albums to come out in the past years imo, they just have such an attractive and flawless style. dj shadow is also very good at what he does, no rap, but pretty hip hop oriented. I would also have to agree with what everyone else is saying, music is mass produced to make money and of course there is a formula, but this isnt new at all...
 
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There's a new breed of hiphop producers (or wannabe-producers) who listen to nothing but, you guessed it, hiphop. No wonder their stuff sounds more or less the same. Listen to everything if you're trying to be the next big thing.
 
Prefuse, Beans, Wagon Christ / Luke Vibert, Two Lone Swordsman's 'A Virus With Shoes'... there's loads of hip hoppy stuff going on that is definately not old hat. Broaden your horizons! Check out ninja tune, warp, planet mu, rhymesayers...
 
Originally posted by infradead
check out the warp record label..
i would recommend prefuse73, aphex twin, squarepusher..
check out planet mu..
venetian snares (kinda scarey drum programing at times but interesting) four tet, mu-ziq
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All goodness right there. Richard D James has been one of my favourites since forever ago. Before I even got bit by the DJ bug which lead me into school for audio engineering. Now I'm a live sound engineer with a budding studio of my own :)

Originally posted by infradead
check out lex its a UK based label that has released a lot of really american artists (my two favorites mike ladd and saul williams) as well as great UK hip hop..
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Saul Williams is the man. A DC hero if you ask me. I first heard of him in the movie Slam and went out looking from there. Everything I've picked up by him is absolutely good times.

I'm torn right now. One of my favourite bands, Skinny Puppy, released an album this year. I was so estatic when I heard about it and they went out on tour. Seeing them live for the first time in about a decade really made the year for me as far as live shows go.

Ogre was his normal theatrical self, cEvin and the supporting members busted out classics, it was also the first time that I heard any of their new stuff. To be honest I was solidly impressed when I heard it live.

I went out and bought the album, hoping for the gritty and unproduced sound that I always loved about them. They were always bleeding edge to me, pushing every sonic barrier they could think of. Tearing into your ears with their yells. This album (The Greater wrong of the Right) is some different beast.

It's well produced, very clean, very unskuppy. You can tell the years apart and their various projects have made them more refined, given them more time and talent to get out their music. It's the opposite of what I was expecting, sonically and lyrically. Just listening to it you'll get into it, but for die hards like me it's still a shocker.

Don't get me wrong, the album is brilliant, even though the lyrics aren't Ogre's best. The first two tracks (I'mmortal and Pro-Test) are a revisit of the sound they were attempting in The Process, the rest of the album is back to their experimental and very wide sound scapes. Good stuff.

Also if you're looking for an interesting and amazing producer check out Kid Koala. His latest "Some of my Best Friends are DJs" is simply disgusting. Two turn tables, a stack of vinyl and a 4 track cassette. It's a noisy production (look at the medium he used!) but it's very well done and blew my mind when I picked it up.

Dan the Automater is goodness as well.

If you dig both of them check out Deltron 3030 as it's both of them and Del the Funky Homosapien as the MC.

-maz
 
infradead said:
check out lex its a UK based label that has released a lot of really american artists (my two favorites mike ladd and saul williams) as well as great UK hip hop..
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Good stuff, good stuff. Also I have to second what damon said. There is a lot of great new hiphop out there, but it seems that most of the better stuff mentioned in this thread is found by people who are more into the electronic side of things, or so to say. It's unfortunately still very rare to find a guy who goes from Nas to Autechre's Goz Quarter, if you know what I mean :)

Oh and Prince Po (on Lex Records) offered me a joint last summer :D
 
I¡m sure there are a lot of producers with good ideas and true love for music.

Today, anyone with a computer, can just download a free software, start to make beats, and call himself "producer". By natural selection, after several months or a year, the guys without talent, will got bored or dissapointed, and will stop to do "music production".

The technologies for music production are a lot cheaper, tools have become more available to the masses, everyone have the right to try...

How much $$$$ you had to invest on 1990 to compose electronic music?? and today???

Now, what we need, is to see producers PERFORMING their music, playing their original tunes, having physical interaction with the machine, not just monitoring sound outputs.
 
balma said:

Now, what we need, is to see producers PERFORMING their music, playing their original tunes, having physical interaction with the machine, not just monitoring sound outputs.
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Yeah, the advent of most digital technologies has made it easier for anybody to get into writing or engineering their own music. It takes awhile and people that really aren't in it for the right reasons quit after a little bit of time.

I'm personally changing the way I perform from DJing into something more. I really loved how Richie Hawtin does his stuff. Using ableton along with final scratch to bring out his own stuff, rather neat! Also Speedy J is an amazing live pa, he's rocked my world.

Who knows if I'll go from either of these extremes or a mixture of both. I just can't wait to get a few more items in my studio and see where it goes from there.

-maz
 
krushing said:


Good stuff, good stuff. Also I have to second what damon said. There is a lot of great new hiphop out there, but it seems that most of the better stuff mentioned in this thread is found by people who are more into the electronic side of things, or so to say. It's unfortunately still very rare to find a guy who goes from Nas to Autechre's Goz Quarter, if you know what I mean :)

Oh and Prince Po (on Lex Records) offered me a joint last summer :D
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And he took that bad jay down in one long drag that left the floor in awe!

Or something....

Yes, it's an exciting time to be a musician, but an even more exciting time to be a lover of sound... Lux I frogot to mention completely. And saul is, indeed, top knotch.
 
Sleepwalk said:
Check out Boards of Canada
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BoC is great..

although they definitely have a signature sound, all of thier albums are somewhat alike.. not to say that's bad.. just that they're stuff is very recognizable..

music has the right to children is a classic though..
 
It seems that young people are very eager to demand fresh and innovative producers and point disrespective fingers at those who play it safe.

I just want to remind people that for some producers the music production is their profession, their job which pays the bills, the rent, and maybe they have a wife and kids. So would you take unnecessary risks in your job if you and your familys financial stability is at stake?

Some people just have to play it safe. They cant take too much risks in music.

Maybe a little off topic...
 
Sharkman
I think what you said may be exactly (or a big part of) the problem...

it seems too many producers are into this for the money not because this is the art form they choose to express themselves in

Music is an art... not a business and that is one of the biggest reasons pop (top 40/MTV stuff) music is the way it is.

Unsigned bands and artists are always changing they're sound for record companies who are about to sign them... it's all about selling records, not expressing yourself artistically... this is why you get a whole bunch of new bands that sound the same (or very similar) coming out all at once .. the companies find a sound that works then milk it.

as a musician myself, I am very disheartened at what (to me) has become the degredation of an artform to a lucrative industry

as an aspiring composer and performer I know that I'm not going to be rich soon and I know that I'm going to have to work my a$$ off and that I'm going to be poor for at least 5 or 6 (probably a lot more) more years while I'm still learning my craft... But that's part of what it is to be a musician, and in the pop world that's not usually what it is to be a musician... to be a musician in the pop world is to produce a large quantity of product for your record company to make them rich and happy.


so yeah... that's my bitter rant... not really bitter so much as disenchanted...

so... don't take this post too seriously as a militant opposition to the music industry - it's not... it's more of just a spew of thoughts regarding my opinions on popular music (which may or may not be true).
 
Nice to know there are people here who share my musical tastes and ideals :D

Some great recommendations in this thread.

I'd like to add Amon Tobin.
 
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