crank what?

my brothers are, unmistakably, more immersed in no other stream but the mainstream when it comes to their music tastes, and most of the time it's too much in the mainstream. while i have no problem listening to my own music library (thanks to my own laptop) which maintains a certain distinctness while having some sort of connection (perhaps 30-40% of the contents are similar between the two), i still feel pretty bothered at the direction theirs is going. let's compare.

fall out boy? okay, that's fine. i have my own stash, but only because 90% of my fall out boy content involves kanye west in mash-ups. it's decent. avril lavigne? ew. while "hot" is interesting due to the... well, interesting tempo changes within the song, and while she still puts out a good melody, it's still painfully bland when you listen to it. sorry, dianne.

kanye west? definitely. t-pain, akon? best hook singers at the moment, definitely. but we scroll down to mr. soulja boy tell 'em (yes, that's his whole handle) and here i am, flabbergasted. somehow crank that is way more inane than anything lil' jon and/or the ying-yang twins have tried to put out. hell, i'd even bet that jim jones and his ballin' self is better than this kid. i do applaud him for producing his entire album all by himself, but tell me, is that why it sucks? is the fact that he did his own producing something to marvel at or the cause of his stupid song? i mean, the song consists of his multi-tracked voice... and synthed jamaican-style steel drums. while i love steel drums, it's boring when you get to the first time the hook is sung. or spoken. whatever.

and these are the kinds of songs (crunk and 70%-80% of mainstream hip-hop) that are killing the hip-hop genre. i empathize with kanye when he started bitching that he didn't get any VMAs, not because i think graduation was a magnum opus (the college dropout is still the best one in my opinion), but because he's been working so hard to be different and to rise up against the tide of inane hip-hop songs (even though "golddigger" walks that fine line). i believe he and chamillionaire (go listen to ultimate victory, which, curiously, does not have any profanity. applaud) are leading some sort of revolution, some sort of new wave. the gym class heroes are one of their foot soldiers, the hook singers are their specialists, and the producers, oh, the producers, are their strategists and tacticians.

the mainstream is the mainstream because the mainstream is generally stupid. only a few are barely recognized as diamonds in the rough. here i wonder why they can't be the ones who consistently rack up number one spots. fuck you, soulja boy, your potential is seemingly wasted at the moment - if you rapped smarter, i'd be a big fan by now. and this wraps up tonight's ranting.

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Now playing: Kanye West - I Wonder
via FoxyTunes