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CinePhillyist Reviews... The Men Who Stare at Goats
Just yesterday, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced this year's inductees, which include R.E.M., Grandmaster Flash and the founder of Atlantic Records, among others. The Hall's website lists all the selections as well as the details of the ceremony (a link to the press release is at the bottom of this post).
We here at Phillyist are passionate fans of a diverse array of music. Some of us (eh-hem) are even musicians in our own right, and it's great to see that Hall of Fame is going strong in the 21st century. However, I have a personal beef with this year's decision.
The following complaint is not based on a distaste for hip-hop. I like a lot of hip-hop, mostly the older stuff, when it was still, well, not like most modern pop music, a blithering pile of pathetic wannabe shit. There are, however, some respectable exceptions to that description. Most notably, Grandmaster Flash. I do not deny the most excellent force of rap that is he and the Furious Five. One of my roommates in particular (who is probably reading this at work) has quite an old school repertoire and I have been exposed to the Grandmaster's talents many times.
Okay, now, that having been said...
Rock and Roll involves guitars. Period. Whether you played one, wrote music or lyrics for someone who played one or produced one or more artists who played one, you are still legally rock and roll in Joe-ville. The closest hip-hop ever got to a six-stringer was Walk This Way, and look how that turned out.
Not to mention that if I were a successful and influential hip-hopper, I would very much prefer my own hall of f**king fame. Well, turns out that my exceptional researching skills have turned up this MTV News article about the inaugural inductions of the Hip-Hop Hall of Fame. But the article is five years old and I couldn't turn up anything else (except for this unrelated DVD release). Someone had a very good idea that has been long- and well-deserved and then went and dropped the ball.
In this humble complainer's opinion, hip-hop meets rock and roll best in bands like the Gym Class Heroes. Good rhymes and a full, jazz-infused band with a good sense of where hip-hop has been and where it is going.
Joe out.
Image from this site. Info from a press release on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame web site.
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The original hip hop rules!
Gotta agree with you on this one, Joe.
Maybe it should just become the "contemporary music hall of fame," so we can let sleeping semantics lie...
I should have added that I also agree with Terafoto. :)
And Jill has an idea there, although "contemporary music" sounds like they might let "smooth jazz" in, too, or "adult contemporary," and that I cannot abide.
The old change the rules for entry in order to meet the quota trick. While the one-hit-wonder list grows long, the yet to be inducted list of note-worthies remains infinitesimal. There is a price to pay for 20 years worth of rushing bands into the studio before they are ready. Random muse: The compact disk was introduced by Philips Electronics in 1982 and went mainstream by the mid 80's. Could the CD have killed the Rock and Roll star?