Why is bad music like rap so popular instead of music like heavy metal or rock?

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I grew up on 50’s 60’s and 70’s rock n’ roll. Do I like rap, no, won’t listen to it and turn if off (if I can) whenever I hear it. That said, if you are a student of music history, rap is today, what the blues was back in the 40’s and 50’s and even earlier. It just isn’t as melodic. Lister to some of the words of Rap and then listen to Lou Rawls do much of his stuff in the 60’s. Tobacco Road, Love is a Hurtin Thing, and so many other of his works are easily the forerunner of today’s inner city/urban blues, we call rap. It is just this younger generations version of it. Doesn’t mean you have to like it, but it does pay to understand it.
 
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Former That Metal Show cohost Eddie Trunk has not been happy about how the mainstream has generally treated rock music in recent years.
 
Everyone has different tastes. It takes different strokes for different folks. Most rap music isn’t my thing, but then again, most of my favorite music was recorded before I was born.

In my opinion, the best years of recorded music were between 1950 and 1970. Like 50s era Blues, early rock and roll like Sun Records and Chuck Berry, to the classic R and B groups (Motown and Stax artists, for example) of the 1960s, the Beatles, other British Invasion groups, 60s era garage rock like the Sonics, and all kinds of other stuff.
 
I think it’s better to just say that every genre has good music and bad music, and how much you like either is dependent on what personally resonates with you. Yeah, the “metal is deeper than rap” is little more than childish ignorance but so is the “rap is deeper than metal” response.
 
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Let me add. There is no melody in rap.

I hate rap. It’s not music. Culture these days have become so lowbrow.
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Music is all subjective anyway. Country music makes me cringe. Metal gives me a migraine. I like mellow voices compared to powerhouse vocals. Others disagree, others agree.

At the end of the day it doesn’t matter!
 
I’m glad you mentioned Country music. As with rap, I am not a huge fan of Country but my daughter exposes me to a bit of both, and so I’ve noticed a few things. In recent times, a lot of Country music has become blended with Pop and Rock, much to its detriment. Hear, for example, the cliché electric guitar solo in most Country songs. The other thing is that too much of current Country music dwells on drunkenness and fornication. Similarly, a lot of Rap that I hear on the radio glorifies drug and crime culture. That’s not the Rap I like, but apparently it’s quite popular, and that can’t be a good thing for our world.
 
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Music is very much in the ear of the beholder.

Even Mozart had his critics. One of.the few things the movie ‘Amadeus’ got right was the Emperor telling him his music had ‘too many notes’ .
 
Taste in music is subjective and some of the music people gravitate to has a lot to do with what they feel they can identify with, or with some younger people the musicians and artists are people they look up to and idolize. Of course that’s been going on for a long time now.

I like a buffet of different musical styles but some music just sounds like noise to me, but some of the people I work with absolutely love it. 😒
 
I would not have guessed that you were a Dio fan. He was my favorite growing up. I saw him live several times. I was fortunate to see his second or third to last performance before he died.

His death was the first celebrity death that made me feel my own mortality. It was when I passed the torch from youth. It still hits me when I think about it, because it is not fun being able to see over the creast of the hill of life.

RIP RJD.
 
I really don’t think of rap as music. It is spoken word. No singing = No music. No Melody.

Also, there are only 3 or 4 themes in the entire genre. How can anyone listen to the same themes over and over and over and over again?

There is zero creativity. It has all been done before. Today, any clown with recording equipment can be a star.
 
Haha, I wouldn’t have guessed you were a Dio fan either. Then again metal fans pop up all kinds of places. I have a very conservative-looking work colleague who mentioned to me at one point that he had been a huge Ozzy fan in his youth.

I saw the Merriweather Post show on the 2009 Heaven and Hell tour. I think that was about the fifth show from the final. I had a seat in about the 2d or 3d row (as I am too old to stand up in the pit), and was ticked off because I had some snafu with Stubhub about it. I didn’t know then that he was ill as it had not been announced. Really glad I went.

I’ve seen a lot of musician deaths in my lifetime but that was definitely one of the sadder ones I recall, up there with Alex Chilton and John Lennon.
 
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The reason rap music is popular is the same reason metal is popular. We are descending towards the animals rather than rising towards Heaven. All these genres of music bring out our more base desires.

If you think about how you would move your body in response to the music this is obvious. With rock there is a certain amount of sensuality to it. When you get to heavy metal the obvious reaction of the body is a sort of thrashing about. Rap music has both a chaotic aspect but also a mindless rhythm. Think about how your body doesn’t react the same way to classical, folk or bluesgrass music as it does these other forms. If you still don’t believe this think about how movies and shows use music. Imagine where the various forms of music would be used and what feelings they would be used to induce.
 
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