S.Wilson: "Rap now is more innovative than Rock"

jude111 wrote: HackettFan wrote: Why should I accept the premise that innovation is not musical complexity? Why is your claim that sampling is a better indicator of innovation philosophically superior? ... Nevertheless, I would like to point out that you are factually incorrect. Sampling has been used for a long time ... I'm quite pro sampling, but it's not remotely new, certainly older than the 2010 marker that the OP laid down, so I don't understand what actual innovation is being referred to in the vid posted by the OP ... As for the shift to the importance of producers, the visionary there would be Brian Eno.  <span style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Innovation is related to invention; to technological developments, to change.</span><div style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> <div style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">In the 1950s in France, newer, cheaper, smaller cameras entered the market that became accessible to many people who otherwise wouldn't have been able to make films. Young people started to make their own movies, going out in the streets with their small cameras, bypassing the stranglehold the studio system had over film production. France only used to make a few dozen movies a year; suddenly in 1960, hundreds were being made, outside of the studio system, launching the French New Wave. The new technology, in other words, changed the production of films, and brought in new ways of doing things (including new film techniques).<div style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> <div style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">You said sampling's not new. (I said the same thing; re-read my post.) However, what's changed is the same thing that changed in the example of French filmmaking that I gave above: New, cheaper, smaller computers entered the market, with more capabilities. Young people started to make their own music, from their bedrooms, using new technologies heretofore nonexistent or unavailable to them. These technological changes resulted in paradigm shifts in how music can be made, and who can make it. Sampling is not new; but *how* you sample, and *who* can sample, is new. Now, anyone can sample, from their bedroom, or office, or anywhere; in fact, one producer (Floating Points) recently made an album during a flight.<div style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> <div style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">What does this mean? It means anyone can be a producer. *Anyone*. From your bedroom. That's the shift I was talking bout. You don't have to be born with a name like Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (aka "Brian Eno") to become one.

First of all, what is the sample or samples that were innovative? Using new equipment CAN lead to innovation. The question I'm asking here is what is it? What exactly was sampled and why could it have not been done before on a Fairlight CMI that Peter Gabriel used? If I hear an actual explicit description of what I don't perceive on my own or don't know about technologically (I'm a guitarist, not a keyboardist), then I'm happy to agree. You seem to be assuming that I know the answer, and am being stubborn.

All the rest of the sociological stuff and price of equipment is irrelevant (for the question we're examining here). That's sociology and history, not music. Who can make music (answer: me) or where music is made is irrelevant. Nothing in any recording reveals its recording location. By irrelevant, I don't mean historically insignificant, because technological/sociological changes may as you say result in (without being a part of) paradigm shifts in how music can be made. So, fine. What was the paradigm shift? If sampling existed before, justifying a paradigm shift is kind of hard, though I would allow that there might be something revolutionary that I'm unaware of. A paradigm is a whole theoretical approach normally contrasted with another whole theoretical approach that differs from top to bottom. How do we have that here? This may be a higher standard than I think you need to make. I think small low level innovations are highly admirable.

However, as to the question of whether Hip Hop is more innovative than Prog, let me point out that much of what you say about technology and sociology of *how* and *who* can do whatever applies equally to Prog. The advances in guitar-related technology are staggering. I myself am a modest contributor to a Kickstarter campaign for Paul Vo, who is developing an energy bow-like device that can impart a vibration to a string in synthesized wave form that is digitally defined by whatever software is downloaded to it. It works on acoustic guitars too. It is Acoustic Synthesis, and that is indeed a technological paradigm shift.

Ulking is better than Steven Wilson these days!!!!

HackettFan wrote: Why should I accept the premise that innovation is not musical complexity? Why is your claim that sampling is a better indicator of innovation philosophically superior? ... Nevertheless, I would like to point out that you are factually incorrect. Sampling has been used for a long time ... I'm quite pro sampling, but it's not remotely new, certainly older than the 2010 marker that the OP laid down, so I don't understand what actual innovation is being referred to in the vid posted by the OP ... As for the shift to the importance of producers, the visionary there would be Brian Eno.

Edited by jude111 - October 02 2017 at 12:17

Guldbamsen wrote: I think you're using a very very narrow frame to describe rap and/or hip hop. Rap is rap regardless of what kind of music playing in the background. Rap is and has always been a vocal delivery rather than a genre like hip hop. Rap is still rap when the music is jazz funk or polka. Rage Against The Machine is rap fx. Just like hip hop is hip hop when it is spliced together with rock/metal/jazz or is free from samples or uses acapella style vocals.

And here's some cross-pollination between rap and the genuine jazz avant-garde:

Edited by Mascodagama - October 02 2017 at 08:47

I think you're using a very very narrow frame to describe rap and/or hip hop. Rap is rap regardless of what kind of music playing in the background. Rap is and has always been a vocal delivery rather than a genre like hip hop. Rap is still rap when the music is jazz funk or polka. Rage Against The Machine is rap fx.

Just like hip hop is hip hop when it is spliced together with rock/metal/jazz or is free from samples or uses acapella style vocals.

Kingsnake wrote: Here's some more RH Factor (wich is lead by the great trumpeteer Roy Hargrove). Note that they have two drummers, some stellar slap-bass. This is a jam, most rockbands don't do anymore. And that's what Steven Wilson meant, I guess.

Edited by Cristi - October 02 2017 at 07:59

Brooklyn Funk Essentials are world famous for mixing rap, soul, funk, dancehall and jazz.

Not so much rap, but one of the big moments in electrofunk and turntablism (another musical innovation):

Erik Truffaz, world famous trumpet player, mixes jazzfusion, drum&bass and rap: