Aging in Hip Hop

DANJ!

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All music is going to age and sound old one day... no matter how fresh and new it sounds when it comes out. But in every era, there has always been music that you could even feel at the time was gonna run its course sooner than later. There's a lot of music, even songs that were hits, that fizzled out fast for this same reason- some shyt was very in-the-moment, and soon as that moment or sound was done, nobody wanted to hear it anymore. But there's also music that capture those eras, and for that reason have lived a longer shelf life- not just because they were hits, but because they actually resonated and lasted even during those eras. Even back in the late-90s, there were records from the earlier part of the decade and the late-80s that hadn't fallen out of rotation yet. Anytime you went to a party or heard DJs on the radio, you could expect to hear those songs because they didn't play out fast. On the other hand, there was also songs that ran for all of a couple months and probably were never coming back. Even today, you don't hear them in no old school set, you don't hear them at throwback parties- them shyts are GONE :russ:

Someone in the thread said there's stuff from like 20 years ago that has aged even worse than music that came out decades prior, and I agree. There was a time period in early-2000s when everybody was keyboarding it up but just making super-mediocre beats attempting to ride the Ruff Ryder wave. A few years back, I found a Youtube account that uploaded a lot of circa-2000-2002 Clue tapes and a fair amount of that shyt sounded disgusting :russ: Same applies for the late-00s ringtone era and all the mediocrity that came out of that... and also there were a lotta hit songs in the middle of the 10s that are less than 10 years old and are DEAD already. shyt like "Milly Rock" and "Flicka Da Wrist"- maybe one day they'll come back around but right now, they make 2016 sound like it was looooong ago.

But back to the main point, everything gets old, sometimes that's the dope part about it. It reminds you of how it was at the time and what that music represented in that era. Aging isn't a bad thing in hip-hop, especially if you can hear it in hindsight and totally get why it was so great at the time. I can listen to something like "I Ain't No Joke" or "Raw" and understand exactly why Rakim and Kane were some bad MFs in '87. And obviously, it's from that time but that doesn't take away from it. But there's also stuff from that time that came and went much faster because it wasn't for the long haul. This applies to just about any era we can go to.
 

nieman

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But something can age horribly. A good amount of 1-hit wonders fall into this category. A song can be of it's time, be a major juggernaut for a while, then fades into obscurity to the point that absolutely everyone is annoyed by it some time later. It does exist.

As other posters have said, just because it had a wave and popular at one point doesn't mean it was ever good. It just means the flaws were always there are more prominent now.

Art is a product of it's time and the thought process in which the creator/audience was at that time. So essentially, everything is "dated" by creation. However, that doesn't mean it won't resonate with younger generations, or even give you that feeling you once had when it was current.
 

FunkDoc1112

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Also, this entire aging argument isn't even unique to hip hop. You see it with other genres, as well as with movies and other entertainment. And not even going into technical stuff. It's just that audience standards and expectations change over time.

Take comedy for example. Comedy is very much of its era, and that's not even getting into political correctness and shyt. shyt that may have had you like :laff: 20 years ago might have you like :unimpressed::huhldup: now,and sometimes it's not even a matter of growing up and maturing cuz even folks who were your age at the time don't even fukk with it. Those 50s/60s "Joke book" style comedians used to fill up arenas nationwide and now they're considered some of the corniest comedy possible.

And then on the flipside you got some shyt that stood out at the time just because of how unique it was, but then either the novelty wears off or other people do it better and so it's not that special anymore, a more exaggerated version of the Seinfeld effect (Seinfeld still holds up compared to the imitators but there are still elements that aren't that special and unique anymore and so don't hit the same)
 
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CrimsonTider

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But something can age horribly. A good amount of 1-hit wonders fall into this category. A song can be of it's time, be a major juggernaut for a while, then fades into obscurity to the point that absolutely everyone is annoyed by it some time later. It does exist.

As other posters have said, just because it had a wave and popular at one point doesn't mean it was ever good. It just means the flaws were always there are more prominent now.

Art is a product of it's time and the thought process in which the creator/audience was at that time. So essentially, everything is "dated" by creation. However, that doesn't mean it won't resonate with younger generations, or even give you that feeling you once had when it was current.
Examples?
 

Street Knowledge

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I fux with Jigga but a lot of his catalog aged horribly lol. That's what happens when you're constantly hopping on fads instead of setting trends and actually aiming your energy at trendsetting. Jay-z was hopping on all them Swizz beats and Neptunes beats talkin about button up shirts and rockin S.Dots and cocked fitteds and all that old nasty washed stuff that was only cool at that specific time...ish sounds madd 2002ish. Whereas Kanye, for example, his old music doesn't sound even remotely outdated...his work actually gets better and fresher the older it gets somehow.
What new thing did Kanye bring to the table :heh:

His production style was lifted off Rza and the whole I’m a regular guy not a gangster raps was being done prior to him :mjlol:
 

Street Knowledge

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99% of the time when someone says a song was “overplayed” they never liked it in the first place.

You just can’t say that the month it came out because you sound like an idiot/hater :mjlol:
 

FunkDoc1112

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99% of the time when someone says a song was “overplayed” they never liked it in the first place.

You just can’t say that the month it came out because you sound like an idiot/hater :mjlol:
Exactly. It's wack shyt that gets some burn because it sounds like what's popular. That's why the Wu-Tang Clan brand is still strong 30 years later while nobody is bumping a Fu-Schnickens song after 1993.
 

bigde09

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There's no way to quantify that. You say it aged horribly, but there's many that will disagree with you on that. I liked "Empire State of Mind", but because it got overplayed, I can't listen to it now. Doesn't mean it aged horribly. There's Jay albums I don't listen because there's bunch of songs on them that I NEVER cared for. Doesn't mean they aged horribly, it just means I don't like them. To drive the point home even further, "Allure" used to be one of my favorite Jay Z songs. Now, I can't listen to it. Maybe, I overplayed it. I am not about to say it aged horribly, because a lot of people actually still love that song. I don't.

Nothing about this sounds good today
 

JustCKing

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Nothing about this sounds good today


To you. There are people who never liked that song. There are others who loved the song. Either way, that song was always a bottom tier song on the album. Don't see how it aged bad, if it was always consider to be bottom tier on the album.
 
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