If "Golden Era" Artists released songs at the same rate as nowadays....

[TEH]

It's a fact and a lot of them old nikkas even admitted on Podcasts (Talib Kweli, Redman, etc) how its hard for them to compete with new generation rappers because they understand music on all another level.

No one is even seeing Talib and Redman in this era and they were B tier golden age rappers.

 

[Cynic]

When you look at modern artists, they're putting out full length mixtapes, singles, and legit albums at a much higher pace than the "1 album every 3-4" years standard of back in the day.

Would we have gotten more classic songs? More classic albums?

They had A&Rs and little freedom.

 

[get these nets]

I have a feeling that Wu Tang was sitting on a lot of material in the 92/93-96 era.

But seems all of Native Tongues didn't have a bunch of extra material lying around.

I often wonder about Organized Noise/Outkast/Goodie etc.

Rza definitely.

I'd say Busta Rhymes. He mentioned in an acceptance speech a while back that he "pioneered the rap feature appearance lane".
He wasnt the first, but definitely the most prolific in that era.
While they werent his songs and albums, he released a tremendous amount of content in that era. His feature catalog from that era has to be 30-50 songs, easily

Spoiler

*just jokes

 

[T.H.E. Goat]

I believe so, if artists back then had free reign to drop when they wanted it would have been alot more records that would have dropped rather than get destroyed/lost/stolen.

 

[Guvnor]

You wouldn't have the golden era then, the music would be oversaturated and artist would stretch their creative juices thin...pause

 

[ℒℴѵℯJay ELECTUA]

When you look at modern artists, they're putting out full length mixtapes, singles, and legit albums at a much higher pace than the "1 album every 3-4" years standard of back in the day.

Would we have gotten more classic songs? More classic albums?

We preferred quality over trash-average quantity!
Production and performance wise.

 

[Ziggiy]

I think it would roughly be the same back then as it is now. You have artists that take time to craft art and really make it special and reflective of the era they are in and you’d have artists that just quickly release to stay popular or on whatever wave is poppin.

Just like you had Jay-Z releasing yearly and featuring on other popular artists singles/albums (ala Drake) you’d have a Nas, who took 2-3 years in-between projects to craft a work of art (ala Kendrick)

Someone like Q-Tip, no matter the era, probably wouldn’t be flooding the streets with random music. He’d want to build a body of work he was proud of and could stand on.

 

[WIA20XX]

You wouldn't have the golden era then, the music would be oversaturated and artist would stretch their creative juices thin...pause

So in your view, the lack of material/discretion is what made the Golden era....golden?

 

[WIA20XX]

They had A&Rs and little freedom.

There was definitely an industry component with the East Coast/NYC rappers.

It was different in the South and West, that existed outside of the establishment. That might have been why 2 $hort was arguably more prolific than the typical NY rapper.

 

[THE 101]

Nah the problem with modern hip hop is there's not enough craft and songmaking. These dudes are putting out one take hookless 2 minute songs with raw beats. No real song construction at all. Half this shyt doesn't even sound mixed properly. Sometimes that works if you're going for a more lo-fi sound like Earl, MIKE and them. But too many times it's kinda throw away music that doesn't sound like there's much effort. Look at the way people praise Boldy for dropping an album every two weeks, when all the music is forgettable. If Boldy actually locked in and spent all that time just recording one album it would be more memorable than all them weedplates put together.

You used to see an artist's development over the course of numerous albums but i don't really see any development in a lot of these dudes. Curren$y been making the same shyt for damn near 20 years. Zero growth.

Always quality over quantity.

 

[get these nets]

It was quality over quantity. A lot of those artists had executive producers/labels that helped them meticulously craft albums, singles, videos, rollouts etc.

Agree

Studio time cost big money back then, and it had to come out of a record label budget for a project that was coming out

When a lot of the unreleased joints leak, most are weak or at least would have been the worst song on the album at the time. Excluding sample clearance issues. Plus, flooding the market devalues your product.

.

They bundled old songs in BDP and ATCQ releases, and while my ears were expecting gems....I heard duds. Lost tracks, unreleased records, and white labels are hit and miss.




*Also, just peeped your username

 

[WIA20XX]

When a lot of the unreleased joints leak, most are weak or at least would have been the worst song on the album at the time.