My two questions about the Springsteen movie were minor ones about the band. (1) Why wasn’t the actor playing Max wearing glasses? (2) Where was Danny Federici?
The last few years I taught music criticism at St. John's Univ. (until May 2024), I noticed hip-hop enthusiasm fading among my multicultural students. They saw music as functional: for the gym, running, walking, studying, partying...than as pleasure on its own. Adding to their alienation from hiphop was the overly long and very frequent releases from formerly favorite artists, Kanye,/Drake, left them bored, as did the constant beefs between their faves (Kanye, Drake). They were like, "grow up!" I don't know if this was the year of Taylor Swift on campus, but I did ask one of my former students to review one of her shows last year or the year before for my Substack. When I'd play Tupac, or some foundational rap by Public Enemy, they'd remember it as their dad's music. Students did like the couple of weeks we spent on A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, and others from the late 1980s-early 1990s Afrocentric "Native Tongues" collective. It was all new to them. Hip-hop is going through a dip, as all genres do, but I expect women artists, such as Doja Cat, Doechii, GloRilla, to carry the torch. As in many parts of our society, the women will save it.
Keen observation. I think music as functional art has come to infect all genres. Also, interesting to hear commentary on the excessively long albums. That is a trend that needs to die. There are so few artists ever who have the skill to put 30 good songs on an album
It seems there’s a lot of rap influenced country and pop crossover stuff now that doesn’t get classified as hip-hop.
It’s probably more about the death of genres than any specific genre.
Would have luv to have taken your class as an elective.
97 grad
My two questions about the Springsteen movie were minor ones about the band. (1) Why wasn’t the actor playing Max wearing glasses? (2) Where was Danny Federici?
Was certainly upsetting how little the band was in the movie. Good eye catching that
The last few years I taught music criticism at St. John's Univ. (until May 2024), I noticed hip-hop enthusiasm fading among my multicultural students. They saw music as functional: for the gym, running, walking, studying, partying...than as pleasure on its own. Adding to their alienation from hiphop was the overly long and very frequent releases from formerly favorite artists, Kanye,/Drake, left them bored, as did the constant beefs between their faves (Kanye, Drake). They were like, "grow up!" I don't know if this was the year of Taylor Swift on campus, but I did ask one of my former students to review one of her shows last year or the year before for my Substack. When I'd play Tupac, or some foundational rap by Public Enemy, they'd remember it as their dad's music. Students did like the couple of weeks we spent on A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, and others from the late 1980s-early 1990s Afrocentric "Native Tongues" collective. It was all new to them. Hip-hop is going through a dip, as all genres do, but I expect women artists, such as Doja Cat, Doechii, GloRilla, to carry the torch. As in many parts of our society, the women will save it.
Keen observation. I think music as functional art has come to infect all genres. Also, interesting to hear commentary on the excessively long albums. That is a trend that needs to die. There are so few artists ever who have the skill to put 30 good songs on an album