Sales of Rap Albums Take Stunning Nosedive

Foxnews.com ^ | March 1, 2007 | Foxnews.com

[IDontLikeToPayTaxes]

NEW YORK — Maybe it was the umpteenth coke-dealing anthem or soft-porn music video. Perhaps it was the preening antics that some call reminiscent of Stepin Fetchit.

The turning point is hard to pinpoint. But after 30 years of growing popularity, rap music is now struggling with an alarming sales decline and growing criticism from within about the culture's negative effect on society.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

One of the very few rap songs that comes to my mind as having a degree of thought behind it was one by Tupac...a tribute to his mother. It seemed to me he took the "bar" and raised it a bit...

Could be that he did. I'm not dismissing rap as a form of music at all---it is certainly possible to tell good rap from bad, so I believe there is a certain talent required for creating it. In fact, I'm a big fan of A Tribe Called Quest because they brought rap up to the level of be bop jazz.

[31R1O]

Well...the Beastie Boys are going 20yrs. strong and Outkast is heading in the same direction, Ice Cube has been around since the late eighties as well. Like every other genre of popular music there are quality artists as well as manufactured hacks.

[beaversmom]

Simply crap--music can be left off.

[SIDENET]

A ray of hope for our culture! But I'm not going to get my hopes up too high.

Rap will probably just get replaced with something worse, although I can't even imagine something worse.

[taxed2death]

I'll have to give 'em a listen. Thanks for the heads up.

[Married with Children]

"Dear Momma"

[SengirV]

I would say it's not rap's musical form that is losing popularity but the destructive cultural content of contemporary rap that is turning people off.

We certainly have Bill Cosby and of course black conservatives in general for leading in this direction.

I'm sorry, but this is VERY wishful thinking. Do you honestly believe that a 12-16 year old cares what Bill Cosby thinks? And do you think a 12-16 year old also cares about what is taboo in society?

[NonValueAdded]

Surfin' Bird (Bird is the Word) by The Trashmen, 1964

[taxed2death]

"Well...the Beastie Boys are going 20yrs....."

Yup, So is Mcdonalds. It's an aquired taste I guess.

[taxed2death]

"Dear Momma"

Yup, good tune....can almost hear a duo being done with Sam Cooke. :)

[beaversmom]

I can remember when MTV actually showed videos--now it's all loose sex shows and gay propaganda.

[durasell]

Rap will probably just get replaced with something worse, although I can't even imagine something worse.






Music evolves. You can already see this evolution in groups like OutKast.

[IDontLikeToPayTaxes]

I think American Idol has lured the country away from Rap.

Excellent point.

[N. Theknow]

Yep. IIRC, the first "rap" was a ditty done to the tune of "Good Times."

[MarineMom613]

When that song comes on in my car or house the whole surrounding knows it. I know every word by heart.

That is old school rap. One time driving home from shopping it came on with me, my sil, my niece and my mom in the car. We blasted it and sang along. My mother was trying to duck down she was so embarrassed. (We sang louder)

Oh the good old days. Thanks for the memory!

[stm]

The words "rap" and "music" should never be used in the same sentence with out a negative in between them.

[stm]

Rap is popular with teen white kids too thanks to whiggers like Eminem.

[hedgetrimmer]

The first rap song came out in 1970. A piece called "the revolution will not be televised" by Gil Scott-Heron.

[EnquiringMind]

Yep, downloading.

[PA Engineer]

In the 1962 The Music Man production was a classic rap example. The train sequence "Rock Island" follows to the sounds and rythm of a train. This is still one of my favs today.

1st salesman: Cash for the merchandise, cash for the button hooks
3rd salesman: Cash for the cotton goods, cash for the hard goods
1st Salesman: Cash for the fancy goods
2nd salesman: cash for the noggins and the piggins and the frikins
3rd Salesman: Cash for the hogdhead, cask and demijohn. Cash for the crackers and the pickels and the flypaper
4th Salesman: Look whatayatalk. whatayatalk, whatayatalk, whatayataalk, whatayatalk?
5th Salesman: Weredayagitit?
4th Salesman: Whatayatalk?
1st Salesman: Ya can talk, ya can talk, ya can bicker ya can talk, ya can bicker, bicker bicker ya can talk all ya want but is different than it was.
Charlie: No it ain't, no it ain't, but ya gotta know the territory.
Rail car: Shh shh shh shh shh shh shh
3rd Salesman: Why it's the Model T Ford made the trouble, made the prople wanna go, wanna get, wanna get up and go seven eight , nine, ten, twelve, fourteen, twent-two, twenty-three milew to the county seat
1st Salesman: Yes sir, yes sir
3rd Salesman: Who's gonna patronize a little bitty two by four kinda store anymore?
4th Salesman: Whaddaya talk, whaddaya talk.
5th Salesman: Where do you get it?
3rd Salesman: Gone, gone
Gone with the hogshead cask and demijohn, gone with the sugar barrel, pickel barrel, milk pan, gone with the tub and the pail and the fierce
2nd Salesman: Ever meet a fellow by the name of Hill?
1st Salesman: Hill?
Charlie: Hill?
3rd Salesman: Hill?
4th Salesman: Hill?
1st Newspaper Hill?
2nd Newspaper: Hill?
5th Salesman: Hill?
2nd Salesman: Hill?
All but Charlie and 2nd Salesman: NO!
4th Salesman: Never heard of any salesman Hill
2nd Salesman: Now he dosen't know the territory
1st Salesman: Dosen't know the territory?!?
3rd Salesman: Whats the fellows line?
2nd Salesman: Never worries bout his line
1st Salesman: Never worries bout his line?!?
2nd Salesman: Or a doggone thing. He's just a bang beat, bell ringing, Big haul, great go, neck or nothin, rip roarin, every time a bull's eye salesman. Thats Professor Harold Hill, Harold Hill
3rd Salesman: What's the fellows line?
5th Salesman: Whats his line?
Charlie: He's a fake, and he dosen't know the territory!
4th Salesman: Look, whaddayatalk, whaddayatalk, whaddayatalk, whaddaystalk?
2nd Saleman: He's a music man
1st Salesman: He's a what?
3rd Salesman: He's a what?
2nd Salesman: He's a music man and he sells clarinets to the kids in the town with the big trombones and the rat-a-tat drums, big barass bass, big brass bass, and the piccolo, the piccolo with uniforms, too with a shiny gold braid on the coat and a big red stripe runnin . . .
1st Salesman: Well, I don't know much about bands but I do know you can't make a living selling big trombones, no sir. Mandolin picks, perhaps and here and there a Jew's harp ...
2nd Salesman: No, the fellow sells bands, Boys bands. I don't know how he does it but he lives like a king and he dallies and he gathers and he plucks and shines and when the man dances, certinely boys, what else? The piper pays him! Yes sir ,yes sir,yes sir, yes sir, when the man dances, certinely boys, what else?The piper pays him! Yessssir, Yessssir
Charlie: But he dosen't know the territory!