Lets not confuse REAL Punk with POST Punk. Real Punk lasted from 1976 to 1979.
Kev i think you're a few years younger than me, and Albeig i think we're about the same age ?. I was 7 years old in 1976, and even though my uncle was right in the centre of the 'punk movement' at the time and subsequently met quite a few of the up and coming 'punk stars' i was still far to young to understand and fully appreciate it.
Thatcher came to power in 79 so her political stance was not a catalyst in any way shape or form whatsoever in the 'uprising'.
Essentially Punk was one of two things a) just a new yoof trend of telling the world that we hated the establishment and our parents and no-one understands us so sod off. b) Another way for Malcolm McLaren to make a whole hunk of cash from said yoof audience after realising: he couldn't sell the New York Dolls to a British Audience, and that he was a crap clothes designer
Having said all that Iggy Pop was doing this kind off stuff in the late 60's and still is to this day. And whats Johnny Rotten doing these days ? sitting in a jungle with a loads of unknown soap stars !....yeah how punk is that !
Anyway, Hip Hops not my thing, but then again i guess i'm not really the demographic they're after, which is a good thing
I totally understand that some people just don't like hip hop, but my mum is 71 and I caught her having a little groove to the Goats CD I had on while I was cooking christmas dinner. I said - sarcastically - "I didn't know you liked rap music, mum?", she replied "I like anything with a bit of life in it".
She was a fan of the old big bands. I think I got all my funk from my mum.
Must confess i quite liked the very early rap stuff like NWA and erm...the guys with the clocks around their necks ?. But that was more of an attitude thing rather than a musical thing. In a way it was like the early British Indie scene, lots of really good bands with no money and no record contract just doing it coz they had something to say and had real passion for the music. But when marketing men and large corporations get hold then it all turns into purile safe marketable mush....Bill Hailey's got a lot to answer for !
hmmm, is Newcastle ready for a Speak Easy ? Jazz is the new punk ! seriously, go checkout Jimmy Rosenbourg.
I don't; but you see, hardcore punk, jazzcore, funkcore, ska-core, emotional hardcore, surf-core, reggae-core, trashcore, queercore, melodic hardcore, whatever core you like you'll find important stylistical links to punk, no matter how detached from some dubious commercial and visual aspects of its origin. It's not really a question of confusion.
In the same way I treat techno: minimal techno, glitch, technodub, techno-ambient, IDM, Detroit techno, post-techno, intelligent techno, experimental techno, along with a countless numbers of styles, are all originated and encompassed by techno. Which, in turn, has its origins in records such as Gottshing's E2-E4 (1981), or in the works of Erkki Kurenniemi in the sixties and early seventies.
There's no way of having a perfect taxonomy in music, just approximations.
Well yeah, obviously all music is linked or inspired in some way to that which came before it, even going as far back as the invention of the medieval lute (Sting anyone ?) or neolithic caveman sitting in his cave bashing pig bones on a couple of rocks (Phil Collins anyone ?)
My comments were more in line with understanding the cultural ambiance that generated the particular music of that period. One can never fully appreciate the impact something like Punk had on the national or even international psyche without actually being there at the time. And even though i was not only alive during punk but in a very very small way had a glimpse at the internal workings of punk i never truly understood what the hell all the fuss was about ? To be honest in my little corner of the world ABBA were making much more of an influence on my opinion of the world of 1976 (now thats a confession i never thought i'd make) than punk was. But at the age of 7, you just tend to believe and accept whatever the nice man on the telly tells you... ABBA are nice and friendly and you can trust them with your life, Punks are nasty and horrible and beat you up if you so much as look at them funny.
I'll be the first to admit that a lot of the 'classic punk' stuff when listened to now does sound, well, naff to be honest. But to listen to an Exploited album from the 80's and generally dismiss punk is to miss the very essence of the punk movement. Punk music was only ever an outlet for youth anger/insecurity/hopelessness/fear/general growing up stuff and many other things besides.
Punk was much more of an attitude than a musical genre, which is also something marketing men are aware of, but don't fully understand. Some modern bands get it, some modern individuals get it, but thankfully mainstream money grabbing corporations don't. The early hip hop/rap bands got it, but Puff diddly and the like don't, which is why you may be able to admire them for their business acumen, but as sincere credible artists, no, never.
True Art has always been and i hope amongst hope will continue to be a passion of the heart and not the head.
As I'm growing more and more detached from punk and its offsprings I'm willing to put more things together, so I generally refer now to punk music as rock music, something I'm not particularly into at the moment, except for being a fundamental part of my evolution.
Social aspects of popular culture tend to be preponderant at first, then - when the effects of novelty have subsided - all you have are traces of a long term impact and elements you'll find as inherited by subsequent art and culture. I recognise that punk, in the extended sense, has had a huge cultural impact in my formation, so I'm unable to dismiss it: it would be ahistorical.
But then - with the evolution of tastes - some stuff that sounded so good at first starts sounding naive. Incidentally this is a definition that in fine art has been applied to a wide range of painters who were primarily self-taught and were known for a vivid but conflicting use of imagery unable to generate the transfer of a coherent vision or thought.
And here we get to True Art, if such a thing exists: art is generally accepted as a manipulation of matter to stimulate ideas or emotions. As such it has always been a matter of the mind, and not of the heart: it could be the outcome of the most passionate intention or not, but it's generally the result of a well concerted effort or brilliant intuition.
Only recently the definition of art being the result of a conscious effort has been challenged to some extent. Your definition of True Art looks to me extremely personal and distant from an agreed one (and agreement on the meaning of a term is rather important in this case), no matter if applied to popular or academic art. I may agree on being passionate on a personal basis, but to have a fair, critical view on art I must get rid of my personal heritage as much as I can: art is something more than what I like, and certainly something different from a passion of the heart. It may include it, but it's far from being mandatory.
There are rock songs with good lyrics and rock songs with bad lyrics just as there are hip hop songs with good lyrics and hip hop songs with bad lyrics. We already got rid of the generalizations earlier. Like I said in the post I quoted, I do like the lyrics of some hip hop songs.
And lyrics are a very important part of a song. I can like a song despite its lyrics but for it to be really great the lyrics have to fit IMO. That's why I love Rammstein. They play with the german language like no other band.
I have heard of them but haven't heard enough to really have an opinion. I find this interesting, though. Hard to believe that this is basically just the translation of a Queen song.
They obviously were a big influence for Rammstein. That's why I heard of them before.
Actually, the level of sophistication of Geburt Einer Nation is fairly high for rock standards. In fact that song is the outcome of a reasoning that brands stadium rock as totalitarian.
To Laibach, stadium rockstars are something in between a cult minister and a politician, and stadium concerts are celebrations where the community shares a feeling, but no real common idea. Hence, a big show of conformism.
Geburt Einer Nation is a frontal attack to stadium rock since it shows that One Vision can be interpreted as a totalitarian song. If I take a close look at the original lyrics and think about them I see a song which is meant to tease the audience with abstract words completely devoid of any actual meaning, appealing only to the good conscience of the listener. It's brutally generic.
So Laibach transform One Vision in a totalitarian hymn as a scorching critic, adding insult to injury calling it Geburt Einer Nation, The Birth of a Nation. The Birth of a Nation by Griffith is a masterpiece of classic hollywood mute cinema. In this movie the villain is black, and the hero is a KKK member. That's not meant as an accusation of nazism towards Queen, but it's clearly a symbol of their distaste for lyrics they consider as totalitarian as the form of rock celebrations that happen in stadiums.
Aspects - Impact
Aspects are great. Nuff said. Probe Mantis and El Eye are fantastic rappers, humorous and skilled and Monkey Moo is an ace beatboxer
Taskforce - Cosmic Gypsies
I like taskforce despite the petulant child style of rapping. I saw one half of them at Glastonbury once, I believe it was Chester P but it could have been Farma G, I thought he was a very charismatic compere who had some good things to say
Roots Manuva - Dreamy Days
Check out witness the fitness and movements and pretty much every tune that roots manuva has made the vast majority are good
Pitman - Girls
Ok, he ain't too hot a rapper but I find it funny. The album is pretty funny but probably not for anyone outside of the UK...having been oop north might help too.
Lexicon - Nikehead
I heard this song on a compilation once and thought of it whilst finding these tunes. Fun and bouncy tune.
Numskullz - Raindrops
Actually a video of scarborough town with the song as a background - go figure. Nice lyricism.
People Under the Stairs - Acid Raindrops
It about naughty things, i.e. somking the reefa but it is such a beautiful song, I find it can make me drift away quite nicely in a similar the also very different way to Mutual Slump by DJ Shadow.
This is, of course, not the only hip hop that is good. There is a lot of it. About a gajillion tons of it really. I'm listening to Acid Raindrops at the moment and it is rather beautiful IMO, a proper mellow head nodder. A nice dose of some UK hip hop to because it is one of my favourite flavours.
I haven't listened to hip hop in ages due to getting back into more dancey music like that techno shit for instance. I used to not like techno but I saw the light a while ago, though I must admit that I liked Orbital the whole time I thought techno was crap...oops.
Just thought I'd show you some of the hip hop stuffs I like.
I completely forgot about Sage Francis! He rocks man. I once got a police escort to a Sage Francis concert but thats an different and actually rather boring story. Josh Martinez and Buck 65 are also very nice.
Have you heard any Non Prophets stuff? Non Prophets = Sage Francis & Joe Beats = Good.
Great list you have there and i like your comments regarding the german electronic scene. I just want to add that these days where its getting easier to create such music, it is getting much harder to filter out the real good stuff but in general i would say the overall quality is better then never before.
I dont know many from your list but Paul Kalkbrenner for sure.
I feel the need to add some more german dj's at this point. Ellen Allien, Paul van Dyk, Sven Väth, Emanuel Eisbrenner, DJ Hell, Kanzleramt, Johannes Heil, Thomas Schumacher, Heiko Laux, Richard Bartz, Alexander Kowalski!!! just to name a few of my all time favorites. There are so many more, not only german of course (Laurent Garnier, Richie Hawtin, Carl Cox...) but unfortunately i have no access to my main pc atm. Guess the list would explode anyway I prefer every kind of music as long as it is according to my taste. Why should i limit myself with only one sort of music anyway? How boring would that be Ok i reached the point with the question about the matter of taste again so nevermind eh.
Oh and one last thing and maybe correct me on that matter since my knowledge is just limited but please do not use techno as a collective noun since it is just another sub form of electronic music. It also devides into many crazy forms but i would not dare to count everything created with a synthesizer or whatever you use these days into techno.
regards & sorry for the OT
/on topic
yes i do but as some of the people in here only the good old stuff. WTC, Cypress Hill, GangStarr, some good old funkmaster flex tapes and so on...
Yes, the list would explode, and my list is extremely partial too. It was meant as an exemplification of how a genre which is highly regarded in the experimental and contemporary music scene can be treated as something worthless.
Paul Kalkbrenner is the only trance composer I listen to. I don't have much interest in the style but he shows that trance can be melodic, entertanining, relaxing, well thought out.
As I said a taxonomy of music genres, subgenres, styles and substyles is always imperfect, but I guess no artist of my list would be offended by being related to the techno scene, since all of them have formal and strong relationships with it.
It has been said that talking about music is like dancing about architecture. There are some people - like me - that think one can actually dance about architecture. It's possible, but unless you restrain yourself to a purely descriptive and analitic approach you'll always have some degree of confusion. I accept it with no problem, except when I'm talking to some musicologist, ethnomusicologist or radio host where one never limits himself to definitions, or scarcely documented lists. The context is different, here.
hmmm, is Newcastle ready for a Speak Easy ? Jazz is the new punk ! seriously, go checkout Jimmy Rosenbourg.
) but unfortunately i have no access to my main pc atm. Guess the list would explode anyway 
I prefer every kind of music as long as it is according to my taste. Why should i limit myself with only one sort of music anyway? How boring would that be