Today’s explicit music?

[sidekickdmr]

Here I am, sat listening to the music I listened to when I was 16-20, it seems pretty standard to me, not that my parents approved at the time.

We are talking plan B, Eminem, slipknot etc, hardly underground stuff, most of it made the charts.

Pretty hardcore stuff, tieing pregnant girlfriends up
in the boot and sinking the car, religion based murder of children etc, (plan b especially is done in a “isn’t humanity terrible” way)

Got me thinking, where has this “niche” gone? Is it replaced with rap from the likes of Nikki minaj, mostly explicit around sex.

Would they get away with the old nowadays? Is there an equivalent I’m just not aware of as not down with the kids?

I’m not planning to hunt it down and start listening to it, just wondering if the kids of today get the same disapproving stance on dark music like the above really?

[Simes205]

Drill.

[droopsnoot]

On a slightly related note, it seems weird that Radio 1 play versions of songs that have rude words cut out rather than insisting on a "radioplay" version of a song. Mostly, the portion of the lyric removed is so short that anyone can guess instantly what the word was, so you have to question the value of removing it in the first place. And aren't most modern artists a sweary lot? Back in the day, there would be the odd song with a dodgy word in it, and it would get a bit of media attention because of it, where now it just seems to be the norm.

I was listening to a comment on R1 the other day where, under pressure from the locals, one festival is considering insisting on a "no offensive language" clause for all performers. I would imagine that would cut short quite a lot of the potential artists. As I recall, the festival is held in a built up area, sound travels, and a lot of locals have objected to what they're hearing. Some of that obviously is just people objecting to things for the sake of it, but it will be interesting to hear what goes on. I derive some entertainment from listening to the R1 "Big Weekend" to see just how quickly certain artist get cut off by the BBC for swearing on the radio, even though they've obviously been told not to. This year I suspect they were on a bit of a delay loop, as the DJs were talking over the bits between songs, which is where most of it happens.

Edited by droopsnoot on Friday 26th October 10:36

[Hoofy]

Simes205 said:

Drill.

Responsible for a lot of gang violence, apparently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5ffqP3dxLE

[Simes205]

Hoofy said:

Simes205 said:

Drill.

Responsible for a lot of gang violence, apparently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5ffqP3dxLE

Yep, especially South London. 2 kids I’ve taught were killed this year, part of a gang, also involved in the drill scene. 2 were arrested and sentenced for possessing a revolver and a machete, big in the drill scene and according to a minority of the kids I teach are legends.
Apparently Drill doesn’t cause violence..........

Edited by Simes205 on Friday 26th October 12:46

[Hoofy]

Simes205 said:

Hoofy said:

Simes205 said:

Drill.

Responsible for a lot of gang violence, apparently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5ffqP3dxLE

Yep, especially South London. 2 kids I’ve taught were killed this year, part of a gang, also involved in the drill scene. 2 were arrested and sentenced for possessing a revolver and a machete, big in the drill scene and according to a minority of the kids I teach are legends.
Apparently Drill doesn’t cause violence..........

Edited by Simes205 on Friday 26th October 12:46

Jesus.

Next time they're discussing this on LBC you need to speak to them.

[pc.iow]

Simes205 said:

Hoofy said:

Simes205 said:

Drill.

Responsible for a lot of gang violence, apparently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5ffqP3dxLE

Yep, especially South London. 2 kids I’ve taught were killed this year, part of a gang, also involved in the drill scene. 2 were arrested and sentenced for possessing a revolver and a machete, big in the drill scene and according to a minority of the kids I teach are legends.
Apparently Drill doesn’t cause violence..........

Edited by Simes205 on Friday 26th October 12:46

You think its the Drill music that makes them violent?

[sidekickdmr]

Never heard of Drill music, that’s kinda my point, pretty much every single kid (and a lot of adults) up and down the country had Eminem’s album, it was in the charts, on TV etc

I’m not on about underground stuff, there always has been and always will be some deep messed up stuff lurking

[Rollin]

Hoofy said:

Simes205 said:

Drill.

Responsible for a lot of gang violence, apparently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5ffqP3dxLE

[Simes205]

sidekickdmr said:

Never heard of Drill music, that’s kinda my point, pretty much every single kid (and a lot of adults) up and down the country had Eminem’s album, it was in the charts, on TV etc

I’m not on about underground stuff, there always has been and always will be some deep messed up stuff lurking

I wouldn’t have said Slipknot were that mainstream!
Kids watch YouTube, this is the channel for them. Drill is massive in London.

[Simes205]

pc.iow said:

Simes205 said:

Hoofy said:

Simes205 said:

Drill.

Responsible for a lot of gang violence, apparently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5ffqP3dxLE

Yep, especially South London. 2 kids I’ve taught were killed this year, part of a gang, also involved in the drill scene. 2 were arrested and sentenced for possessing a revolver and a machete, big in the drill scene and according to a minority of the kids I teach are legends.
Apparently Drill doesn’t cause violence..........

Edited by Simes205 on Friday 26th October 12:46

You think its the Drill music that makes them violent?

Not necessarily but it’s a way of rival gangs stirring up trouble, glorifying violence and illegal ways of making a living.

I’m not a fan of it but I did my research to be able to relate to some of the kids I teach.

[StevieBee]

droopsnoot said:

On a slightly related note, it seems weird that Radio 1 play versions of songs that have rude words cut out rather than insisting on a "radioplay" version of a song.

Used to run a Community Radio station and this was one the banes of our lives. 'Radio Edits' of songs become increasingly rare requiring presenters to manually tweak the track. This involved scanning through the audio wave and reversing the offensive word - a very inelegant solution and not always that effective. The amount of popular songs that contained offensive words became so great that we moved the chart show to after 9.00pm. Being volunteers, none of us had the time to sift through everything.

[Slippydiff]

Rollin said:

Hoofy said:

Simes205 said:

Drill.

Responsible for a lot of gang violence, apparently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5ffqP3dxLE

[Antony Moxey]

droopsnoot said:

On a slightly related note, it seems weird that Radio 1 play versions of songs that have rude words cut out rather than insisting on a "radioplay" version of a song. Mostly, the portion of the lyric removed is so short that anyone can guess instantly what the word was, so you have to question the value of removing it in the first place. And aren't most modern artists a sweary lot? Back in the day, there would be the odd song with a dodgy word in it, and it would get a bit of media attention because of it, where now it just seems to be the norm.

I was listening to a comment on R1 the other day where, under pressure from the locals, one festival is considering insisting on a "no offensive language" clause for all performers. I would imagine that would cut short quite a lot of the potential artists. As I recall, the festival is held in a built up area, sound travels, and a lot of locals have objected to what they're hearing. Some of that obviously is just people objecting to things for the sake of it, but it will be interesting to hear what goes on. I derive some entertainment from listening to the R1 "Big Weekend" to see just how quickly certain artist get cut off by the BBC for swearing on the radio, even though they've obviously been told not to. This year I suspect they were on a bit of a delay loop, as the DJs were talking over the bits between songs, which is where most of it happens.

Edited by droopsnoot on Friday 26th October 10:36

I've often wondered how much influence a widely listened to station like Radio One has on artists. F'rinstance, if R1 said that from now on any song that had swearing in would neither be played (including radio edits) nor would the artists be interviewed, I wonder whether artists would then stop effing and jeffing every line? Perhaps maybe not so now with the myriad of ways you can hear music, but not so long ago it was pretty much only the radio and that was it.

[Zoon]

Antony Moxey said:

I've often wondered how much influence a widely listened to station like Radio One has on artists. F'rinstance, if R1 said that from now on any song that had swearing in would neither be played (including radio edits) nor would the artists be interviewed, I wonder whether artists would then stop effing and jeffing every line? Perhaps maybe not so now with the myriad of ways you can hear music, but not so long ago it was pretty much only the radio and that was it.

When you look back to the fifties there were pretty much no songs featuring swearing. Nowadays it's the norm.
Sad really.

[Zetec-S]

I think music has always been something which has pushed the boundaries of what is "acceptable", or been very much anti-establishment. Go back to things like Elvis, The Beatles or The Rolling Stones and for many they were controversial in what they sang or how they acted. But nowadays they seem quite tame.

Likewise in the 70's the punk scene pushed things further, and you have the infamous Sex Pistols swearing on TV. Whilst an outburst like that these days would still cause outrage for some, it wouldn't be to nearly the same scale because we have become so desensitised to bad language. It's far more prevalent in daily life, for many the word "fking" has replaced words like "very" or "really" in their everyday conversation.

Not to mention the whole drugs and excess culture, and things like Ozzy biting the head off a bat. Fast-forward to the 90's and early 2000's (my era of music) and you had shock rock like Marilyn Manson who had conservative society in uproar, and an influx of rock/metal bands who were far more liberal with their use of the F bomb than their predecessors from the 70s/80s. But at the same time these bands started to get more mainstream attention, so bands like Limp Bizkit, Slipknot, Korn, etc would break into the charts and appear on MTV.

Depending on which side of the fence you sat, this was either a good thing (more "proper" music) or a bad thing (they're selling out), but I think what it inadvertently achieved was more bands surfing the wave to the point of saturation, and the genre kind of fizzled out (of the mainstream at least). So these days a lot of bands have perhaps backed off the shock/swearing aspect and taken a different approach?

I do wonder these days whether the rap/r&b genre is experiencing a similar peak. It's always been about guns/big TV's/cars/sex but there's some big artists who've pushed the genre's boundaries, and combined with a more prevalent internet/social media, means more kids these days like this kind of thing.

Apologies for my long, unstructured ramble, hoping it might make a bit of sense to anyone who reads it. Finished work early today and am half typing this, half browsing Spotify reminiscing about bands I used to listen to when I was younger

[Roofless Toothless]

Zoon said:

When you look back to the fifties there were pretty much no songs featuring swearing. Nowadays it's the norm.
Sad really.

How about this from the Clovers in 1953?

https://youtu.be/W-n5vG2SjJY

[Nik Gnashers]

Can I suggest, for brand new music, that is still very much underground, yet explicit, and at the same time actually quite genius....
UK HipHop.
No, I'm not talking 'grime' or the trash you hear on the radio.
Best Label for me is 'BLAH Records' and it's 'owner' being the best artist too, rapper Lee Scott (from Utoxeter).
Others of note 'Trellion', 'Sniff', & 'Milkavalli'.
For a slightly more traditional sound, yet still quite underground, try the label 'High-Focus;...
I'm 50 yrs old next year, but I can't get enough of BLAH, every release is quality.

[bristolbaron]

Drill/Grime etc does not cause violence. In exactly the same way as the gangsta rap of late 80s/early 90s L.A. It’s reflective of the artists surroundings.

[Resolutionary]

Nik Gnashers said:

Can I suggest, for brand new music, that is still very much underground, yet explicit, and at the same time actually quite genius....
UK HipHop.
No, I'm not talking 'grime' or the trash you hear on the radio.
Best Label for me is 'BLAH Records' and it's 'owner' being the best artist too, rapper Lee Scott (from Utoxeter).
Others of note 'Trellion', 'Sniff', & 'Milkavalli'.
For a slightly more traditional sound, yet still quite underground, try the label 'High-Focus;...
I'm 50 yrs old next year, but I can't get enough of BLAH, every release is quality.

I know a couple of the guys in BLAH and High Focus, among other UK hip hop labels - there is something for everyone given the breadth of individual emcees and styles present. I'm really impressed with the foothold and sincerity of the scene, having been an avid follower since like 2002.

Folks like Dirty Dike and Ocean Wisdom could be construed as explicit, and then you have guys like Jehst and Sus Bully coming out with classic-sounding message-driven stuff too. Wonderfully diverse scene!