Mixing the Hard! Rock! with the Hip! Hop!

For what it's worth, the newest Incubus album is much better than the guilt-by-association would have folks believe. (And the DJ plays his turntables like an instrument - a modern day "electric jug", if you will.)

Forthcoming MoB piece (oh shit, I've committed now) to take this q up. Short answer -- MoB uses loops, but then so dod The Who. There is in fact no hip-hop rhythmic/style crossover (no scratching, etc.) and instead the loops break down the notion of the songs entirely, in Max Ernst for example. Fun Fact: most people never realised MoB had a tapes dude even.

Thing is, those groups I mentioned up there (the Bizkit & the Park & especially the Incubus) don't do much scratching, either - if it is scratching, it's not that recognizable. Granted, it's on a simpler scale than, for instance, what's happening on "Mica", but it's not too grounded in hip-hop.

What do you mean by "break down the notions of the song"?

MoB piece for your own site, Sterling?

Bob Weston is playing the role of Martin Swope for the Mission of Burma shows? Oh man -- there might as well be a Volcano Suns reunion. That'd be GRATE. In the words of Peter Prescott, "WHHHHOOOOO!"

Just to be clear, I don't think the problem with the current cross- breeds is the fact of the crossbreeding, but rather the manner in which it's done. I can think of at least a dozen other ways to intriguingly bridge the gap between rock and hip-hop, and the vast majority of them strike me as more worthwhile than the particular manner these groups have chosen.

Such bands pick up on the aggression of hip-hop and some of the embellishing techniques, but then these are the things that are possibly least unique to hip-hop; they leave behind the textural work, the rhythmic variations, the turn-on-a-dime juxtapositions, even the funk. They pick up on the aggression of rock and some of its embellishing techniques, but they leave behind the better parts of rock as well: the structural work, the dynamics, the melodicism, and the looseness, the way rock can sit back and breathe and stretch its dramatic legs. They've created a juggernaut that effectively combines everything that I hate most about both hip-hop and rock.

Compare with, say, the Beta Band's "One," which I think offers a much more interesting template for rock-meets-hip-hop.

Basically though Nitsuh you don't much like aggressive music, no?

But, then, I realize that Mission of Burma (w/ Martin Swope, or Bob Weston triggering samples & messing with loops behind the scenes) is doing the EXACT SAME THING.

Are you deaf or something? Not to make a bad joke at Roger Miller's expense, but maybe you should invest in some industrial-strength hearing protection if you think Mission of Burma sound ANYTHING like Linkin Park or Limp Bizkit or others of that ilk.

"Doing the exact same thing" and "Sounding the same" aren't the, uh, same.

Oh, come ON now. I wasn't saying that MoB = Linkin Park. (Oh! Such heresy! Everyone knows LP is better because they're YOUNG!) I was just saying that they are both "rock bands" actively using "samples" in their songs (both live and on record). More to come after I fill up on burritos.

"Doing the exact same thing" and "Sounding the same" aren't the, uh, same.

The implication that they sound alike was there. Unless the original poster thinks that having a token DJ scratch records over over- compressed metal and manipulating tapes over punk are the same thing. I didn't think that was the point, because obviously they're not the same thing.

I've only heard the two famous Mission of Burma songs and they weren't particularly impressive. What about Disco Inferno, David?

Perhaps the differences is one between manipulating tapes for sounds and manipulating samples for beats? The problem with rap-rock is that it's very difficult to work out where the hip-hop influence even is, aside from in the vocals, so no I don't think they are conceptually similar.

new kingdom weren't bad were they?

(Tom: Completely right w/r/t aggression. I still think, however, that you're going to have a hard time assembling a very workable product when you're really just matching equivalent parts of different genres without much real tug or tension existing between them -- and you're going to be even worse off if you're pulling the "aggressive" signifiers out of both but then glossing and smoothing them back down so they can fit through the pop conduits of radio and MTV. So, weirdly, if I have a problem with nu-metal's level of aggression, the problem is actually that it isn't aggressive enough: I could probably get more out of this stuff if it was just sick grotty jackhammer buzzing.)

But that actually makes it more disturbing and more attractive to its target market: aggression within the law, so to speak, is often uglier. I think we dismiss the genuine aggressiveness of nu-metal too lightly sometimes (Maura's take on all this was good - how they can be 'fake' but more importantly still 'threatening' in a bad way for her but presumably in a good, fakeness-overriding way for the listeners).

Just noticed something. Sterling, way up top, sez: "MoB uses loops, but then so did The Who." Well, so did a lot of folks - doesn't the mellotron actually play a "looped" sound each time you hit a key? Musically, I don't see much of a difference between playing a loop of a music sample (as in most hip-hop) and repeating a musical motif (such as, interestingly enough, the RHYTHMIC synth parts of "Baba O'Reilly" & "Won't Get Fooled Again"), unless you're hung up on the means of execution or (god forbid) musical authenticity/integrity.

Rock bands don't need to rely on "loops" to provide rhythm, though (unlike in hip-hop, where the beats propelling the songs are often sampled) - the loops provide a texture. They're accessories. That's the point I was trying to get at, comparing those "awful" nu-metal bands with the "much superior" MoB. Linkin Park & Limp Bizkit aren't relying on the DJ to provide the meat of the song; they're just there to accentuate, add flavor (perhaps add a little unwarranted hip- hop "cred"). Martin Swope did the same exact thing for Burma (without, of course, giving them the bling-bling cache).

I'm not about to argue about the worth of any of these bands, because that has little at all to do with my point. I just found it interesting that, by following entirely different paths, DJ Lethal & Mr. Swope find themselves as strange bedfellows.

(The affectation regarding scratching as a hip-hop signifier is interesting, though. Understandable on all levels. The reason I've a bit of a smirk on my face is because the best scratching I can recall hearing in quite a while is on Rage Against the Machine's "Bulls on Parade".)

And, no, Tom, I haven't had the pleasure (I hope) of hearing any D.I. as of yet. I'm hoping Ned can fix that for me, though.

That error is being rectified, David. However, this statement:

the newest Incubus album is much better than the guilt-by-association would have folks believe

...is unfortunately in error. I think you meant to say, "the newest Incubus album is plagued by a grotesquely self-loving singer who thinks he is terribly deep, backed by an anonymous band, so that way you really don't have to worry about the guilt-by-association stuff because who cares?" Yes, that scans much better. To me at least. ;-)

Jesus, Ned, can you contribute something to the discussion that doesn't involve being TOTALLY subjective and Ned-like? You lovable kook, you.

Something not subjective? *thinks* The use of instrumentation beyond the 'traditional rock band format' is something to note.

PLEASE DO NOT LISTEN TO THE BETA BAND.

Ned, I apologize. Be as subjective as you'd like. ;)

Which songs did you download, Tom? "Revolver" & ...?

Gage, God bless you, you brave soul.

A punk/metal/pseudo-rap band from Puerto Rico called Puya does some of the poppiest jam-rap-metal hybrid I know, but they won't be winning any converts: they're not daring or anything, just kinda snappy. I think the problem is that there aren't many really hard bands who have any interest in hip-hop. If the guys from Emperor could be persuaded to add some decks, it would be interesting, and who knows? They just broke up, and members of Really Big Bands (Emperor qualifies, within the black metal genre, as Truly Monolithic) sometimes do interesting things after the band breaks up.

Or else they make "McCartney."

Ahh, but Gage and John: Imagine stripping ten tracks off of the disappointing/tedious Hot Shots and replacing them all in the image of the album-closing "One." I would buy that. Whereas I would probably not buy Hot Shots again, given the opportunity to remake that decision.

PLEASE LISTEN TO THE BETA BAND

it must be a bleak world one must live in with no betas.

I would like Hot Shots II vastly less if it ended with "One" (which was a B-Side here) - partly cause ending with "Eclipse" rounds off the record so well, partly because "One" is a bit of a Frankenstein's Monster. It sounds essentially like a fairly listless indie band covering an outtake from the last Scritti Politti album, whereas all the rest of Hot Shots II sounds like an up-to-the-minute take on the kind of stoner riddle-grooves Julian Cope used to be quite good at, or Faust in their more linear moments. i.e. it is ace and "One" is not.

Or to put it more crudely, having a rapper guest on one of your tracks is surely no longer "an interesting template for rock meets hip-hop"?

Ned, I apologize. Be as subjective as you'd like. ;)

I am glad we have settled this conundrum.

I am heartily with Tom here re: "Eclipse," though I don't mind "Won" at all. Nonetheless, in dismissing the rest of the album, Nitsuh has alas been consumed by demons, and yet I love him so.

I'm with Fred on "Won" - it's a great break from the album. It provides a good way of restarting it after the final-sounding "Eclipse".

I must admit to not having listened to HS much as a sit-all-the-way- through album, so I can't say a great deal about the flow. I don't mean to "dismiss" the remainder of it so much as to say that I think they've run too far in the opposite direction of the first LP, tightening things up to the point that they lose the Three EPs go-anywhere looseness that I feel is the Beta Band's most unique contribution to modern music. Plus, yeah, a few points seem a little tedious to me. So long as we're talking about it, by the way, what precisely is up with "Squares" faithfully recreating the Definitive Trip-Hop Isaac Hayes Sample of Choice?

As for "Won," I (shockingly) disagree with Tom's characterization of it. (a) The instrumentation has the looseness / liveness / realism of rock but captures the textured grooves of hip- hop quite well, I think, and not purely in a "going back to the common late-70s ancestor" way but more as a tying up of current loose ends; the way it pulses cuts the gap very nicely for me. Plus (b) I really go for the moment at which the rhyming going sing-song and we get the live drum break -- it seems completely natural and yet it's dealing with a hell of a lot of the gap-bridging work to be done between genres, preserving the flow of the hip-hop but employing what is essentially a rock dynamic-shift along with it. (This may be a red herring, but I think this track marries the band aesthetic with hip-hop way better than the sorts of popular-hip-hop-with-live-band live performances one gets on TV -- the caveat obviously being that it's conceived that way, whereas the TV performances have the tougher job of trying to translate tech-based songwriting.) All of this struck me as very interesting to hear, anyhow, and I'd be fascinated to see how the Beta Band would go about making an actual hip-hop record.

Their big contribution to modern music is being hippies?

There aren't enough, y'see.

Mixing the Hard! Rock! with the Hip! Hop!: Official home of the one-sentence Nitsuh smack-down! Nyeah. When I discover the Nobel Prize-winning secret of rock / hip-hop gap-bridging, I will thank ILM in the liner notes but pointedly slag you lot in a footnote.

(You should obviously not hold your breath for this eventuality.)

Tom: unless you want it. (I plan to relate them to Richard Powers "Plowing The Dark" which I am now devouring, which gives it that whole compare/contrast weird shit quirk that IR seems to do so much of)

Will that be a Nobel for peace, physics, literature, chemistry, or economics? (And, footnotes in liner notes? You nerd.)