Lyrics in Music

Hey everyone my name is Chris Reid, you can call me Topher (I find it makes the common name of Christopher a little more unique, thanks to Topher Grace for the idea lol), Enough about my name and on to the music. My blog is as the title states is goanna be a collision course I will talk about both rock and hip hop. The first topic I want to discuss is lyrics, this is something that is very close to my heart as I have just began to write songs myself. With regards to hip hop I feel like this is a skill that is not being broadcast to main stream culture. The rap we hear now involves catchy beats and chorus’s with a dance with the intent to get you hooked not stimulate your mind. While I understand these songs are needed, because otherwise I would have nothing to dance to at a club, which means no dancing with girls which is kind of a big deal. But this does not need to be all we hear where are the songs with substance and meaning? Long gone are the days of KRS ONE, Rakim, among many others who made rap not something to just to dance to but poetry to listen to. Another example is someone most people probably know very well, the star of the flavour of love, Mr. Flavour Flav. While someone of you see him now as a foolish reality star flav use to be the front man to the group public enemy, a group whose lyrics had deep political roots which made you think. On the rock side I think a lot of people don’t know about how deep the lyrics are in rock songs. A lot of the time people who don’t listen to rock, who hear it don’t take the time to listen to it and hear what they are saying, but if they did they would see deep meanings. An example is the group Billy Talent, they create songs with meanings behind them with lyrics that are poetic in nature, songs like devil in midnight mass, and from their new album saint veronica. I want to give you hip hop fans some homework, go out and listen to some rocks songs, really listen, and you might like what you hear. Now I can’t leave the hip hop world devastated with my bash on their lyrics so I will end with a little pick me up for my hip hop fans. When I write about the state of lyrics in hip hop I don’t mean to say all hip hop is like this, there are many examples of artist with good lyrics, such as common, Talib Kweli, Lupe Fiasco, even artist like Lil Wayne and Kanye West I feel have the talent to make songs with classic lyrics but don’t always exercise that option. My point is this is not what is being heard, this is not what the mainstream culture hears when they listen to rap. I would like this to change, I want people to understand that hip hop can be poetry, that artist can write about more than money and materialism. So would all my real MC’s please stand up! I would like to end by stating this is my opinion and i realize people will disagree, so post your comments and tell me what you think. Until next time this has been your collision course for the week.