Random Journal

I now work at a gym, so I've been listening to the radio a lot, which is set to this one station which is playing pretty much modern Hip-hop hits. I know I might seem like a J-pop lover right now but in actuality I listen to pretty much every musical genre available, and I'm always looking to explore deeper and deeper into every genre, and hip-hop is no exception. In fact, I used to dance in a Hip-Hop dance crew before coming to College, but I'm getting side tracked here.

I don't like the hits that are coming on the radio today, but to be fair I do like a song or two from the modern hits. From this particular radio station, I don't like any of the songs they play, and a lot of them I've heard before in parties so it seems that is definitely a radio station that will focus on what the youth is listening to. Does that make them bad? No. Does that make the songs bad? Not at all. The fact that the songs are bad makes them bad. It's every lazy auto-tune and loops I've heard before and they all seem to sound the same. Seriously, I listen to this station for about 3 hours every time I work, and always, at some point (not right away) I ask myself "wait, didn't they play this already"? And I out of all of people know best that not all songs in a musical genre sound the same, I refuse to believe that's true (unless proven otherwise) because I listen to Japanese Music and Metal, probably the 2 genres that are accused the most of "sounding the same" and that's not true. As an avid listener and musician I know that is not true. But this radio station is kind of making me doubt my belief on Modern Hits. Besides, the songs never seem to last more than 2 minutes... What the hell is up with that? I know some of these songs are 5 minutes long because (again) I've heard them before.


Also, I went and participated in a Talent Show not long ago (it might be a different Story, but it kinda ties in with my problem with the radio station), and this guy came up stage and performed an original song. Cool! He said he wrote a rap song. Oh... this is going to be interesting. Rap is hard not because of the vocalization, but because I feel is one of those genres that you need a certain "groove" to make it work like Blues, Funk, and Soul. Also, the lyrical composition has to obviously require to have a flow and a rhyme. So, this was going to be interesting, however... It had no flow, no rhyme and he definitely lacked the "groove". It was too "modern". Modern rap seem to have decayed into too much techno and lazy lyrics (and I mean LAZY. Like, barely any fast raps, and some times not even "moderate speed rap") and yeah, it pretty much sucked. I admire his attempt and bravery of performing an original song, but if he is going to, he is going to be judged like any other performer.