Old Man Yells At Cloud

Gene Simmons.

Yeah. He's in the news again. This time talking about whether or not Rap music should be in the Rock 'n Roll hall of fame. He makes two points: 1. It's not my music, I don't like it, it's just spoken word over a beat, and 2. It's not Rock music so why is it in the Rock and Roll hall of fame.

Regular listeners of this blog probably know where I stand on these. For number one: Fuck you, Gene. I don't like your band. but I'll still admit they've done enough influencing to be in the hall. For number two: I mostly agree with you, but I see that the Rock 'n Roll hall of fame has morphed into just straight music hall of fame. And, as Chuck D said in a reply, that's what the nRoll part is for. Plus we'd have to dig into the conversation of what counts as Rock and/or Roll and where to draw the line and I don't want to touch that with a ten foot stick (Rap counts as rock music, Gwar belongs in the folk hall of fame).

My daughter and her boyfriend listen to a lot of Rap music. I'm not a fan. Some is better than others. I do kind of agree with Gene that it's just spoken word over a beat, at least much of the time. Could just write a poem and move on. That said, in no way will I say it's no music. Who am I to judge that? It's generally not my thing but I think it's been widely established by a lot of other humans that it is music. And if we say it isn't, where do we draw that line? It has rhythm. At what point is that rhythm music or not music.

But, Gene never said it wasn't music. He said it's spoken word over a beat and not Rock Roll. Generally, just an old man yelling at a cloud. He did mention that Iron Maiden isn't in the hall of fame which isn't right. But, there's only so much you can fit in there and Wesley Willis still isn't in there.