Posted by tallman at 12:57pm Jul 28 '06For what it's worth, here's one suburban white guy's opinion. I suppose I should not that I'm probably not the steriotypical white boy, so some of these reasons will be specific to me.
1. The music is normally lame and repetitive and the songs are often lyrically focused. This is probably the most peculiar thing about me when it comes to music - I don't listen to lyrics. At least, I don't listen to lyrics at first. I have to really get into the music before I'll get into the lyrics. For the most part, hip hop has a relatively simple musical style that is sung over. The focus is often on the lyrics, and I could care less. Also, the cadence of the way the lyrics are delivered is important to me. I can get into a rock song without know thing lyrics because I sense a lot more emotion in the singing. With rap and hip-hop, I have a harder time. It is for similar reasons that I don't like a lot of Country music. There are, of course, exceptions to this, probably many more than I'm aware. In fact, just 10 minutes ago, a Handsome Boy Modeling School song (The Truth) came up on my iPod (does that count as hiphop?). Also, the impression I get from most hip hop is that I would have a hard time relating to the lyrics even if I did listen to them. This may or may not be the case, but I'm a boring nerdy white guy, so I'm guessing that's part of the reason...
2. There are a bajillion hip-hop radio stations, and they're crowding out the modern rock and indie stations. There are only two modern rock stations left in philly, and both of them spend most of their time on talk radio (plus, their playlists are limited). There's also a classic rock station, but I don't like that one. There are a few borderline stations, but the grand majority are hip hop, and several great stations (Y100, I miss ye) have been replaced by hip hop. Yes, I know, "turn off the radio" which is what I ended up doing. However, the only time I listen to the radio is in the car and for a while my CD player was broken and I couldn't afford an ipod yet, so I had to listen to crap all the time.
3. A more generalized version of #2, at various times in my life, I've been sujected to hip hop whether I liked it or not. It's been my experience that when someone is subjected to something they don't like in such a way, their dislike grows. This is not limited to hip-hop by the way. I have the same feeling about the Dave Matthew's Band. I swear that my colledge assigned roommates so that there would be at least 1 copy of Crash in every room, playing about 70% of the time. At this point in my life, I'm a little more tolerant because it isn't being pushed down my throat as often:)
4. I hate dancing. I just do. And it seems that a lot of hip-hop is based on dancing:P
As I say, I'm a little more tolerant these days, in part because I've branched out musically to all sorts of different styles and whatnot. I'm not an expert on music by any standard though. Nor do I have a particularly large library of music. I'm more of a movie/book kind of guy. I gather, again, that this makes me a bit unusual.
~[private]
1. The music is normally lame and repetitive and the songs are often lyrically focused. This is probably the most peculiar thing about me when it comes to music - I don't listen to lyrics. At least, I don't listen to lyrics at first. I have to really get into the music before I'll get into the lyrics. For the most part, hip hop has a relatively simple musical style that is sung over. The focus is often on the lyrics, and I could care less. Also, the cadence of the way the lyrics are delivered is important to me. I can get into a rock song without know thing lyrics because I sense a lot more emotion in the singing. With rap and hip-hop, I have a harder time. It is for similar reasons that I don't like a lot of Country music. There are, of course, exceptions to this, probably many more than I'm aware. In fact, just 10 minutes ago, a Handsome Boy Modeling School song (The Truth) came up on my iPod (does that count as hiphop?). Also, the impression I get from most hip hop is that I would have a hard time relating to the lyrics even if I did listen to them. This may or may not be the case, but I'm a boring nerdy white guy, so I'm guessing that's part of the reason...
2. There are a bajillion hip-hop radio stations, and they're crowding out the modern rock and indie stations. There are only two modern rock stations left in philly, and both of them spend most of their time on talk radio (plus, their playlists are limited). There's also a classic rock station, but I don't like that one. There are a few borderline stations, but the grand majority are hip hop, and several great stations (Y100, I miss ye) have been replaced by hip hop. Yes, I know, "turn off the radio" which is what I ended up doing. However, the only time I listen to the radio is in the car and for a while my CD player was broken and I couldn't afford an ipod yet, so I had to listen to crap all the time.
3. A more generalized version of #2, at various times in my life, I've been sujected to hip hop whether I liked it or not. It's been my experience that when someone is subjected to something they don't like in such a way, their dislike grows. This is not limited to hip-hop by the way. I have the same feeling about the Dave Matthew's Band. I swear that my colledge assigned roommates so that there would be at least 1 copy of Crash in every room, playing about 70% of the time. At this point in my life, I'm a little more tolerant because it isn't being pushed down my throat as often:)
4. I hate dancing. I just do. And it seems that a lot of hip-hop is based on dancing:P
As I say, I'm a little more tolerant these days, in part because I've branched out musically to all sorts of different styles and whatnot. I'm not an expert on music by any standard though. Nor do I have a particularly large library of music. I'm more of a movie/book kind of guy. I gather, again, that this makes me a bit unusual.
~[private]
Re: "White folks that don't like Hip-Hop" - tallman