I've been recording much hip hop and rap lately using samples and loops. Which of course leads to flopping about flailing and sobbing because I'm old and have completely lost sight of my weenie. Both mentally and physically. I mean, on the physical side, with a full array of mirrors I can often spot the elusive little pecker for a rousing game of hide the toast, but mentally, it's gone like Fort Mcmurray. Big fire, smoking ruin. So I sez to myself, "Self," I sez, "Where in the by golly heck could I go bitch about music and singed weenies without alienating potential customers?" To which I replied, "Why self, that blog thing! Nobody ever reads that!" So here I am. I was a few nasty paragraphs into my old samples rant when I had this epiphanic brain fart and three things occurred to me: 1) That's called production. 2) Ranty Mcfrantic was repeating himself yet again, and 3) After years of tired explanation from the fairer sex it turns out they were right, I do have my head up my ass, and 4) That's called production. BTW, I use samples regularly because they sorta sound like real instruments and most musicians can't afford a horn section or drummer or string section. there are also times when a bit of looped percussion in the background helps the groove. And of course much hip hop stuff uses sounds that can only be created on a computer. It's the new reality and I'm okay with it, just not enough to stop typing. However, having already wasted so much valuable internet real estate pissing and moaning about samples and loops, I figured this time I'd try something different and have a guest blogger in to see what they think. Unfortunately exploring the miseries of music is a often a solitary pursuit. Hencely, friendless and alone, I asked my only companion here in the Room Of Pain if it wouldn't mind doing this week's blog post. So without further ado, may I present a small brown stain on my shirt. - Hello. I am a molecule of tomato soup. My adventures began as a genetically modified tomato in Mexico. After being picked by a friendly migrant worker I traveled across North America hitching rides on trucks and riding the rails, similar to Jack Kerouac but without the drinking and jazz bars. One day the great and wise Campbell Soup Company found me and introduced me to my destiny. After much scientific processing and rendering, I emerged borg-like as a tomato soup molecule. Bursting with vitality and sporting chiseled tomato abs, I was cryogenically prepped and hermetically sealed into a time capsule. After canning I was then placed on a shelf to await my chance at sustaining human kind, thus enabling the continuation of human accomplishment. Perhaps even helping humans and tomatoes alike to explore new galaxies. Space dudes need soup too. I had purpose and vision. I was quite looking forward to doing my part as an important cog in the wheel of destiny. Imagine my anticipation when I was bought and carried home! I was fulfilling my life's purpose! I would be consumed by the grand vision! Serious molecule wood. Sadly, the human sloppily shoveling my brethren and I into his gaping maw was a recording engineer. I was splashed onto his shirt collar and here I've sat for months, my destiny diverted while I sit here dried and dejected listening to this gooberhead mixing hip hop and rap. Unfulfilled, I die! ... I die. -TSM Tune in next week when my guest blogger will be a little plastic thingy from the junk drawer that looks like it belongs to something, with musical performances by the acapella group The Monitor Sneeze Spots. Anyways, as I was saying... Hip hop and rap sounds are musically irritating. In top forty hip hop there is officially only one hihat sample and one kick sample to be used... ever. And don't forget the snare must always be that retarded hand clap sample. These samples must be programmed in such a way that no drummer could ever play it to ensure the digitazered stamp of officialness. There must be bowel humping extended bass for maximum extension beyond the vehicle so all may admire the depth of disaffection. All sounds in the treble spectrum must be in the digital ice pick frequencies and of such low bit rates that they will induce bleeding ears and vomiting at any volume. You must wait for a very long time to drop the bass, then it must be taken away at the most inopportune moments for maximum irritation. Any variation on any of these well established industry standards will be met with complete indifference from fashionista sheep everywhere. This is called production. All top 40 driven musical styles or genres have their production stamps that must never stray from the industry approved official sound. The sounds define the genre. If you want to be successful in jazz or rap or blues or country or whatever, you have to sound like everybody else in that genre. Top 40 country has it's southern twang pickup truck vocal style. Metal has an industry approved clicky kick sound. Stand up bass is jazz and blues stamped. Everything you hear in the top forty of any given genre is all the same specific official sounds. This is why styles you're not into sound like cookie cutter crap, but if you dig the genre then the standard sounds are cool. This is getting worse these days because the industry has formulized everything and is stamping it harder all the time as it thrashes around gurgling out it's tragic digital death. Kids have finally found the music that defines them as new and exciting and all cutting edge fuck off old people via sucking the life from the music. Finding the sounds that irritate us gives them the identity and platform from which to get back at us for dropping the ball so hard. Kids have way way much to be pissed off about these days and they need the appropriate accompaniment. Without the bad music vent they might just shoot us all us old idiots who fucked everything up so bad. It may yet happen. I wouldn't blame them a bit. The old idiom of not trusting anyone over thirty as espoused by the hippy sixties still applies. As we get older we either join the ranks of world eaters or hide in the bushes pitifully mewling about the environment, or worse, crawl into our own blanket of bullshit and believe all is wonderful with the world. Keep in mind I'm getting all my worldly expert opinions on hip hop, rap and EDM from top 40 radio. I should have remembered from previous exploration and subsequent rantification that all top 40 in every genre is crap. So then client dude comes in to track some rap using pre-recorded backing tracks he bought online from dizzeebeats.com that contained all the approved samples and sounds. Having thought about all this, I suggest some different sounds, or God forbid, a guitar solo. He's all like "FUCK YEAH MAN LETS TRY SOME SHIT!!!". Then he turned me on to a bunch of very cool rap and hip hop on youtube that strays far from industry approval but is getting many attentions. Not only did I get confirmation that my head is truly up my ass, I also got a measure of how far. So assuming I'm wrong on all my other pre-conceived notions, there's hope for all of us that music is alive and well and evolving along to it's inevitable destiny as the language of the soul. Here's what we did. Cosmic Wifey added some angelic voices and I threw in some whammy guitar stuff and a solo. Production is the sounds and arrangement. All I really wanted to say is break some rules. If you happen to be extremely good looking and have all the money and connections needed for top 40 then by all means, assimilate and join the gasping multitudes of uninspired drivelites spouting loudly at nobody on youtube. If you want to say something musically then think about it before you leap into that industrially homogenized pile of beendere-dundat sounds. Just keep in mind that all signature sounds for any genre are carefully cultivated and are there for very good reasons. Those sounds are what define the genre. New sounds, or new combinations of established sounds, are the snakes and ladders of success. Adding a new sound to any genre is either a snake or a ladder. So think about new sounds but tread carefully. They can hijack a potential song people like and turn it into a song they don't like, or turn a mediocre tune into a great one. Or even start a whole new genre. Music is made up of sound, and the sounds you put in your music should be well considered, because all genres either evolve or go extinct.