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No. 10319
I am a little late to this conversation but here goes nothing.
The notion that at this point in time there exists a branch of music that is not "real" is totally asinine. To say that all music produced in the past was %100 quality is to devalue your favorite artists. There was bad, overproduced, pop music with no soul in the 70's just like there is today. Just because Queen made it's music a few decades ago doesn't change the what they actually wrote. Quality of music is not based on medium, style, delivery, or even the tools used to make it. If that were true the landscape of music would never change, we would just play jazz, or rock, or whatever you would deem to be "true" music. The fact that genres such hip-hop, EDM/IDM, or the whole culture of sample based music is a sign of music's progression as an art, not a regression. When you say that a turntable/computer isn't a real instrument you sound just like the people who said the electric guitar in the 30's and 40's. I'm a drummer, I play an acoustic instrument, and the idea that one day drum machines will take over all of music does trouble me. However, does that stop me from enjoying a good Eazy-E album, or devalue what Death Grips are doing? Does it ruin what the underground IDM artists work? Not really. What makes good music, good music, is the composition and not the tools used to create it. I am able to look past the use of samples, drum machines, synths, loops, general use of electronics and see the music for what it really is.
I used to be in the same spot in regards to the tools of production as you are Matthew just a few years ago. Hip-hop was just shallow music for 17 year old white girls, and EDM wasn't fairing any better. Then my friend forced me to sit down and listen to an album, NWA's Straight Outta Compton. While the general sound of the record didn't do a whole lot for me, and in general I really didn't enjoy it on my first listen. I wrote it off as just another bad rap album.However when I dug a little deeper on repeat listens I was shocked by something: the lyrics. Wile they weren't elegant in a traditional sense they were really well thought through. They perfectly painted a picture of what it would be like to be a disenfranchised youth at that point in time. So I dug a little deeper again, but this time into hip-hop in general. I noticed all the things that I loved in punk (my all time favorite genre) were core parts of the hip-hop sound and philosophy, I really couldn't deny that. Flash forward to the present and hip-hop is one of my favorite genres. The fact that all most all hip-hop is sampled doesn't bother me, it's really no different than rock music. The tool a band, collective, or artist uses to make their music will never cover up how good or bad their general songwriting chops are. Even back in the 70's there was a huge difference between Queen, and King Crimson even though they both used the same tools. The same idea rings just as true today as it ever did. To devalue whole genres music just based on the tools they use to make it is nothing but ignorant.
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