Is It Possible To Drop A Universal Classic In Today's HipHop?

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I dont think so cause the Album era is pretty much over. Attention spans are getting shorter by the day

People only care about albums by the biggest artists and even those are mostly forgotten after about two weeks

Like how many rap albums in the last ten years had a lasting impact or came close to being a classic? Cant think of any
 
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Not really and I dont think there ever has been. There's not really 1 album all people agree is a classic. Shit I've seen people say Thriller is overrated
 
Duwop said:
This right here.

Plus too many trolls and folks looking to rage bait for engagement.

People will disagree just to have someone to talk to.
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Hate is monetized now because of confirmation bias. You can create a whole lane and market for yourself off of hating one person or thing if enough other people hate that person or thing too.
 
Goldie said:
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1. Cop out for artist not being able to pull it off. If the vast majority of people that know your work view it as a classic, it's mostly likely is.

2. Nothing done but a rapper under the age of 40 have put out anything on the level of a classic.
 
Freeman said:
Hate is monetized now because of confirmation bias. You can create a whole lane and market for yourself off of hating one person or thing if enough other people hate that person or thing too.
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And it goes both ways. Like say I create content, and I say some dumb shit.

You share my content saying "look at this dumb shit" and then absolutely go in on me.... And your followers also share my shit to talk about how dumb my shit was.

There's no incentive for me to stop saying dumb shit, cuz everybody that reshared it got me paid in the process. You essentially profit from your haters.
 
GOAT said:
Cole needa just go ahead and do a collab album with Drake
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I need him to do a mixtape with Kendrick first like they were supposed to drop a long time ago around Thanksgiving



Then an album with Wale (they seemed to always be cool, kind of)
Wale
Tems
Jill Scott

I want these 4 to make an album together, even add OutKast.

He said he would work with Meek Mill on Carmelo’s podcast (at the very end)
 
I was watching Bomani's show and this guest that day said something to the effect that CDs hurt music and digitizing music took it even further. It sounds crazy, but I get what he was saying. Basically, before CDs, you had media like tapes and vinal and skippin a song was harder. So you were prone to listening to albums straight through and over time even some songs you didn't like got the chance to grow on you. Nowadays, people can get an album and pick and choose what songs they want to hear, so many people never really get the whole picture.

In that way, I think it can be harder to have an album recognized as a classic. People aren't going to consider it a classic if they just strip the five songs they like the most and only listen to those.
 
A few things spring to my mind and I feel a little torn over it... A few of my rambling thoughts...

I cant remember the last album that I thought was a classic classic in the traditional sense... like an album that I felt really strongly and passionate and obsessive about, whereas their were loads when I was younger... Is that down to my age??? For example did dudes nearing 40yr love AEOM, RTD or Doggystyle etc as much as teenagers and dudes in their 20s???

Also one criticism I have with new albums, is that too many sound like mixtapes and not albums crafted by an artist(s) and a producer... Theres way too many producers and features on a project and theres not enough cohesiveness, concepts and themes...

Theres also waaaaaaaaay too many releases now to really sit with an album and appreciate it, as result of this fast food music culture and also how easy it for ANYONE to record... the quality has dropped and potentially great artists get lost through the cracks...

This also leads me to think that there are just too many distractions for anyone, especially kids, to sit with an album (or a trend)... when I was younger we sat with albums for ages and played it over again and again... Now an album is discarded in days or weeks... This goes for movies and other forms or entertainment too, not just music...

Not to sound bitter or washed but imo another massive factor in the lack of quality, compared to 'back in the day', is artists previously had to hone their craft, pay their dues and really dedicate their time, energy, sacrifice and grind to get out there... Often their albums were a result of blood, sweat and tears from that grind... not a result of having a spare few minutes to record whilst waiting for their UberEats...

The greats treated music as their passion and their only 'thing' that they did... They had practice their craft repeatedly, be it rap, guitar, drums, sax etc and couldnt treating it as a hobby or a thing the side... The kids that treated it as a hobby rarely made it out their basement or block back in the day, now they have a platform... So naturally the quality drops off...
 
I think its possible. But others in here have made some valid points.

The generation after us dont listen to music like we did/still do. When we were kids, we had CDs and tapes. Our parents had tapes/vinyl records.

The kids after us grew up with downloading/streaming. I dont know one person younger than me that listens to full albums like I do. They pick and choose their favorite songs and Spotify will make a Playlist and throw random songs at them. They dont sit down and listen to a artists full album and hear everything the artist is trying to say

I think a lot of artists understand that too because outside of a select few rappers, most albums that are released these days just sound like glorified mixtapes. Just a compilation of songs.
 
Water Ur Seeds said:
A few things spring to my mind and I feel a little torn over it... A few of my rambling thoughts...

I cant remember the last album that I thought was a classic classic in the traditional sense... like an album that I felt really strongly and passionate and obsessive about, whereas their were loads when I was younger... Is that down to my age??? For example did dudes nearing 40yr love AEOM, RTD or Doggystyle etc as much as teenagers and dudes in their 20s???

Also one criticism I have with new albums, is that too many sound like mixtapes and not albums crafted by an artist(s) and a producer... Theres way too many producers and features on a project and theres not enough cohesiveness, concepts and themes...

Theres also waaaaaaaaay too many releases now to really sit with an album and appreciate it, as result of this fast food music culture and also how easy it for ANYONE to record... the quality has dropped and potentially great artists get lost through the cracks...

This also leads me to think that there are just too many distractions for anyone, especially kids, to sit with an album (or a trend)... when I was younger we sat with albums for ages and played it over again and again... Now an album is discarded in days or weeks... This goes for movies and other forms or entertainment too, not just music...

Not to sound bitter or washed but imo another massive factor in the lack of quality, compared to 'back in the day', is artists previously had to hone their craft, pay their dues and really dedicate their time, energy, sacrifice and grind to get out there... Often their albums were a result of blood, sweat and tears from that grind... not a result of having a spare few minutes to record whilst waiting for their UberEats...

The greats treated music as their passion and their only 'thing' that they did... They had practice their craft repeatedly, be it rap, guitar, drums, sax etc and couldnt treating it as a hobby or a thing the side... The kids that treated it as a hobby rarely made it out their basement or block back in the day, now they have a platform... So naturally the quality drops off...
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I agree with the bold

I was just thinking along the lines of this, 40 year olds wasn't bumping rap music back then, not your average black male. nor female. We're talking 95-96.

The gap is bigger nowadays, meaning an artist would have to get approval from your 14–50-year-old for an album to be deemed as a universal classic (rap wise) stamped as that one because you now have a lot of cats in their 40s still checking for rap music.

The artist today can't really appeal to a collective of people in that age range. 14-50 years old. Youngboy is the hottest rapper out right now, but if you ask someone who is 30 and up that's not from the South or even someone that lives in the south that's over 30, if he has classic songs or albums, they will look at you sideways or say that they don't listen to dude. But ask someone under 20 or 24, if he has classic albums, from any region, you may get a different answer, now do we say or not say he has a classic album????

I say going by the question, now, because He can't reach the now 30-year-old who was listening to rap at 13 in the 90s or 80s and get stamped as having a classic album or albums.


Snoop Dog and older artists, didn't have to too much worry about reaching that 30 and up crowd to have their albums stamped as classics, they just needed the majority of that under 30 crowd to stamp their album.

If someone ask how many classic albums does TI have? Folk would say Trap Musik, At that time, did you have folks over 40 bumping rap music, not quite yet in a sense, maybe a few
 
Knock_Twice said:
I agree with the bold

I was just thinking along the lines of this, 40 year olds wasn't bumping rap music back then, not your average black male. nor female. We're talking 95-96.

The gap is bigger nowadays, meaning an artist would have to get approval from your 14–50-year-old for an album to be deemed as a universal classic (rap wise) stamped as that one because you now have a lot of cats in their 40s still checking for rap music.

The artist today can't really appeal to a collective of people in that age range. 14-50 years old. Youngboy is the hottest rapper out right now, but if you ask someone who is 30 and up that's not from the South or even someone that lives in the south that's over 30, if he has classic songs or albums, they will look at you sideways or say that they don't listen to dude. But ask someone under 20 or 24, if he has classic albums, from any region, you may get a different answer, now do we say or not say he has a classic album????

I say going by the question, now, because He can't reach the now 30-year-old who was listening to rap at 13 in the 90s or 80s and get stamped as having a classic album or albums.


Snoop Dog and older artists, didn't have to too much worry about reaching that 30 and up crowd to have their albums stamped as classics, they just needed the majority of that under 30 crowd to stamp their album.

If someone ask how many classic albums does TI have? Folk would say Trap Musik, At that time, did you have folks over 40 bumping rap music, not quite yet in a sense, maybe a few
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Its strange one, as I dont think theres a right or wrong answer here... Like theres defo way more older hip hop fans now, more than ever and I guess it will continue to grow... Though with music and trends changing faster than ever, it also means generations get washed faster than ever too...

Regarding T.I's 'Trap Muzik', I mean you defo had older heads into hip hop back then, dudes like Stretch & Bobbito, Sway, Kay Slay, Flex where in and around their 40s at the time although they may had viewed it the same way we view YoungBoy and that style of rap???
 
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