drizzle wrote:you guys are overthinking it
it's not a gamechanger or even anything particularly original, but it doesn't need to be. sit outside when its nice, drink and/or burn a little, and it hits the spot well.
OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!You're right! How did I not get that???? Outside, drinking, smoking, relaxation .... it's all so clear now.
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Anyway, I didn't overthink it at all. I played it and it bored the shit out of me. Music that requires you to iron your best gold toe socks, crack some fine merlot, wax your jaunty mustache, confirm your Expedia travel package to Singapore on your luxury Android phone, and finally strike the perfect listening pose in an Eames chair in preparation to listen ... now that's overthinking!
I enjoy how Curren$y and to a lesser extent Fiend have taken Camp-Lo's nearly robotic aesthetic fixations and molded them into a type of music that is less technically impressive but more human and authentic despite its obvious contrivances. Its cool, and it's an unsurprising form of escapist indulgence at a time when working class and middle class people are rapidly losing ground.
But as a growing trend, it is already becoming kind of tired. Partly because Expedia-Yacht-Escapist rap is music of evasion. It's cool, distant, affected to a fault. It is frozen in time, just like Camp-Lo's original incarnation; the culture at large will move beyond it quickly. It offers very little in the way of memorable personalities or songs that stick with you, because it focuses almost exclusively on the trappings of the imagined jetset lifestyle. And in the really long run, that's not enough. Rap is not that easy listening genre that its misguided defenders make it out to be to avoid holding anyone accountable for its content.
We still listen to "C.R.E.A.M." long after we've stopped giving a fuck about kung-fu flicks, Wild Irish Rose, or comic books. "Expedia Rap" doesn't have those other qualities that last for the long run, it doesn't produce a song like "Regrets" because such a song runs counter to its fixation. So, while I agree that the artists that Cool H listed aren't exactly alike, they share a certain fixation with "lifestyle" to the detriment of a pretty long list of intangibles that matter.
Not an attack on anyone's tastes, listen to whatever gets you through the day, but in my view, the whole concept has already been diluted and wasn't a very bright idea to begin with.
