IMHO,Vanilla Ice isn't that good at rapping, or hip hop. His raps are simple, and he has no idea how to produce music. He seems to be filled with rage that he cannot get focused into something the rest of us can appreciate as a good work of art. Recently I watched that television show on Vh1,"The Remaking of Vanilla Ice," and realized that he was completely oblivious to the whole idea of the show, which is to make "Vanilla Ice," viable to the youth demographic.
In the show they assembled all these image makers, stylists, personality coaches, and trainers, to make Vanilla Ice "cool" again, like he was in the early ninties for about 10 mins. However, Vanilla Ice was obstinate to the recommendations of the handlers, getting more and more pissed off as they tried to push him into becoming the "Vanilla Ice 2005" package. He has a right to be pissed off, since most of his career the corporate music world, and his own greediness made him one of the living jokes of the 1990s.
But the guy has demons, and alot of heart. Both of those are often sufficient conditions to inspire good music. The whole show, he was complaining that popular music has become more image conscious, and that it is all about the style over the substance. Vanilla Ice has got it right.
Popular music might be irrelevant to you, and your kids, but to millions of the youth, they are really missing out on quality music, which SHOULD expand the mind, and provoke thought. I would agree that the landscape isnt too bleak, with genuinley talented artists like Usher, The Neptunes,Green Day, Bright Eyes and whoever else that is popular. But Paris Hilton, Britney spears, the Simpson sisters, Nick Lachey,Lindsay Lohan and millions of other cloned phonies, have no respect for what the idea of "making music," and it is hurting our youth. These corporations need to stop creating artists, just for the sake of making money. Where are the songs of our generation? Sure Bob Dylan didn't want to be a messiah, but his songs at least seemed to be god given, coming off the sapiness of 50s golden oldies bullshit.
On one hand, you have the beatles, who were corporate stooges, but ended up using their position to artistically further themselves and the landscapte of popular music.
On the other hand you have Elvis, who was always a corporate stooge, but was a great showman and decent singer.
both the Beatles and Elvis created music that was worthwhile. The problem is nowadays MTV and VH1 are not getting kids playing guitar or out creating music on their own. Popular music should inspire a competition of creativity among artists, not a competition for dollars and market value.
The only bright spot in popular music seems to be Hip Hop, but even that is degenerating into a mindless bling blinging. If you listen to 50 cents new CD you will know what I'm talking about.
We have a world to learn from, and hopefully oneday our American Pop music will inspire kids to learn the music of other cultures and create insteresting art as a result. I see a whole musical undiscovered country in Asia, Africa, and the middle east, which could easily be relevant and not delegated to the generic "world music" catagory. I'm still hopeful for a song with the Tabla, Electric guitar, and violin to be on the top of the charts.
I really don't see that as being possible at this point.
Our culture will never progress unless we learn to appreciate good art, and create good art. Let's push the envelope, instead of spending our attention on over produced CDs by Paris Hilton.