The Rhino and Compass, a sports blog
Last night's marathon concert to benefit fire victims in the LA area featured something for everyone, except for country fans. (No shade given, country stars have been showing up in disaster zones in the Southeast all year). I like big events like this, where genres and eras can come together. Even if you aren't a fan of say, Billie Eilish or Green Day, It's still really cool that this happened.
Next time, let's keep the collaborations to the Grammy's and not wait for regional catastrophes.
I think there is a reason that so many people have a fascination with female pop stars, something that goes beyond the infatuation with celebrity. It might be anecdotal, but dreams of singing fame seem more common in little girls than they do in little boys. Again, anecdotal, but it also seems that the boys who become singers seem insufferable and inauthentic. So many pop women, especially when they first arrive on the scene remind people of themselves or at least someone they know.
2024, if you were to label it as the "Year of" anyone, would obviously be Taylor Swift, as it has been through recent memory, but a good choice for second place would be Sabrina Carpenter, who had multiple top 5 hits throughout the year. Obviously, I (nor probably the readership here, I realize) am not the market for either of their music, but here I am with opinions. I find Carpenter far less interesting, musically, than her counterparts.
Carpenter is tied to Olivia Rodrigo through some drama that you are welcome to research on your own time, but for the purposes of this post, Rodrigo is a good contrast to Carpenter. It is clear that Rodrigo has been jilted in the past, and even at 21, has incorporated whatever pain she has felt into her song writing. It's made for better music. It's helped her make the transition from singer to musician. Swift did it too. The artists who resonate, particularly with me, are the ones who you can really feel in their music.
It's great to be joyful, but you don't know true joy or growth without a little pain. Carpenter seems so effervescent, too poppy. Either she's never had a bad day, or she isn't putting enough of herself into her music, both of which are a deterrent to being as good as she could be. She falls into the traps that men have. A lack of authenticity, dragging down likability.
As with all music posts, we all have our own tastes, and nobody is wrong for having things hit your ears the way they do. I like pop music well enough, and this was pretty much written as I tried to figure out why the (second) hottest pop star bothered me. Take it all with a grain of salt, and please, every one -- Have a happy new year
No matter your particular affinity for music, hearing about the premature death of a 31 year old father is a tough thing, a hard bit of news. Obviously, there is the family of Liam Payne, as well as his close friends and collaborators to offer condolences to, but he was in the prime of his career. If you were a fan of Payne, especially one who watched him grow up for nearly 20 years, there is likely a sense of loss that is a little deeper for the future is no longer there.
I know of One Direction, and perhaps more than any group, I know the individual members of the group through their other work. Liam Payne in particular dabbled in a field of music I am more interested in, working with hip hop and R&B artists. This led to the sad thought that Quavo has now seen two of his hit making collaborators cut down too soon. First his real life nephew Takeoff, and now Payne.
So I looked to see if Quavo, formerly of the Migos, had any formal statements or public condolences because I am up later than my wife and was a little bit bored. Nothing from Quavo, but I did see other rappers issue statements or social media posts, like Juicy J, Ty Dolla Sign and Flava Flav. Liam Payne was not only someone who worked with these artists, but he was a fan.
I am a 41 year old white dude from Minnesota, and I have been a rap fan for 20+ years, but I was struck by the English kid being a big fan as well. And I know, and am a big fan of English rappers! But this was still quirky to me, and I know it shouldn't be.
Nevertheless, this post is the result of an internet wormhole I fell in, but in the interests of paying respects to Liam Payne, please enjoy this song, performed by Lol Baby and Central C, rappers from either side of the Atlantic. I presume Payne liked it.
If you haven't been here to listen to my foundational opinions on music in the past, well, here it is. Don't let anyone make you feel bad for liking what you like (unless it's like "I like so and so because they hate [insert group). You can like lyrics, or tempo or emotion or whatever, and all of it hits all of us differently. Our taste in music comes from our background and our own individual tastes, and just because I don't like something doesn't mean either of us are better than the other. To assert otherwise makes you a dick.
With that said, I don't like country music. It doesn't sound right to my ear, and reminds me of my teenage job where I worked in a local hardware store with backwards, racist coworkers. The lyrics are a little too saccharine, and the instrumentation just isn't my favorite.
Ever since "southern rock" was christened, though, there has been crossover, so I am not entirely unfamiliar with the most famous country stars. There are two different types of those stars. There are the country stars that make pop songs or made a couple of pop songs, like Taylor Swift, Chris Stapleton or Maren Morris, but then there are people who have made their own music that just became popular, like Luke Combs, Morgan Wallen or Carrie Underwood.
In some cases, I am impressed. I think Stapleton, for example, has a unique voice that he has used well in his cross over work. I respect Combs' choice of songs to remake, and he has a soft spot with me for how beloved he is in his home town of Boone, North Carolina. People wouldn't stop talking about him when I visited last year.
There is one artist who has popped up on the pop stations a couple of times, who embodies everything that country music can be when it is beautiful. Whenever Kacey Musgraves has emerged from the country station and found a spot in the mainstream, I'm always struck by her ability to make a beautiful song.
Her voice lends itself to the plaintive, empathetic and hurt reflected in the songs that she makes. I'm not even here to tell you that Rainbow or I Remember Everything (if you can get past Zach Bryan) are the perfect songs or anything, but that for the message - which is very different - in both of the songs, Musgrave's vocalizations are perfectly suited.
I can appreciate people when they master their art, even if it isn't a medium I typically enjoy. Lyrics don't grab me as much as vocalization does, and Kacey Musgraves has proven to have that skill mastered.
I like listening to the radio, either over the air or streaming. Over the air is good for listening to baseball, stupid blackout restrictions and whatnot, but streaming opens up the world. I like listening to the local stations because they are one of the few bastions of community left in the world, but I also like to listen to streams from across the country, and across the world.
I was listening to BBC 1 recently, getting a taste of England. English and American musical taste is parallel but not the same. Often, English artists come to the States and are very successful, and often the alternate is true. The BBC 1 crew was discussing this phenomenon and specifically their surprise at a pair of artists not hitting in the US like they did in the US.
The first was Estelle, who I had indeed heard of. She has charted twice in the States, once with American Boy, a top ten song that featured Kanye West. It was #1 on the UK charts, and peaked at #9 in the US. She also featured on Conquerer, which gained acclaim after being covered with Jussie Smollett on Empire. She's had a steady career in Europe, and was the first artist signed to John Legend's label. All of the signs were there for some American success. I mean, her first big hit even had "American" in the title.
One thing that you need to succeed in the US, to make a long term impact is to be different. While Estelle is different than a lot of the offerings in the UK market, she had a lot of overlap with many American artists, and came at the end of a surge of R&B popularity. Now 42, it doesn't seem like Estelle needs to worry about diversifying her audience, and her peak was just at the wrong time. She had a hit, then disappeared from American charts, like so many similar artists.
The other artist BBC 1 speculated on was Stormzy. Stormzy has never had a song chart in the US, but if you have watched any movie that took place in the UK, I'm sure you have heard his voice. Stormzy is undoubtedly the best English rapper, if not one of the most prolific. His sound has become intrinsically tied to the action and toughness of modern London.
It's not hard to figure out why Stormzy is popular. His flow is one of the most technically sound I've heard. The tracks he raps on are catchy and well suited for his lyrics and inclusion in whatever Guy Ritchie movie he is on the soundtrack for. Most importantly, he is inarguably English.
What makes him great in England is probably what limits Stormzy in the US. Sure, he is gifted and talented, but what sells a lot of hip hop artists to their audience is their relatability and authenticity. "Too big for your boots, but you'll never be too big for the boot" is a well crafted threat in England that doesn't make much sense to an American audience. "Got holes in my lapel/ from rubbing shoulders with your girl" would not rhyme when sung by a North American.
Stormzy might as well be an alien. Americans can accept a Canadian that sounds like them (Drake) but having someone use vernacular that is totally foreign to the audience just doesn't work. It doesn't connect, when for many people it is lyrics that attract them to an artist or a song. If you are familiar with English slang and admire artistry, Stormzy is a hit, but that doesn't reflect the American audience writ large.
Estelle and Stormzy are rightfully popular in England, and anyone that is open minded and willing to seek them out will probably enjoy them, especially if you like R&B or hip hop. Popularity in England speaks to talent, but it doesn't always translate across the Atlantic. Both artists simply had barriers to trans-Atlantic success that they haven't and probably won't overcome.
