Watching Vh1 soul and they’re showing some of those old classic videos.  SWV, Musiq Soulchild, Eve’s first video, old Dre videos.  Took you back to simpler times, when just being on television was a big deal and music videos and music in general actually had somewhat of a meaning to it.

For one the Neo-Soul artists are always reminiscent for a different time in life and to tap into the vibe of those records you have to go back to the old soul artists like Gloria Scott, Hank Crawford, Lamont Dozier, Bobby Caldwell and others.  There was this one woman that had a picture of herself holding an ice cream cone, I can’t place her name for anything, but upon searching for Biggie samples I came across P.S.K., one of my favorite records of all time fro Schooly D.

There is something to be said about simple music with simple lyrics absent of audio samples or synthesizers that are passed off as being original but really creative interpretations of someone elses work.  Too often I hear Prince, Michael Jackson, New Wave or some blantant rip off of arabian, persian or french pop music from producers that are supposed to be original.

If you listen to P.S.K. he isn’t saying much, but he is communicating volumes.  While later rappers like Rakim took lyricism to the fringe edges of abstraction, never to be taken quite so far since, Schooly D gave it to you upfront, yet caused you to look inbetween the lines for it’s true genius.  The same is true of Rappin’ Duke, or Audio Two, those were simple, mindless songs that you can listen to millions of times, but you can walk away with something new almost each and every time.

Today rap hides behind complex production from fruity loops or some drum machine yet the artists themselves, with all of the lyrical complexity even the worst artist signed can deliver, will never match the timelessness of those early lyrics.  It isn’t because it was new then, it’s because they understood tried and true fundamental approaches to poetry and songwriting that today’s artists will never quite get.  It wasn’t because those artists were hungry because in those days there was no real payoff for being a great rapper; if you were a commercial artist you might sell 2 million, but no one was reaching the mainstream at that time.

I shouldn’t even be able to appreciate P.S.K. today.  So why am I riding around with all of these records burned to CD?  Because there was an authenticity then to music that you can’t duplicate these days.  Sure I like The Roots, and Chrisette Michelle, Angela Stone, Jennifer Hudson and so on and so forth.  But 15 years from now I won’t be listening to any of those records; it’s a wonder I still listen to The Roots now.

Too much of it is consciousness for consciousness’ sake.  Being conscientious alone doesn’t make a classic record, it just makes a record you’re not ashamed to have your children or your mother listen to.  It just makes a record you can listen to as a Christian with a clear conscious, but it doesn’t make a classic record.  Speaking of Christian music, can you compare anyone’s current material with Tomorrow by The Winans, or even crossover records like Jesus Is Love?

Some songwriters still understand this, and they can deliver the goods.  Most of American Idol’s Kelly Clarkson’s material will stand the test of time, so will Jesus Take The Wheel, Listen by Beyonce, and songs like Hollaback Girl that were pop fluff at the time but had overly simplistic lyrics that meant nothing and everything at the same time.  It wasn’t really the beats, but the pairing of nice lyrics with nice beats that made for a great song.

Gwen Stefani has been trying desperately to duplicate what she did on Hollaback Girl to no avail.  Musically, it was rather easy to accomplish, but the timelessness of those lyrics is something that you can’t force.  That’s what made L.A.M.B. a classic album. 

I love my seventies and eighties music, then again I’m sick of listening to it as a replacement for the void in today’s market.  Purists will tell you that music died sometime in the seventies as the commercialization of music through the music video changed the scene.  I’m apt to agree with them; the older I get, the further back my music is reaching, I couldn’t appreciate a cut like Ribbon In The Sky as a child but it really stands out now; those Earth Wind and Fire records have new meaning.

Why isn’t anyone writing like that, and worse yet, why can’t any of today’s producers actually craft timeless beats from scratch?  You know how aggravating it is when some of your favorite songs, like Alliyah’s More Than A Woman are shown to be directly linked to Arabic pop music; a simple replacement of acoustic strings with synthesizers with little added to it.  You also know how rembarrassing it is to see producers fight with artists and each other over concepts that weren’t that deep to begin with, like ripping off tracks from an old Commodore 64 program.

Music has changed, and with it I have changed as well, but in a different direction than I ever would have imagined …