Anybody Understand Drake?

[Wahoo Redux]

Okay, so I am old enough to remember the irritation---nay, indignation, nay outrage---of my parents (who came of age during the Eisenhower era) whenever the subject of Rock'n'Roll came up.  Rock music and style were an effrontery to everything they believed in, and they simply could not understand why anyone would listen to that "noise." 

I once asked my father to listen to one of my favorite Heavy Metal bands (I forget which one) without any "preconceived notions," and he listened and described it as "like dishes being broken."

Both predicted that R'n'R would die a precipitous death and that "the Crooners" would make a come back.

Well, that certainly didn't happen.  But it does provide a good window into how pop-culture moves and evolves / devolves in the Western World.  The younger generation's entertainment heroes and heroines are the elder generation's perplexity.

Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi (gag!), Guns'n'Roses, Green Day, the Ramones and a few other elder acts seem to have weathered the storm of history and still appear to be musical mainstays with a whole new audience of young people (I observed a young man jogging the other day while listening to AC/DC), so some pop-music survives.

Then out of curiosity I tried listening to Drake.  Hmmmmm...I think it is a sign that I am heartily into Middle Age...but I just don't get it. 

His work sounds like a lot of melody fragments auto-tuned to a drum machine and a few basic chords on a synthesizer followed by a series of bad 4-beat rhyming couplets.  If I didn't know better, I would have said he is a guy without any musical training who records stuff in his basement apartment with the help of a Casio keyboard, burns it onto CDs, and then tries to sell it to strangers at gas stations.

Yet Drake is pulling down #1 hits and #1 albums, getting awards, and setting record sales; all the kids seem to really dig him.

Anybody listen to Drake?  Maybe you have kids who listen to this stuff?  What gives?  Why?

[Sun_Worshiper]

Then out of curiosity I tried listening to Drake.  Hmmmmm...I think it is a sign that I am heartily into Middle Age...but I just don't get it. 

I think you're answering your own question here. My parents thought the music I listened to was garbage (and in retrospect some of it was), their parents thought the music they listened to was garbage, and so on.

As for Drake, can't say I've heard much of his music, but my sense is that he hits the sweet spot of rapping well and doing it over radio-friendly production. That seems to be a hard balance to strike, as the great rap lyricists have often struggled achieve sustained commercial success.

[Wahoo Redux]

Yeah, I get that dynamic.

I am an eclectic listener (at least I like to think so).  I spent the afternoon cleaning the kitchen and listening to Philip Glass' masterpiece Akhenaten and then Billy Idol.  I like LMFOA, Beyonce (at least "Single Ladies") and Psy (at least "Gangnam Style" ), and while Adele and Billie Eilish are a bit overproduced for my taste, I can see why people listen to them. 

As always with pop-culture, I wonder how much musical taste is dictated by the phenomena of persona.