Will trip-hop survive?

I don't think trip-hop music as a music genre ever really died. The reason is because I don't think it as a music genre it ever really existed.

To me it seems as though it was applied to a particular style of sound that never took off to be come socially accepted. It seems to more of a type of globally cultural sound that hasn't been integrated into most recognizable music interest groups.

Trip Hop is a lot of different things to a lot of people. And it hasn't even been distinguished amongst it's performers or listeners as to what it even is. A lot of what we think of as Trip Hop acts, primarily I mean what we think of as pioneers, don't think of themselves as Trip Hop artists. I've never heard Portishead refer to themselve's as a Trip Hop act, and Tricky's always as I've seen from himself and his people has just been a British Rapper. But we view them very differently that I'm sure they are aware of.

From what it seems to me it is as though anyone who's slowed down a beat, and been "different", has been classified as trip hop. It's only been very recently that artists have been striving to really place themselves in this 'genre'.

That being the case I don't think it'll not survive. Artist are now able to conceptualize and state this different music form that they lean towards and want to perform. Previously they just had no real category to put it in.

I think that artists are now being able to do that. You have people like Muggs of Cypress Hill who has had this affinity towards a specific sound that had no real recogonizable outlet. I read in a magazine (I think it was Rolling Stone) that he said he want to make a Trip Hop album and finally had the opportunity do just that. Though his album was not real accepted he did make mention that it was something he was drawn to and have always wanted to produce. In a bunch of Cypress Hill's music you can here it, he just was never really able to let go and do it. I think that we're now in the time period that the genre will be somewhat defined. And as much as it disheartens me I think that eventually it'll be comerciallized, soon it may become a station of it's own to the mainstream. But we may be able to see some good from this. New and existing artists may now come to fruition in this because they can actually surivive at producing the form of music they like. Hopefully through that, the people whom we think of as the pioneers of this form will come to be recoginized as one of the "Greats" in more social circles and it could be understood more.

It's now in the stages just like Rap in the early eighties, Grunge/Alternative, in the ninties, and now Alternative Rap+Rock being to being recognized. Who know's, the next 5 to 10 years can become the years of what we think of as when Trip Hop made it and became known for what it is.

But at the moment it's much to broad to not survive or to thrive. It just is this outlet for people who don't know what else to be but they just have this "sound".

Define Portishead, they are these people who just are but describe them in common everyday genres. What are they?

Why do you think Morcheeba constantly say that they are just a pop band?

(by RJay)

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