Collective: Odd Future

[Dave//Eksvplot]

Crap.

[Marsupialized]

Rap music is stupid music made by stupid people for stupid people to listen to.
I do not find it hard to believe they were stupid.

[steve]

Rap music is stupid music made by stupid people for stupid people to listen to.
I do not find it hard to believe they were stupid.

I don't think they are stupid. They didn't strike me as stupid anyway. They struck me as little self-satisfied asshole scrubs.

[Antero]

rapublicans/

Come on now.

Yea, ouch.

[GrantMcNeilly]

Rap music is stupid music made by stupid people for stupid people to listen to.
I do not find it hard to believe they were stupid.

I don't think they are stupid. They didn't strike me as stupid anyway. They struck me as little self-satisfied asshole scrubs.

Rap is actually the perfect genre for stupid self-satisfied asshole scrubs!

[steve]

Rap is actually the perfect genre for stupid self-satisfied asshole scrubs!

I don't want to paint all rap or rappers with any kind of brush. I'm self-aware enough to know that I'm not in its audience and don't pretend to be, but I don't think people involved in it are any more stupid than other artists, and some of them have proven to be brilliant in one area or another. I don't think Odd Future or their music are stupid. They're probably pretty smart. Smart goes hand-in-hand with cocky, and they're exceptionally cocky.

I just think they're assholes.

[matthewbarnhart]

They played before Superchunk at Pitchfork. They had the backstage area locked down before and after their set, so's we couldn't setup our gear and whatnot. The P4K staff said, "it's probably for the best to avoid the craziness".

[Bernardo]

Are you in this video?

[matthewbarnhart]

Are you in this video?

I am the fat guy with glasses, snacking away.

[Bernardo]

My girlfriend waves to the camera at 0:49, on the right, the other people at the exit are friends too, as is the guy filming.

That same day in the afternoon I did sound for a band in the same stage Superchunk played the night before (Mogi), asshole soundguy wouldn't let me use the 421 on toms because he claimed gringo drummer hit it! I missed both shows due to working, btw.

[matthewbarnhart]

My girlfriend waves to the camera at 0:49, on the right, the other people at the exit are friends too, as is the guy filming.

That same day in the afternoon I did sound for a band in the same stage Superchunk played the night before (Mogi), asshole soundguy wouldn't let me use the 421 on toms because he claimed gringo drummer hit it! I missed both shows due to working, btw.

Oh man, sorry I missed you!

I don't recall using a 421 on the toms, but I didn't communicate with the local crew very much as 1) I don't speak Portuguese and 2) I was vomiting most of the day due to food poisoning.

[Bernardo]

We wouldn't have met, same time, different cities. I've had that kind of work day before (food poisoning + FOH), it's a blast.

[Mark Lansing]

I haven't heard a ton of stuff by Odd Future --I listened to Tyler The Creator's Goblin once through and checked out a few other tunes on line -- but what I have encountered hasn't given me much motivation to seek out more. They're young guys who think it's cool to shock and annoy people, and I suppose on some level they do that. But if you think that makes them punk rock somehow, well, so were The Plasmatics, and they sucked, too -- Odd Future's beat-making skills leave me pretty solidly unmoved. They want me to think they do a lot of drugs, they hate women, they hate gays and will kick my ass if I get in their way. Which is to say they're hip hop's new answer to Lee Ving. If that's the best they can do for a role model, they've got a good eighteen months before they're thoroughly irrelevant.

[Antero]

OF is punk/disruptive because of what they do/are, not because they (specifically Tyler, 'cause most of them don't) say "shocking" things. No one who actually listens to rap in any serious fashion has any right to pretend that they're shocked by anything Tyler's said.

I mean, Bun B beat Tyler to the pregnant woman/threesome joke by a cool two decades, and Eminem rapped about actually killing homosexuals and raping his mom.

[steve]

OF is punk/disruptive because of what they do/are...

The fuck you say.

[Ptommydski]

The King is gone but he's not forgotten.

[Mark Lansing]

OF is punk/disruptive because of what they do/are, not because they (specifically Tyler, 'cause most of them don't) say "shocking" things. No one who actually listens to rap in any serious fashion has any right to pretend that they're shocked by anything Tyler's said.

I would argue that what they do/are isn't necessarily all that punk rock, but for the sake of argument, let's say you're right. That ignores the fact there are a whole lot of shitty punk rock bands out there, and in my mind those guys are down there with The Plasmatics or The Exploited rather than, say, The Ramones or The Minutemen. Saying something is punk rock is not in and of itself a compliment, and as much as punk rock means to me, let's stop pretending that it's all beautiful and virtuous.

[gmilner]

It's being an asshole about being an asshole.

A friend of mine not on the board commented (and I agree), the above "may go down as the best 8-word review of the entire Odd Future oeuvre ever penned."

[Antero]

OF is punk/disruptive because of what they do/are, not because they (specifically Tyler, 'cause most of them don't) say "shocking" things. No one who actually listens to rap in any serious fashion has any right to pretend that they're shocked by anything Tyler's said.

I would argue that what they do/are isn't necessarily all that punk rock, but for the sake of argument, let's say you're right. That ignores the fact there are a whole lot of shitty punk rock bands out there, and in my mind those guys are down there with The Plasmatics or The Exploited rather than, say, The Ramones or The Minutemen. Saying something is punk rock is not in and of itself a compliment, and as much as punk rock means to me, let's stop pretending that it's all beautiful and virtuous.

God knows I certainly don't think "punk" is much of a virtue in and of itself. That's why I added the / in there. The reason people - at least, the people who aren't abjectly unfit to talk about rap in public - talk about OF as being punk isn't simply because they're young and loud and jump off shit but because of the role that they, and others, are playing relative to hip-hop as a genre, one that is roughly analogous to the positioning of punk to the broader rock environment of the 70s.

A number of artists including Odd Future, Waka Flocka, and particularly Lil B are doing work that changes the way people think about what it is to rap, the act of rapping, the power of DIY, the sound of a hip-hop song.

[Bernardo]

I'm not here to defend this group that I haven't even heard, or to suggest that they are "punk", but couldn't someone who felt no connection to the music say the Sex Pistols were being assholes about being assholes too? I mean, they were surely being assholes to start with.