AAAAAAAARGH wrote:Not a rhetorical question. I seriously mean to ask: why are those considered the best rappers/rap groups also the most famous? Wu Tang, Nas, Pete Rock, whatever. All these guys sell tons and tons of records and are pretty much unanimously considered Greatest of All Time candidates. Why isn't there a "indie rock" version of hip hop (or at least one that's considered any good)?
In my mind, it's because indie rock has a middle to upper class audience. There's an element of ownership in indie rock and an element of liking acts a lot less if it is accepted by the masses, mainstream media, and/or corporate America. Working class audiences don't really mind an artist is doing something that is commercially fulfilling. No one really holds it against Jay-Z for doing Budweiser commercials, or Method Man for doing deodorant ads. But in rock there's an undeniable frowning when a Fugazi song is played during a football game or when songs by the Who or the Beatles can be as easily associated with consumer products and TV shows as their original artistic purposes as songs.
Hip Hop has audiences right now are from the lower class, working class, middle, and upper class. The best artists (and a lot of really bad ones) get a lot of mainstream attention and radio play. I'd argue that rock fans who efficiently keep up with the best of new music typically need a computer and a lot of non-mainstream sources of information to stay on the ball.
And my main theory behind this is that middle and upper class audiences of rock create a notion of ownership involved with their musical taste.