I have a music quiz coming up. I'm confident I'll get most if not all 20th century questions correct but will struggle with the modern stuff. To help prepare I went to the current Top 40 on the Official Charts website where you can listen to a 30 second clip of each Top 40 hit.
It goes without saying that it was all terrible but one thing I noticed was there was no rap music.
In the last decade of so I've considered rap to be the silver lining in the Top 40. For the most part it's been the most prolific genre in the Top 40 to the point when I did my Top 40 Leaderboard posts I'd take a look at what percentage of the Top 40 new entries in the year so far were rap.
Not that I was a huge fan of the rap music that was getting into the Top 40 but more a case of it being after my time that anything else.
When you think of the main genres in the charts in years gone by there was always a mix of credible music and commercial fodder. Dance fans weren't into 2 Unlimited, rap fans weren't into Will Smith, R&B fans weren't into Destiny's Child etc.
Somewhere along the way it was just your modern equivalents of 2 Unlimited or Destiny's Child charting from the dance and R&B worlds getting into the Top 40 but rap wise it went beyond your modern equivalent of Will Smith.
You had for example D-Block Europe who clocked up 30 Top 40 hits in the space of 5 years. Admittedly I couldn't name one of those hits top of my head and what I heard of them sounded rather boring but to their credit they didn't sound commercial in the slightest.
Then again maybe I'm just old and out of touch. Maybe they were part of the problem of rap becoming too commercial and now we're seeing the inevitable backlash.
What is the music of the moment now then?
Based on the evidence I've just head I'm not really sure. Seemed to be mostly females with annoying voices so whatever genre that is.
