I’m with @soulman….
That may be, but objectively there’s a lot more people dancing to modern electronic music than ever did to R&B. As much as I like both.
Things change. Fighting that is futile.
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Related but slightly different - also does exactly what you tell it to. Sometimes that’s a bad thing.
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Yeah but you can fix that. Humanization and guidable generative random sequences have been a thing for decades now.
Plus, of course, it’s not a binary choice. Traditional instruments blend with electronic ones just fine.
This is a human orchestra playing deadmau5’s EDM masterpiece “strobe” while he conducts and sequences some of it.
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I meant more in the sometimes their mistake/interpretation turns out better way, which obviously wasn’t clear.
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No I got that and totally agree! What I was trying to say was that now there’s tools to help with that too.
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While on vacation recently I was working on my laptop at the friends house with whom I was staying. On the radio in the kitchen the local station it was tuned to was playing almost all hip hop style stuff.
As I worked on I began to understand it’s purpose far more than I had previously. What I noticed most of all is how I could continue to focus on work while it was playing something I can rarely do while listening to the stuff I normally do which would be classic rock and r&b/soul tunes from my musical era playing in bands.
I realized it was acting on the non-cognitive parts of my brain. My “lizard brain” so to speak where it had an impact much like my playing rain forest or thunder storm sounds at night while falling asleep. It wasn’t distracting me because there was little to nothing musical going on I could relate to and therefore listen for. It’s mindless.
This may be why I’m saying I’m not rejecting it as much as I am categorizing it as what it is to me and that in fact is almost like the impact of certain drugs. If that’s it’s impact on me it stands to reason that others may sense a similar impact since by in large we all possess the same “lizard brain”. Just my thoughts on it is all.
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Not wrong. Just different with different tastes. It’s generational.
In order to better understand the very wide age spread of the clients I served I took a course from a Prof at Colorado University called “You Are Who You Are Because You Were What You Were When”. It dealt with the social and economic influences in our lives in the eras in which each of us or each age group grew up with. For instance. Those who were born and raised during the Depression Era in the 1930s thought and behaved differently than Baby Boomers.
Over time I realized how accurate his observations were and how each generations motivations differed from other generations. I believe this is still very true and much of what also separates us and our tastes musically. It’s not about wrong or right it’s about comfort and familiarity. We like what we are most familiar and comfortable with and tend to be more resistant to what we are not.
That’s pretty much how I see it based on personal experiences.
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To some yes but not to all. The same could probably be said about how as various musical instruments developed over time there were newer ones that were not as immediately accepted in the musical ensembles of their time. The path of the guitar alone and it’s place in various genre would tell us that.
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Probably so but unfortunately I don’t listen to music these days anywhere near as much as I used to. I do much of my work, research, and communication online. Listening to music while I work distracts me because as a musician I’m always focusing my brain on what I’m hearing because it’s how I learned to play.
To do justice to it I would need to set aside the time to do that which would then lead me to immediately sitting down and working out what I just heard. That’s the way I learned and grew as a player. Old habits are hard to break and sometimes I just don’t have the spare time or inclination to do it as much any longer.
No need to. There’s room for both. Whatever difference I experience is that there’s just less of a market for live club bands playing r&b/soul tunes any longer or at least there is in this neck of the woods.
DJ’s are cheaper and can more effectively switch gears to respond to the crowd. It’s a bit like the mid-late 70’s disco era which sidelined live club bands for awhile. Disco was popular and very easy to dance to as well. That may turn around or it may not.
Economics have a lot to do with it. The Boomers who packed dance clubs to the limit are no longer out there drinking, dancing, and partying 'til dawn like we used to so dance clubs no longer see the kind of revenues they did during that era. You’re right. Things have changed.
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I learned recently that underage nightclubs are no longer a thing. They were such an important part of my teenage life that I am seriously sad for todays kids.
I would probably have ended up dead or in jail without them at the time.
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This tread certainly got derailed: older person states the current scene really isn’t as good as the scene I grew up in… it was ever thus.
One of the joys, for me, of picking up and learning the bass, has been the opening of my ears. Ok, I have a preference for the 80s, but I’m now listening to an awful lot more.
And in the band context, we’re picking songs from many eras. So bringing the topic back to finding local people to play with, it’s clearly important to find people with shared tastes and aspirations. At one point, I spoke to a punk band about joining them - I said no as their set list was waaaay too limiting - one genre, seeming limited to a very narrow period in musical history. We were also recently trying to recruit a new guitarist, spoke to a few, including one guy who was technically proficient, but stuck in the 70s.
There is so much out there, musically, if you open your ears. Lots R&B is cool and so is electronic dance music. Disco rocks, and so does rock. Rap raps, and then you hear rap inserted into pop, freakin’ great!
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Military is what probably saved me. A lot of friends who stayed in Baltimore ended up junkies. Some turned their lives around and we all laugh at our younger selves now. A lot never got to join in. We had a get together for a friends wedding in MD last year. The 6 or so of us hung out till almost dawn talking about all of it. It was really great and weird seeing them all as “old people” now.
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I need to make something clear. My position is only that the current scene is not as good for me because I am stuck at least somewhat in the '60s, '70s, and '80s and make no apologies for it. There’s a reason it was called the period of Classic Rock and to many it still is. A few radio stations in some towns still play music from that era exclusively and people still listen and dance to it. I’m a Boomer and proud of it.
But I’m not putting down others preferences for electronica or modern rap or hip hop any more than I did fellow Boomers love of heavy metal and other genre I just never developed a taste for hearing or playing. This forum is about playing music we are able to play with others or just at home for our own enjoyment. Any genre that allow us to do that is fine with me even if I don’t appreciate or play it myself.
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I think you’re being fine in this discussion myself 
“Hip Hop” is a VERY broad category. You might as well refer to “Rock” or “Rock Style” music. Lumping everything from Roy Orbison, to Metallica, to Creed, to King Crimson, to U2 under a single umbrella.
Saying “Hip Hop is all…” or “THE purpose of Hip Hop is…” is the same as saying, “Rock is all…” There is mindless “lizard brain” hip hop just like there is mindless lizard brain rock.
My experience and challenge listening to much of good hip-hop is that it is incredibly intellectual and requires a lot of attention from me.
The real major differences I think between Hip Hop and Rock are that Rock tends to have more instrumental complexity of melody and harmony, Hip Hop tends to have more complexity in Rhythm and Lyrics.
There is a lot of low quality hip hop. Arguably that’s the majority. Just as the majority of music from decades past was lower quality. We just have selective memories from what was best in the past.
As for listening to new music, I find the best times for me to do that are when I am engaged in relatively mindless repetitive tasks: morning run with the dog, driving, cleaning things at work, or shoveling snow.
And I suggested Anderson Paak because I think you will immediately connect with his music, especially that Tiny Desk Concert. You like R&B. He really blurs the lines between Hip Hop, R&B, and Funk. His Silk Sonic project with Bruno Mars is funk, but you can still hear the modern pop hip-hop background.
Addendum: I am enjoying this sidetrack in the conversation. My initial question was answered to my satisfaction, and I’m on a solid path to playing in a band. This topic might make more sense as it’s own thread, but I think that’s optional.
I might start a thread about “Do People Dance Less Now?” I think that’s an interesting observation.
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This has been one of my challenges looking for groups. A lot seem to be focused on one genre. Lots of Heavy Metal or Punk groups. I love lots of different genres and want to play a wide variety.
The drummer I’m meeting with has a nice range he’s interested in. The only challenge is that he likes a lot of heavy, technical 90’s music like Deftones, and I am NOT that good. Nor do I want to manage a bunch of alternat tunings.
The fantasy in my head is that I would like to form a band doing fun and slightly campy music and performing it with unironic sincerity - New Wave/Post-Punk, 90’s alternative, glam rock, and funk.
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