We have a thread on best album and great songs. I want to discuss great artists in music: songwriters, musicians, singers and so forth.

Johnny Cash is on the top of my list.

Jeanette Isabelle

Favorite classical composers: Chopin, Schubert, Debussy, Beethoven

Favorite rock/pop bands: Lynyrd Skynyrd, Led Zeppilin, Bad Company, Chicago, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Elton John (most of these from my youth)

Favorite country groups: Alan Jackson, Alabama

Favorite instrumentalists: Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Yanni

Favorite movie song artist: Mark Knopfler, "Storybook Love" from The Princess Bride

Favorite piano soloists: Valentina Lisitsa, Alfred Brendel

Favorite opera style vocalist: Charlotte Church (when she was younger)

Favorite rap/hip-hop: None, I detest this genre

If I had to pick one and only one artist to listen to for all eternity, it would be Valentina Lisitza performing classical piano solos.

Hard to beat Johnny Cash, But like heart, I have very eclectic tastes in music, and he lists some good ones.

I'm hearing an echo of myself Joni Mitchell -- songwriter, pianist, Rolling Stone top-100 guitarist, painter ... and I'm not even a fan, I just like the music.

My CD collection is the definition of eclectic okay not really. Classic rock, folk, classical, jazz, smooth jazz (there is a difference), flamenco guitar; but no rap or hip hop save the rare Deborah Harry piece, "Rapture" being the first #1 rap song

I'vehad this discussion with my son, who is a rap fan and can even rap-rhyme ( Ugh! I cannot believe I actually admitted that in public.). I kept telling him that rap was a retimed folk genre and that the first rapper was Bob Dylan. He kept telling me that I was nuts. So, one day I handed him a copy of the lyrics to , "The Times They Are A Changing " and played him the recording. He then took the lyric sheet and sang- spoke it to a rap beat. He was amazed with the result and grudgingly semi-conceded the point.

I don't know why there is such negative feeling about one particular genre of music. I received a classical education, and that included training in classical music. I knew plenty of people who have nothing but contempt for any musical form that is not classical or so high brow that only a handful of critics can even pretend to enjoy it. And then I see people who dare to profess even to know anything about country music expressing their disdain for some other, equally non-canonical form of music. Kettle, please meet pot.

Anyway, this sort of snobbery I find insufferably foolish. Let music be. I personally have trouble identifying any musician who doesn't do classical music as "great." But I see that as my own limitation, and I wish I could appreciate country, rock, jazz, whatever, so much that I can feel there are great artists among them -- you know, the way you guys can. So maybe the first rapper was Bob Dylan, and that's a wonderful thing.

For my contribution: the incomparable Shostakovich.

If it's snobbish to hate rap, then call me a BIG snob. The filthy and disgusting lyrics, the gangster culture surrounding it, and the lack of anything that could be considered a melody make rap a non-music to me. It's just unpleasant noise that leaks out of silly cars that have 5 billion-gigawatt subwoofers in them. If someone else wants to listen to it, fine by me. But I certainly don't.

Gotta go now, I have my monthly snob meeting to run to...

Original rap:

Jimmy Dean: "Big Bad John"

Aerosmith: "Walk This Way"

Bingley: I find that our opinions diverge on this issue. Unusual,since I generally find myself in agreement with your posts .

On rap, I'm 100% with haertig. No need to add any further explanation he said it all.

Second , I'm no music snob. I had a Harvard Redbook higher education , taught by tough but stimulating Jesuits. Quite an experience for a 60s Boomer, Jewish kid, student activist. But I found that I loved it and I had the good sense to soak-up all that I could.

The Jesuits introduced me to Classical music and I learned to love the more powerful pieces. My parents, Great Depression / WW II kids, instilled a love for 40s swing , Big Band and 50s pop,like Sinatra, Ella, etc. That lead me to explore 20s-30s & 40s Blues, Rag, Dixieland and finally the whole BeBop and Modern 50s Jazz era, on my own.

Somewhere in all that and especially from older activists I learned the history of Gospel and folk as political speech and as expressions of spiritual yearning. To this day I revere Leadbelly, Big Mama Thorton, Odetta, Ruth Brown, Lady Day, Woody Gutherie, Pete Seeger, the Weavers, Peter, Paul & Mary, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell etc. and of course the poet laureate , ( early) Dylan.

My own times brought my now developing tastes to the San Francisco Sound, folk-rock, CSN&Y, and Woodstock. While I enjoyed the British Invasion , it was mostly because it was reimagined American R&B. IMO really ground breaking musical invention died off after the early 70s. YMMV.

All of which is a long winded way round to restate my premise that Rap is mysoginistic trash noise. Rap glorifies the worst angels of modern life. I'm glad to see really gifted Black artists, like Beyoncé , moving away and creatively forward. I think my exposition proves that my opinion is not based upon racism or classism or conservative politics.

Let music be, you say. Well yes,of course, Free Speech is thankfully still the rule of law. But Justice Brandeis' corollary argument was that more and critical speech would drown out the "bad" speech. That's what I'm attempting in my expression of distaste for Rap.

Montanero, Big Bad John was/is a great song, But, i believe that it does not qualify as early Rap because it doesn't really rhyme. Albeit, it's not bad blank verse. Dylan's early anthems all rhyme. He really was more a poet who set his poems to music, as opposed to a lyricist who put his words to music. Google the lyrics to The Times They Are A Changing" and "Subterranean Homesick Blues". I think that will illustrate the difference. ( P.S. Now I'm laughing at myself. All of a sudden I'm a geezer music critic. Hope you guys don't mind.)

Influences on music go further back than most people know. Most things that we, initially, believe are original, are usually an evolution of something tried long before. The real difference between rap and other songs is that it is spoken, with music. Many songs begin as poems, and are changed to fit a style and be more like what is marketable at that current time. As a style, speaking with music is not new. I have heard such things in ceremonies of primitive tribes, though how well they rhymed is debatable.

"Big John" does rhyme, by the way.

Favorite classical (Baroque) - J. S. Bach (Art of the Fugue and Toccata and Fugue)

Favorite classical (classical) - Mozart (Symphony No. 25 in G minor) Verdi's Requiem

Favorite classical (Romance) - A lot. Modest Mussorgsky and Gustav Holst in particular. Holst was one of the few classical composers who knew how to use low brass. Everybody else either relegated them to long tones, percussion, or ignored them (Beethoven's 5th has a 500+ bar rest in the first movement).

Favorite classical (modern) - Copland

Favorite big band - Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey.

Favorite jazz/blues instrumental - B.B. King, Muddy Water, Howlin Wolf, noir jazz / cool jazz (Miles Davis)

Favorite Jazz Vocal - Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee

Favorite rock - Toto, Bon Jovi, Tina Turner, GnR, anything with a beat that gets your blood racing

Favorite metal - Nightwish, AC/DC, Metallica

Favorite other - Two Steps from Hell, Hans Zimmer (I consider him our generations Sergei Prokofiev), Steve Jablonsky, Basil Poledouris.

World music: Taiko Drummers (Japan)

In case you haven't noticed it, my music is either big and bombastic, or sports a definite personality

I almost forgot: Traditional African music makes heavy use of polyrhythms. The overly simplistic beats on rap has no musical connection. Rap, from where I stand, originated as an attempt to make beat poetry macho.

Montanero: OK , I looked up the lyrics to Big John. They mostly rhythm. You were mostly correct. I was mostly wrong. But it still doesn't compute for me. Maybe it's the lack of social / political/ sexual commentary that I mostly attribute to rap. But you have a fair point.

MarkR, great selection. I would include some Native American flute music as well. No particular artist, but everything from South American Pan Flute to North American. I don't know why, but I love it.

Acropolis5, No issues. It is not about right or wrong, music evolves over a longer period than most people think. It is always going in new directions, but it all has deep roots. I love the variety and creativity of most all of it. There have even been some rap songs I liked, but I don't like anything (movies, books, music) that glorifies negative behaviors. Some music is political/social commentary, some is just trying to see how far off the deep end they can go. It is not just rap that does that.