i was never a fan of hip-hop anyways , its all crap and making some seriouse problems with kids these days , and here come regeton too, i still do and allways have listened to Tupac's Rap , the thing i like about him is that he Raps with all his heart, talking about his life, and says allot of true things about life in general , for example "changes " or " wonder why they call u B* " and many more, my favorite album for Tupac is ( "All Eyez On Me" ) before and after nothing is so special. i like listening to Biggy smalls and Jay-Z too. nothing comes alond the 3, and until now i havnt seen anyone even close to them, not even p. diddy or 50 cent

True - more people are buying bands they didn't know about because of the internet. But you're not talking about an increase in spending habits, you're talking about a change in your discovery method.

It's simple - The market cap in the music industry has shrunk thanks to our new spending habits. We may even be buying more music than before, but we're spending less money than in the past.

House died about 2 years ago. The scene has fragmented into disparate groups - Right now the "It" sounds are Electro, Techno, Minimal and Mash-Up stuff.

I don't think we'll see anything "take over" in the near or distant future. We'll just be swining our way through microtrend after microtrend. Stylistically, Crunk is probably the biggest development of this decade.

NarutoRamen
Yupp the only type of songs played on the radio are fall into the category gats-escalde-bitches-money. Some songs are banging no doubt, which is why people listen to them. Most of the "commercial" hiphop fans don't care about the lyrics. What they want is songs which have a nice flow, catchy beat and makes them happy. Making you happy is what music is all about.
As for the albums themselves there are very few albums which are worth buying. During every year I come across at the most 5-8 albums which consists of 90% hits.
Any sources? Problems like what? I've listened to hiphop all my life and so have many of my buddies and they are perfectly fine.

HIp Hop was bound to get old w/ the same old kinds of people talking the same ol' sh*t. And I hate to say it but it speaks very poorly for Black America; there are so many jaded individuals (fellow Americans) who's only idea of a black person is what they hear on the radio or see in a music video. You really know it's getting bad when you constantly hear and see Jim Jones getting hyped up when he sounds like nothing more than an insomniac on a track who makes bookooh bucks over the tried and true expression of ghetto fabulousness,"BALLIN". Sad, really.

Reggaeton on the other hand is pretty good, in my view at least. I think it's pretty cool how a simple, skeleton beat can be taken and be used for both up tempo and low tempo w/ a combination of different beats. You really have to scratch beyond the surface to appreciate just how diverse it truly is. It's another testament to the richness and diversification in Latin culture. Reggaeton has a very bright and prosperous future ahead.

We fly high!!! Sure there are some funny characters in the hiphop industry who some would consider a negative representation of the black community. But then there are some shady Rock artists like Kiss and marlin Mansoon who makes the white community look bad. Then again I try not to care too much about race and try to see artists as individuals rather than ambassadors for a specific race.

I'm afraid the American perspective is qutie different. Whatever stereotypes that exist for whites are pretty generalized and watered down as being "normal", there's a big difference between a white man committing murder or any other criminal act, and a Black or Latino committing the same crime. I've grown use to it and just accept it for what it is and move on, still an f'd up American reality though.

That true. I was just trying to be idealistic and liberal.

Believe it or not but there are a ton of people who deny that what I said is true. It's hilarious really. I have people that come up to me everyday and say, "Hey, what are you, like what's your ethnicity???", I just say "I'm Black", because despite my multi ethnic background that's how I was raised, that's what I relate to and that's what I feel is who I am. It's just one of those things there's no getting around I guess...

You could say - listening to the joke that has become of "indie rock" radio - that white guys are all self-absorbed pricks who love nothing more than to mope, bitch on LiveJournal and spew angst for being born as a boring, Caucasian asswipe.