Top 10 Trends/Phases in 2008

You decide if it’s a good or bad thing. These are the top 10 things that began to become a consistency in 2008.

10. Lil’ Wayne on every track…again

• I thought it would’ve been a one year thing, like “Lil’ Wayne is soooo 2007″. However, the drop of Tha Carter 3 only enhanced his rock star status, even to a point where rock stars wanted tracks with Weezy. Good for him, but there’s no denying that he has been ridiculously over exposed this year.

9. Use of the word “Hipster”

• What the hell does this even mean? I’ve used it in reviews with quotations because it gets thrown around a ton. Without naming names, there are apparent hipster acts in hip hop. It seems to be misused and misconstrued, similar to how “backpacker” was being used. Oh, lingo.

8. Rappers…or…Actors?

• Common, will.i.am, Mos Def Ludacris. Just a few names of hip hop acts that have recently traded in the microphone for the big screen. Common and Mos Def frankly don’t even seem to care about their music these days. I fear that many more are going to join this trend and I sincerely hope it is the shitty rappers that think they can act and go for it.

7. Blog Domination

• I’m going to try and not make this part about how KevinNottingham.com won a SOHH award for “Music Lover Blog of Year” or how our hits went from about 1000-2000 last year around this time to nearly 10,000+ every day. I won’t talk about it, don’t worry. Blogs have become a great outlet for displaying artists and we love it. It’s about time the little guys got some attention for music that actually mattered.

6. T-Pain on a Hook

• If you want a hit, get Pain on your joint. Fact is, that’s the case. T-Pain has been a beast all year and revived a certain type of singing that has proven to be hypnotic and catchy. Similar to Lil’ Wayne, this sanga was all over the map in 2008, draping his robot voice on multiple tracks that all garnered massive success simply for him being on it.

5. Day After Day Tracks

• This is silly. Eh, I respect the hustle and I respect the consistency, but I learned my lesson with Crooked I. The fact is this, a rapper who I thought was ultra-dope just lost all of my interest because these day-after-day tracks really make the flaws even more apparent. It becomes a huge bore and takes away any fascination or suspense from the artist.

4. “Swagger”

• T.I. pretty much made a whole album about it, while he was on house arrest. What better way to come back to the game with an album talking about what you got. “Swag” has become a huge part of hip hop and our culture in general. Surely, it won’t pop off to the extent that “Bling’ did, but it is pretty much on its way to being on the same level.

3. Our Favorite Rappers, Only Singing

• As I was listening to “Make My Day,” I thought to myself: “Damn, I want Cee-Lo to blend his rapping with his singing.” I don’t mind when he sings, I love it, but I love it even more when he blends the two. I can’t say the same for Kanye or even parts of the Universal Mind Control album. The list goes on for rappers who have seemingly dropped the rapid fire delivery for high pitched melodies and sung choruses. It’s upsetting that we may only hear Andre 3000 rap 5 more times in our lifetime.

2. Bringing it back to the DJ

• A great trend seemed to begin mid 2008. The return of the importance of the DJ! I noticed this heavily on the DJ Revolution and even the DJ KO album. Statik Selektah and Jake One also had albums that frequently had lyrics directed to them, about them. It’s great to see this on occasion because the significance of the DJ/Producer is of an infinite amount.

1. Auto-Tune/ Voice Box

• This was obvious. Not much to say about it that hasn’t been said already. I hope it starts declining in usage because although it is catchy 8 times out of 10, the quality of the track decreases greatly. Most songs seem to become a competition within the artist himself/herself to see what words and styles sound the coolest on the vocoder.

Honorable Mentions

• Genreless music
• Late 80′s Early 90′s Wardrobe
• Mixes/Blends
• YouTube ciphers
• Remix Contests