Variations, No Theme

Is rock finally dead? Maybe so, but the ascendancy of rap/hip-hop (“In the Shadow of Hip-Hop,” by Robert Hilburn, Dec. 27) as a popular art form raises the more interesting, and to me as a music fan, more distressing question: Is pop music dead?

Remember, rap “music” is literally not music--no melody or harmony, no notes. It is rhythmic, rhyming talk, and it’s considered a form of “pop music” only because it fulfills the same function for its audience that pop music once did. This is a change on a par with the replacement of football by ballroom dancing.

Will Guitar Center go out of business due to lack of interest in musical instruments? Will rap/hip-hop finally turn FM into “talk radio”? Or will rap artists add back more complexity (as did formerly “minimalist” punkers) and turn their interests back to melody and harmony? For now, the alienation of older generations from hip-hop can be primarily attributed to the fact that today’s youth not only don’t relate to rock, they don’t relate to music at all.

Swing music, then rock, were commonly disparaged by fans of previously popular forms with the prejudicial phrase, “That’s not music.” These days, that’s literally accurate.

ROBERT T. LEET

Monrovia