I generally try to keep a broad mind re: the fine line between art/entertainment... it's all registers, all context...

*but* I think a key indicator of popular music today is how unyieldingly self-referential it is, self-referential in a way that isolates it from virtually any reasonable understanding of "average" daily life...

Watch the Throne may be one of the more blatant symptoms of that isolation, but it's hardly restricted to hip hop... it's pervasive. And while it's not at all new, it seems ubiquitous at this point, impossible to escape. Every song I hear on popular radio is about the dream party, the life of luxury, the life of the pop star, depicted in a totally unrealistic and unattainable manner... which limits its usefulness outside a certain listening context/mood/scene...

Art is an inherently elitist medium of communication to some degree, but when it stops putting on even the pretense of meaningfulness... I don't know, it's hard for me to try to take it seriously.

/end old man rant