Potato Chip Crunch as Beats: An essential ingredient for a full-flavored song. I guess I should have mentioned at the beginning of the week my original theory that "we are simply too satisfied by OK music. And that's why we never get to the good stuff." Hip hop is a great example of this. Not that hip hop itself is "easy", but that the beats themselves are. In fact, we've talked about this before. The idea that putting "clap tracks" in a song is cheating...and how I should start doing it. This is the problem with hip hop. It's too easy to be decent. But let's not throw away the beats with the bathwater. Because a solid beat is powerful. It's a potato chip crunch. It's texture. It's fun. And the really great songs all have it. Today's song is "Power" from Kanye West, a song that instantly hooks you with the potato chip crunch alone. And that's where you get to good. But, there's a reason Kanye sells more albums than any other artist in that genre. And it's because he understands this idea of a full music flavor profile. The evolution of Warren G, Kanye has successfully added artistic melody and more to the potato chip crunch. But today's lesson is that you shouldn't forget the crunch.