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uptownkid
i think if a song, album, whatever is "classic" (from a general concensus), being commercial or underground is irrelevant. Unless your'e talking about "classic" from a record sales perspective. Diamond D's - 'Stunts Blunts and Hip Hop' is considered a "classic"....but yet underground - so, that kind of knocks that equation out of the box, IMO. To most, "classic" is about the sound.
Good point about Stunts and Blunts I think that's definitely considered classic, but again there aren't too many underground "classics" of that caliber. Maybe I'm being too picky about what I consider classic or maybe I'm not thinking hard enough of good underground examples like that, but it seems like there are more popular via air-play (Radio and MTV etc) classics by far.
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to argue a point against what Rchecka said ("However, you can't say that about too many indie recording artists, most of them don't get that recognition to even be qualified as classic").....outside of creating a local following, regional hype, etc. - with the amount of media outlets and the ability to push music (expanding globally) there are more ways for indie artist to get seen and heard - and it's very much easier now than it was 15 years ago and back.
True, there are more avenues making the music more world widely accessible because of the way they are easily distributed in a more DIY manor, but one could argue that saturates the market a bit making it less likely to achieve classic status. The more artists in the pool, the more the good ones can stand out, and the harder it is for the underground cats to compete. I'd add the easier it is to find (especially if it's made available for free as an mp3 download for example) might devalue it a bit and make it seem more disposable and less likely to achieve classic status.
For example, I was at a Del show a few years back and he was giving away a hard copy printed CD for free to everyone and it was only available for free on CD to his fans at the shows and free online to anyone who wanted it. This was a full bona fide album, mind you, not a mixtape. It it's pretty good. (well, it's ok.) It has no chance of being classic in anyone's book and that type of distribution is becoming more of the norm for established or new artists. I don't think that kind of easily accessible distribution helps give the work any kind of longevity factor. I got umpteen Gigabites of that kind of music that I forgot about. For me it's the ones that get on the big labels that I personally consider Hip Hop classics. Admittedly my list of classics is frankly a short list.
“Lesser artists borrow... great artists steal.” - Igor Stravinsky
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