Metal (Pro) Vs. (Insert Genre Here)

My opponent strawmans and takes out of context half of my arguments, then drops the other half of them. I'm going to illustrate this round why you can't do that and still expect to win. I'll respond to my opponent's objections, then re-extend my points as to why rap is superior to metal. == Defenses ==Opponent's claim: "You used three videos to show diversity of rap."/"You said they've been influenced by many genres but didn't really show any evidence." Response: False. I provided a link detailing over 60 different subgenres of rap, as well as differences within each region of each nation and how those regional and national differences influences the rap culture of that region/nation. This was something you never touched on in your round, rather just said I never provided any evidence to show it and didn't address the evidence I provided.Opponent's claim: "I'd love you to show me swing jazz rap, classical rap, fusion sax rap."Response: Done(1), done(2), and done(3). Next?Opponent's claim: "I've never seen rap do a good concept album that is an interesting as what I mentioned previously."Response: First, this doesn't actually mean rap is inferior to metal, it just means you don't have as good of exposure to rap as you think you do. Second, raps lyrics do more than just talk about old history. "NY State of Mind"(4) is a song that takes a concept originally introduced by Homer in the Iliad about how sleep and death are similar, then relates it in a non-literal sense to describe the atmosphere and mentality of those who live and work in New York City: just don't stop for a breather, or you'll lose out. To quote directly from the rap(5): "I never sleep 'cause sleep is the cousin of death"Opponent's claim: "So, you admit rapping is easy and takes little skill. And making beats also requires no talent."Response: No, can you not misquote me and take my statements out of context? My argument is that at the highest levels, both metal and rap takes higher amouts of skill to do well: good metal songs are difficult to produce, just like good rap songs and beats take a lot of time and effort to produce, as well as both genres have the most successful artists constantly looking for ways to innovate and improve their work. This means that, in theory, the skill ceiling for both genres (or any genre for that matter) is basically infinite. This means that skill will come down to which genre is easier to get into and start producing. By your own admission, rap is easier to write and easier to create music for, which means that the skill floor is lower. This means that more people can get involved in the rap scene and make music, which is a net benefit. Metal music, by your own argument, is harder to make both lyrically and musically, which means less people can get involved in it and less people can make it, which is a negative overall. Opponent's claim: "Rap is slowly becoming less listened to and metal is increasing."Response: First, saying that more people are listening to metal music and less people are buying all types of music makes literally no sense. The main way we even track the popularity of genres of music is through tracking the sales of different types of genres: the more sales, the more people who are listening to the music, therefore the more popular it is. Saying something is more popular but selling less makes absolutely no sense. Secondly, even if you're right though, Rap is still more popular in both 2011 and 2012 compared to metal from my own sources. The overall trend isn't as important since by your own admission all genres of music are selling less, so the only thing that matters at that point is just overall popularity, in which both years rap was superior. Third, even if sales are declining overall, then the only way we can determine popularity is by views on things like youtube. Looking at the top ten music videos of all time, absolutely zero of them are metal, and five of them are either a) rap songs, or b) incorperate rap in the song(6). Opponent's claim: "Popular doesn't equal good. Slavery ..."Response: First, this literally ignores the analysis I provide above the popularity argument as to why popularity matters in terms of determining the superior genre. The entire point of making music, aside from enjoying making music personally, is to share it with others. The more people who listen to your music, the more successful you are. This means that popularity is vital to determining the better genre. Second, the slavery analogy makes no sense in relation to music. People produce music to appeal to the masses, which inherently means that the more popular your music is, the better you're doing. Opponent's claim: "Also 10 rappers who are well known who say they don't even like"Response: First, there's literally zero impact to this. All he says is "it's not a good thing" but offers no way to evaluate it in terms of the resolution. Second, it's not even relevent. A genre is bigger than a few artists' impressions of a genre. It's not addressing the actual point of the resolution: comparing a genre to another genre. Rather it just harps on individual preferences, which aren't relevent in determining a better genre overall.Opponent's claim: "Your yahoo answers links are pointless. And ign is a gaming journal. But your yahoo answer and ign questioned are all answered with yes we understand them perfectly..."Response: Yes clearly the people claiming to having problems understanding screaming can understand them perfectly. /sarcasmBut the links show a very clear point: talking is much easier to understand than screaming. Your counter to this is just citing a rap video and saying "You can't understand it so rap is harder to understand", but a) by your logic I can say "Oh we understand it perfectly" and your response is refuted, and b) I'll take five people saying metal is hard to understand over you saying one rap video is hard to understand, which doesn't even address the genre overall. ==Conclusion ==The warrants in my argument remain unaddressed: Rap is a) vastly diverse in the number of different subgenres and regional/national differences, each of which have different impacts on Rap overall, b) lyrically just as diverse, if not more diverse, than metal because not only can it just talk about thug life and the typical gun/drugs/sex topics of mainstream rap, but it can also address other topics such as politics, societal issues, and philosophical thoughts/ideas, c) has just as high of a skill ceiling as Metal does, but has a lower skill floor, meaning that more people can get involved in the rap scene which has a net beneficial impact on diversity (more people creating music, more options to choose from), and d) is more popular than metal, and since popularity is the biggest sign of success for music is indicative that rap is overall better and more liked. His responses were off the mark and often times just miscontrsuing my arguments into things that I never said. == Sources ==(1) - http://www.youtube.com... Video(2) - http://q13fox.com...(3) - http://www.youtube.com... Second Video(4) - http://www.youtube.com... Video(5) - http://blogs.westword.com...(6) - https://www.youtube.com...;