'fraid i started writing this post last night before i went to sleep, i see some of this has been said now.
Just going to throw this out there
Funky: not that good.
Dubstep: also pretty dire 90% of the time.
prethought: look at what happened to house and techno with micro and minimal: ableton + laptops + quickly making tracks to go and play out that weekend to a crowd largely mashed on k. suddenly it didn't really matter if the music was that good anymore.
feels like more than ever the music is way less important than other more superficial stuff, like just being seen, getting the facebook photos up, wearing the right clothes etc. most people are going out to be with their mates, hook up with people and have fun being young etc. fair enough, it just makes me feel a bit sad to think that theyre not quite getting the full experience (cue the 'who am i to say what that means' argument) that we had. i should probably add that at 27 i was probably getting the arse end of the really good stuff by the time i went clubbing, but hey! just feels like the magic is missing, yknow?
anyway, imo, halfstep was a mistake. it feels weird. my body needs something more to move with (anyone else feel this?) the whole worshipping bass thing too, i mean, yeah, bass is cool n stuff, but people got all dumb about it
"BAAAASSSS!!!" like as long as the bass pressure was there that was all that was required. i know theres bits of cool dubstep out there. but generally its just too moody/stoned to get me excited in the way jungle did.
el-b made a point in his wire interview about how when garage got too dark, all the girls stopped dancing and the scene deteriorated rapidly. he said something along the lines of wanting to make his tunes sexy so everyone was up for it. dubstep afaik has pretty much stayed dark the whole time.
i know funky is a bit of a sacred cow here, but believe me when i say i went in with an open mind, hoping for something magic when i first started checking it out. try as i might there's just something missing. i can understand what's being attempted, but somehow it just doesn't feel right. it's like the boxes are being ticked; uplifting vibes, bouncy rhythms, cheekiness etc. all signifiers of what made the old stuff good. but i dunno if it's just my own general pessimism about the state of music right now or what, but in their half heartedness (to me anyway), all those things seem to do is remind me that we're no longer there anymore.
when it became clear that dnb was finally ready to be laid to rest because the ideas just wern't there anymore, shit like andy c's bodyrock and pendulum's vault felt like a fucking death rattle. it was really cool to hear dubstep, especially in the mid 00s when it wasn't quite sure of what it was. lot's of ideas being thrown in there. suggestions of genuinely interesting new avenues to go down. i remember seeing chevron supporting venetian snares at 93 feet east and some other guy who i can't remember at a warp halloween party in elektrowerks playing some crazy shit and thinking thank fuck something new is coming up. really needed it at the time. shame really because it had so much potential. couple of years later and i went to
this which was really good fun but it wasn't until bracket's jungle set that i really started getting hype. oh how i danced.
the dubstep was good, like, n-type played some heavy stuff. but it just didn't move me like the jungle... nowhere near in fact.
the way i see it, a few of the main reasons dubstep, and particularly wobble took off so much was 1. there was a hole left to be filled by dnb. 2. people desperately wanted an underground scene to be part of. 3. the youngsters just coming up to clubbing age who don't know any better thought it was good and got off on the fact that they were part of this emerging new thing with loads of street cred.
fact is, it was never that good.