Music 2013

[rubberdingyrapids]

its funny but dubstep could have really pushed the boat out and gone really, really weird after the scene went all brostep - dubstep fans would have stuck with them too as they are pretty open minded. but instead they decided to dig into dance music's roots. which i get as dubstep has always been a bit obsessed with history ever since day one so it was prob inevitable and it has meant some good straight up house and techno records but seems like a bit of a retreat, london/uk dance music's own little retromania hive.

 

[Local Authority]

Plus with the rise of tech-house/Hot Creations/Maya Jane Coles as the new 'club' sound, it seems like anything radical will find its main residence on the internet, through random podcasts and the occasional appearance at places like Cafe OTO, the 2nd room of a larger event and one off events dedicated to a particular sound, theme or label/s (but most of the live circuit is moving towards label nights anyway). Thus taking away the euphoria of this new, revolutionary trend within music as the levels of saturation on the internet are high from the very beginning. The amount of information we have on any one musical topic allows us to pre-empt what any artist or label might do in the future thus taking away all surprises. Not to mention the rather distasteful trend of tracklist spotting etc, which you could argue gives us the ability to see any labels future output up to a year in advance.

We've achieved the hipsters ultimate goal of knowing everything there is to know before it has even happened, where do we turn from there?

 

[Local Authority]

its funny but dubstep could have really pushed the boat out and gone really, really weird after the scene went all brostep - dubstep fans would have stuck with them too as they are pretty open minded. but instead they decided to dig into dance music's roots. which i get as dubstep has always been a bit obsessed with history ever since day one so it was prob inevitable and it has meant some good straight up house and techno records but seems like a bit of a retreat, london/uk dance music's own little retromania hive.

Well things started to get weird with the divergent dubstep scene around 2008, Hyperdub, Hessle, Hotflush, Apple Pips, Night Slugs, etc. But going back to the point mentioned above, it seems like the whole brostep thing spooked them so they looked towards the past to give their movement some authenticity, eventually enveloping the past rather than taking inspiration from.

Saying that Keysound seem to be onto something refreshing with their new roster of artists, and Hessle have always kept their head above the water when it comes to trends. Even if some of their sets don't elaborate on the sound they push through the label.

 

[datwun]

I think we could very well see a trend towards politicisation in music/culture. Like, the image of apathetic, disinterested young people just 100% isn't my experience of people my age (22). Following a major event in the base (the financial crash, the conservatives' ramping up of neo-liberalism etc) it always takes a while for the superstructure / culture to catch up.

I could see squat raves coming back in a big way for instance.

On a musical note, all this love of House in hipster circles seems so hilariously superficial that I'm not worried it will last too long. I think this year we might see it reach critical mass with a full blown house revival in the mainstream (Disclosure's huge success was a preview of this maybe?) before people realise how boring most of it is lol.

As for the only interesting thing going on in UK music ATM - jackin - I see the big tunes rising to the top and getting played out at raves down south, and some of the bigger artists with the support of Rinse (Hannah Wants, Lorenzo, Tom Shorterz etc.) making a name for themselves in the UK wide scene. Overall I reckon it'll stay a local northern thing though.

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

one thing i still dont get is labels letting you know exactly what theyre releasing months in advance. playing it and not saying the title/artist is fine and actually necessary now, rather than just pure old fashioned elitism, but when loefah went on benji b's show and basically told you his whole release schedule a year in advance, wheres the fun in that?

the other thing i now do when i hear new dance music is im never really sure anymore what is 'new' or novel. which kinda dampens how much excitment i feel.

 

[Local Authority]

I think we could very well see a trend towards politicisation in music/culture. Like, the image of apathetic, disinterested young people just 100% isn't my experience of people my age (22). Following a major event in the base (the financial crash, the conservatives' ramping up of neo-liberalism etc) it always takes a while for the superstructure / culture to catch up.
.

I think we've already reached a politicisation of sorts, or more a reaction to the political and economic climate, similar to the hardcore punk scene of the 80's. With a lot of labels choosing an overtly lo-fi, diy approach to the way they make & release music, its almost in direct conflict with the late 00's until things got really really bad. I'm not sure if there's a correlation between the re-emergence of hardware and hand-stamped white label's and the economic downturn/un-stable political climates around the world but it appears to be so. Even the music itself isn't directly political the means of making and distribution could be seen as at least.

 

[Elijah]

I think we could very well see a trend towards politicisation in music/culture.

What music you hear that suggests this?

 

[datwun]

What music you hear that suggests this?

It's less any particular band or music and more just like, historically speaking major economic changes bring cultural reactions.

Stuff like the student protests a few years back which had a huge mixture of everyone from kids from estates protesting against the EMA cut to kids from posh unis protesting that their younger siblings would have to pay higher fees, just like seeing that that potential political energy is there, it would made sense if some of it filtered into the culture these people make.

I think UK hip hop is total shite and I hate that earnest Banksy-esq tone all of it, but I wonder, is it so impossible to imagine a political music today that doesn't suck?

Like, for example, grime or road rap could never pull off a 'together we can change the world' type of message, but you could imagine the anger of some of the music being directed less at generic 'haters' and more at like, the system, man. Hell, more anti-police messages would be a start.

 

[continuum]

Grime and Dubstep were overtly political protest music in their heyday. At one point it seemed like the people involved in these genres were the only people in opposition to the way the UK and US governments reacted to 9/11 etc.

to quote Dizzee Rascal: "I'm a problem for Anthony Blair..."

 

[datwun]

Grime and Dubstep were overtly political protest music in their heyday. At one point it seemed like the people involved in these genres were the only people in opposition to the way the UK and US governments reacted to 9/11 etc.

to quote Dizzee Rascal: "I'm a problem for Anthony Blair..."

Yeah, "Antiwar Dub" and that.

Heard loads of jump-up brostep and DnB on the student protests being sodcast from people's portable speakers and that And there was a magic moment at one of them where people broke a kettle to Next Hype.

 

[Patrick Swayze]

Grime and Dubstep were overtly political protest music in their heyday. At one point it seemed like the people involved in these genres were the only people in opposition to the way the UK and US governments reacted to 9/11 etc.

to quote Dizzee Rascal: "I'm a problem for Anthony Blair..."

lyrically grime was always capitalist apart from maybe one or two exceptions (i.e. purple). it was anti-establishment maybe, but in a narrow sense.

 

[Patrick Swayze]

now we have stuff like this:



even if you find the stuff about making ethnic minorities more 'visible' (which considering it means visible to power, has some sinister connotations) commendable, the fact Ghetto got paid to do it by the private entity conducting the census, who profit from more people completing it, makes that message look quite dubious.

 

[Corpsey]

isnt that just modern music in general? theres no 'fuck the system' attitude anymore. to really be against the system, or just the status quo, youd prob have to not even use the internet. and whos going to do that?

I don't think that's necessarily true - hasn't the internet been used in politically rebellious ways, in this and other countries? Perhaps not in genuinely effectively in all cases but I wouldn't say the internet is something that necessarily props up the establishment, even if obviously its almost completely commercialised and profit-orientated.

As always in cases like this I wonder if its my age as much as anything that makes me feel like music doesn't really 'mean' anything, beyond my personal experience of it. In terms of communal experiences I have had as many wonderful parties/clubbing experiences as ever in the last few years (well, less cos I go out less but...), but they generally amount to simple hedonism.

I suppose you might argue that music doesn't HAVE to 'mean' anything. But I wonder what feeling is going into modern club music, and what feeling is being exploited in the audience for it? Perhaps its a rose-tinted view of things, particularly as I wasn't there, but tunes from the late 80's early 90's do seem to have that starry eyed feeling, that feeling that things can really change because of drugs and music (i.e. ''Some Justice'').

As I said before, I dimly remember Reynolds talking about all this in the last chapter of 'Energy Flash' - how the apparent political potential of rave petered out and we were left with nothing but another arm of the leisure industry. And that makes me think of what I read recently in newspapers (though not sure of credibility) about young people's drug/drink use declining in recent years, and how there might even be something rebellious in this, this defining of a new generation against an older generation who have to a large extent accepted drugs and hedonism and therefore rendered it somehow safe and boring. Perhaps the next exciting thing in music might appear hand in hand with a sort of puritanical rejection of sex'n'drugs?

But when did not taking drugs ever produce good party music?!

 

[Corpsey]

I guess that Plan B tune about the LDN riots was the biggest dance/'urban' (urgh) tune to make an overtly political statement in recent years. I wasn't really a fan of it but maybe there's a lot of that sort of stuff around?

 

[Corpsey]

but when loefah went on benji b's show

Not really Benji B here but I guess if you look at the people that are DJs now on Radio 1, the fact that 1xtra exists, that Rinse FM has a license, that Dizzee Rascal played at the Olympics, that Goldie was on Maestro - this all shows that in a sense underground music of the 90s/00s has won the battle and actually become the establishment, or a small annexed part of it. I think that's a great thing in one way, because it shows that the culture has had to accept previously shunned subcultures and actually celebrates it. But does that mean that this kind of music has lost its edge? I always think it must have been so exciting to tune into pirate radio and go to unadvertised raves - how difficult it must have been, what a statement it had to have been in those days to go out of your way to be a raver. Whereas now it isn't really much of a choice - everything is available online to listen to, for those that don't seek it out it might be heard on Nick Grimshaw's breakfast show, there are a million nights catering to people into dance music.

I dunno its like a double-edged sword thing

 

[Elijah]

saying it like 'dance' music in general wasnt big in the 90s. It was bigger then than it is now. Internet just makes everything feel bigger than it actually is.

Anyway what raves and festivals do I need to reach this year. Outside of DJing I barely went out in 2012. This needs to change

 

[Corpsey]

As to the question of musical innovation, I just want to say that innovative club music will always be niche (confined to podcasts small nights etc.) unless it has a big impact in the clubs. Or just has a raw visceral impact in general. I mean, look at jungle - radical as fuck, completely groundbreaking - but would never have made it off the ground if it hadn't been so incredibly explosive on the dancefloor. And the innovation in jungle, until auteurs like Photek/Source Direct et al made it more of a connoisseur thing, seemed to be something of a by-product of the drive towards making people dance and to go crazy. Maybe I'm wrong about that? But its a similar thing with Juke - it was made primarily to inspire physical movement, and became extreme and mind-melting as a result of that.

I think perhaps producers should be thinking about pushing things forward less in terms of what strikes them as interesting INTELLECTUALLY (or you might say 'journalistically' - the 'x + y = xy-step!' attitude) as what makes dancefloors go crazy because they've not heard something like that before. All this veneration of house music - okay, its produced a lot of good tunes and no doubt it works on a dancefloor - but it just seems very safe and conservative. Once again I'm thinking 'must read Reynolds new book'!

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

not got time to read all the replies but as far as grime being anti establishment, id say it was more anti social. dubstep was political in its own way true, just not the aggressive/confrontational way a lot of people like their 'political' music, but i forgot about anti war dub. thats just one tune though. i know dubstep as a whole could be seen as going against the grain of the mainstream, even more than grime in a way, as it was such a sluggish beast, whereas grime had the things people look to pop for (energy, attitude, etc etc).

 

[SecondLine]

Perhaps its a rose-tinted view of things, particularly as I wasn't there, but tunes from the late 80's early 90's do seem to have that starry eyed feeling, that feeling that things can really change because of drugs and music

Nothing ever did change though. As far as I know no dance music has ever ushered in political change of any significance. At best it functions as a kind of demilitarised zone where oppressed people can temporarily (and it is always temporary) escape the normative pressures of wider society; at worst it's a distraction, diverting people's attention away from things that are really important (i.e. trying to change the actual conditions of their and others' lives).

That is one argument anyway.

 

[datwun]

You could argue that one political effect of rave is that the British working class is comparatively less racially segregated than America, France ect. There's also all the anecdotal evidence about MDMA and the decline of football hooliganism. But yeah no, probably a large part of raves depoliticisation today is that its utopian ideals never were realised and to believe in them now would be naive.