"serious eyes-down music for serious eyes-down people"
Although this has been true of "funkstep" so far, ultimately boomkat-ization is slightly more subtle than this.
Not all music that appeals to a dubstep-like audience has to be "serious eyes-down", but I think that boomkat-isation does involve a progressive decoupling of "just fun" from art, such that even uplifting tracks within dubstep and post-dubstep scenes need to foreground their artistry somewhat. See for example so much wonky, which can be "fun" but in a "deep artists having fun" kinda way.
So we'll see "uplifting" funkstep tracks I'm sure, but they'll be more likely to resemble "Wonderful Day" or "Love Dub" than "In The Morning" - that is to say, if they're not "dark" they'll at least be "deep".
Simon R says on his latest blogpost (paraphrasing) "we've got enough "fun" party music in the world, we don't need more." But surely by the same logic we've also got enough deep, dark music too?
The real problem is the way in which dance music is so ruthlessly divided into "fun" and "connoisseur" camps (e.g. populist electro-house versus Berghain techno) - as if dance music has to make a choice between being dark/deep and being populist.
Meanwhile, because of the way in which artists so quickly become self-conscious about the need to foreground their darkness and deepness, the "fun" scenes quickly become starved of genuine innovation.
One of the main attractions of funky is its refusal of this false choice, such that, say, Ill Blu can reach towards a kind of rough experimental darkness in a way that also reaches towards a shiny and excitable populism.
P.S. Craner i'm in love with Cooly G too, which is why I find the whole discourse so vexing. I guess it'd be the equivalent of reading Photek circa 1995 dismissing other jungle.
Although this has been true of "funkstep" so far, ultimately boomkat-ization is slightly more subtle than this.
Not all music that appeals to a dubstep-like audience has to be "serious eyes-down", but I think that boomkat-isation does involve a progressive decoupling of "just fun" from art, such that even uplifting tracks within dubstep and post-dubstep scenes need to foreground their artistry somewhat. See for example so much wonky, which can be "fun" but in a "deep artists having fun" kinda way.
So we'll see "uplifting" funkstep tracks I'm sure, but they'll be more likely to resemble "Wonderful Day" or "Love Dub" than "In The Morning" - that is to say, if they're not "dark" they'll at least be "deep".
Simon R says on his latest blogpost (paraphrasing) "we've got enough "fun" party music in the world, we don't need more." But surely by the same logic we've also got enough deep, dark music too?
The real problem is the way in which dance music is so ruthlessly divided into "fun" and "connoisseur" camps (e.g. populist electro-house versus Berghain techno) - as if dance music has to make a choice between being dark/deep and being populist.
Meanwhile, because of the way in which artists so quickly become self-conscious about the need to foreground their darkness and deepness, the "fun" scenes quickly become starved of genuine innovation.
One of the main attractions of funky is its refusal of this false choice, such that, say, Ill Blu can reach towards a kind of rough experimental darkness in a way that also reaches towards a shiny and excitable populism.
P.S. Craner i'm in love with Cooly G too, which is why I find the whole discourse so vexing. I guess it'd be the equivalent of reading Photek circa 1995 dismissing other jungle.
