The future for dubstep and grime

from blackdown blog

http://blackdownsoundboy.blogspot.com/2007/09/skepta-greatest-hits.html



interesting ideas


i cant help drawing two distinct conclusions - that there are people who enjoy dubstep/grime for what it is as underground music, all the pirate radio - d.i.y. aspect to the music, and those that appreciate the music made in a more compromised form - radio/gal friendly in terms of grime, or massive bass in dubstep.

so now artists have the choice of who they want to target their music at - whereas when they were starting off they never had this choice. back when mc's were spitting on deja or whatever they werent making music with the intention to sell, move units, or make it big. the music was a more uncompromised expression of what they were feeling (this may have been driven by a desire for fame but with that possibility so far removed, fame could not be a determining factor over output.)

you cant blame people for wanting to make it big, but whats saddest is the abandon of the ideals and influences that took people to a particular sound. that dizzee thing just hurts to read, but its not just the artists, the fans who like a music and arent prepared to accept its history arent who the mc's/producers should be aiming at. compromise isnt progress
 

continuum

smugpolice
Access to the mainstream is what is needed to spread the message of the music. Some compromise is inevitable in order to do this - just the nature of achieving this goal unfortunately. When this access is achieved securely artists should double-back on themselves and revert to the original underground ethos imo. Infiltration tactics.
 

Gavin

booty bass intellectual
Access to the mainstream is what is needed to spread the message of the music. Some compromise is inevitable in order to do this - just the nature of achieving this goal unfortunately. When this access is achieved securely artists should double-back on themselves and revert to the original underground ethos imo. Infiltration tactics.

This doesn't seem realistic though -- reverting back when you're even closer to more money and success than when you were underground? Also, this strategy is a GREAT way to get dropped, or even worse, shelved.

Imagine a political party with a brilliant, nation-changing idea. They do everything to gain power, except in doing so, have to compromise the one idea that made them unique and important. You’d have to ask, as a voter, was it all worth it? The same question applies to dubstep and grime.

Not quite sure this analogy holds, but run with it for a sec... it's a question of whether you vote based on ideas or to make "your" party successful... just like, do you buy Dizzee's records because you like the music or because you want to see him do well? It seems like a no brainer -- you buy records for the music, and while personal investment in the artist is perfectly natural and even justified in many cases (esp. underground artists), it should NEVER trump the music.
 

mms

sometimes
you don't need to access the mainstream at all to be successful you have to create working networks modes and effects that make sure you are not compromising.
Also the whole coffee table/advert music thing is a bit of a misnomer, especially in this day and age, there are more legitimate ways to partner up and make money nowdays without sticking your music on the ad of a multinational. However if you do go down that route you do have choices too, and you must make them work for you.
 
yeah its funny how keeping it real will probably bring grime artists more return in the long run, despite them thinking their sound is maybe too harsh/hardcore. people's attitudes change, dizzee blew from keeping it totally real, thats why people connected. i cant see them getting anywhere by compromising
 

continuum

smugpolice
I think its the nature of audiences nowadays more than anything. Mediocrity is all that people want to or can connect with.
 

continuum

smugpolice
i think it is freightened artists and record companies who THINK that people are this way, and think they should turn out rubbish to become succesful. With this kind of disrespect for your public you get what you deserve, which is that nobody buys your stuff. People should just be enthusiastic about their stuff and maybe they will become succesful. Please dont think like some marketing manager in a big corporation

I do actually completely agree. Grime came face to face with these people a couple of years ago and were made to do this. Roll Deep 'In At The Deep End' for example. Dizzee's latest album doesn't inspire confidence that things have changed. Its just a problem with the music industry in general I think which shit itself and then went ga-ga when the internet began to flourish. I really hope that Grime and Dubstep and the industry have learned from all this and will not make those mistakes. But if it does happen then a contingency is something to bear in mind.
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
i think this is an awful mistake and totally untrue. "new" styles of music burst onto the scene and have big chart success by NOT compromising. Look at Nirvana, look at rave, look at the Sex Pistols, look at Queen, U2, the Rolling Stones, 2step, Black Sabbath. Whereas i know NO example of a scene which only became successful after compromosing.
I think grime and dubstep will never have chart success, whether the artists compromise or not. Listen to the "grime albums" by wiley, skepta, tinchy, dizzee, there's nothing there for to get excited about, all i hear is compromise, and i think it's a mistake to think that people who dont like the real deal, will like this half baked compromise

Hang on the first two Dizzee albums were decent. I think there is some argument towards compromise, but only in terms of taking something else that's interesting in its own right (but more palatable) and hybridizing. A merely watered down version is utterly pointless. Grime undeniably has a "pop" element to it, but much of the time hook-writing skills seem to be somewhat lacking- and its this that has propelled hip hop to success ultimately, rather than mongrel-ising a street genre with samba or indie or whatever bullshit.
 
Grime undeniably has a "pop" element to it, but much of the time hook-writing skills seem to be somewhat lacking



seems odd you saying that when grime mc's are constantly criticised and downgraded (mostly unfairly) for their emphasis on one line flows. its pure hooks there
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
Yeah but that's part of the problem- that's the laziest form of hook writing possible! It obviously doesn't translate at all well to broader markets. Indeed these are really a form of audio-branding, like a more brutalist version of Timbaland's numerous (sometimes charming, sometimes bloody annoying) vocal tics.
 

Gavin

booty bass intellectual
To be fair, most hip hop songs have shitty boring hooks as well... not singles (obviously) but if you sit through an artist album you're bound to hear clunkers. Like just a set of 4 bars that gets repeated throughout the song... maybe that's technically a chorus, but not a hook! Of course rappers aren't always (often?) good songwriters.

Pop-screwed&chopped does a better-than-most job of making hooks that are sonically distinct and interesting...

Counterpoint: all the great Wu-Tang tracks with no hooks at all -- "Triumph" was a single!
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
i think this is an awful mistake and totally untrue. "new" styles of music burst onto the scene and have big chart success by NOT compromising. Look at Nirvana, look at rave, look at the Sex Pistols, look at Queen, U2, the Rolling Stones, 2step, Black Sabbath.

all the above compromised, at least to some extent.

the diy aspect of grime and dubstep has been out of necessity, few artists promote a diy aesthetic, unlike punk/hardcore.

if success= major labels, the need to compromise should go without saying.
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
I think the commercial positions are different for each of them tho: Dubstep can expand as an international underground dance music form with ease, it has no need for pop-like success. Grime on the other hand is clearly no longer dance music, it slots much more into a hip hop like format, and therein lies the obvious problem. I think Reynolds once wrote that "Grime needs Lebensraum" and he was absolutely correct, the problem being that the space within that market does not actually appear to exist. Hence Grime will remain hyper-marginal, unfortunately, and dubstep will remain underground but on global terms popular enough for the major players to easily make a living from.
 

msoes

Well-known member
i dont know that much about grime stuff, but there just seem so many less crews these days. where did they go/why did they stop? and how come no new crews have really come in to take their place?

whatever happened to slk? essentials? black ops? boys in the hood? mucky wolfpack? a billion other crews?
 

Logan Sama

BestThereIsAtWhatIDo
There are no avenues for them to exist as a crew. And myspace is not condusive to rap groups. It is based around soloists really. Everyone has their own individual page anyway.

With far less pirate stations offering platforms for crew sets, and far less raves happening, it will be very difficult for new crews to have the opportunity to perform and grow as a cohesive unit.
 

outraygeous

Well-known member
there is also the argument that there is so little to eat out there that trying to survive in a crew could hold you back.
 

lissajou

Well-known member
BOO MOO YAK YAK.

everyone who's anyone knows pop sunda
is the future of dubstep:

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Gabba Flamenco Crossover

High Sierra Skullfuck
I think grime is a victim of major labels forgetting how to A&R properly. A&R is about developing the uniqueness of the artist in such a way as to connect with the mainstream, and then developing thier relationship with the new audience over a career. But A&R nowadays has been infected by a marketing mentality of bandwagon jumping and repeating a successful formula. People don't want mediocraty, they want new fresh relevent ideas, but the industry can't provide those any more - that's why sales of music are going down, the whole filesharing thing is a red herring. This isn't confined to grime, I can think of a couple of contemporary rock bands who've suffered from awful A&R, and look at the 'crisis in hip hop' talk thats been coming out of the USA recently. The structure of the industry is wrong. Unfortunately the majors increasingly have all the promotion and distribution channels on lockdown so going it alone as an independent isn't time/effort efficient past a certain point.

Dubstep faces a slightly different set of problems. It's blowing up as international dance music, and people will just have to accept that part of that is a shedding of it's south-London specific elements. Also to a certain extent, the music gets codified into a set of signifiers which cramps the more original producers and opens the way for copycats. But that's a necessary process with dance music - once it gets to a point of maturity, it's very difficult to produce truly original tracks that still fit within the boundaries of the scene and work as dancefloor bangers, so producers just need to accept that and carry on ploughing thier own furrow. No-one 'owns' dubstep, and it will go the way it's going to go regardless of how the 1st wave of producers/fans feel about it.
 
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