New Trends using Old Ideas - moving forward?

It's a good question. Sometimes you have to go back to go forward. All the musical forms you mention began as echoes of previous styles - so when modern stuff references Chicago house, it references a form that echoes disco etc. And so on and so forth. And all good musicians are thieves. (Now, if dubstep referenced chicago house...) I've always thought innovation and originality in music are pretty much irrelevant, a bit of a dead end.

BTW, I certainly think funky is a massive move forward - though forward from what is a moot point. I'd like to buy a lot more of it.

I'd love it if Grime could do this via itself 03-05. But then I'm a cynic.

Grievous Angel said:

BTW, I certainly think funky is a massive move forward - though forward from what is a moot point. I'd like to buy a lot more of it.

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It seems to me that Funky is early/mid 90s Chicago/Berlin/Detroit techno with female vocals and some Carribean beats. I'm not complaining, but I can really feel these influences.

Grievous Angel said:

BTW, I certainly think funky is a massive move forward - though forward from what is a moot point. I'd like to buy a lot more of it.

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funky is a classic example of moving forward by going back. Grime thru up so many un(der)explored tangents that its inevitable & totally necessary to go back, find those leads & (to an extent) start over. Not so much going over old ground as unfinished business.

Shonx said:

Yeah, I'd agree. I don't think it's that innovative (yet), but then I don't think that's really the point.

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I think thats exactly the point. UK musics (ukg, grime, jungle, etc) vigorously assert a point of difference, and funky doesn't.

Or doesn't appear to, at least to me.

Nah, funky is early 90s MAH-style, even Jaxx-style minimal samba house pitched up and massively simplified.

Which of course means that techno is in there manque.

Actually check out the Crazy Couzinz rinse show from a couple of weeks back where he plays a heap of blindingly good old techy, druggy house records at the start and even name checks rinse DJs who are playing the cream of minimal! (He still plays a stack of dullsville soft / directionless gear at the end which I didn't like, though maybe that's the funky version of lovers rock...)

Shonx said:

There's often some very good reasons why things haven't been done in music before. They're just not very good

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Head, meet Nail

DJ PIMP said:

UK musics (ukg, grime, jungle, etc) vigorously assert a point of difference, and funky doesn't.

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Nah. UKG came from being like r'n'b and house, but using jungle sonics. No big vigourous assertion of difference. Grime was about doing hip hop within garage. Jungle was about dancehall and hardcore.

Wheras funky desperately wanted to be part of the UK house scene but was rejected, same as hardcore / jungle got rejected by house, same as grime got rejected by 2step. It's about being rejected, not asserting difference, IMO - and I think they're different.

Grievous Angel said:

Nah, funky is early 90s MAH-style, even Jaxx-style minimal samba house pitched up and massively simplified.

Which of course means that techno is in there manque.

Actually check out the Crazy Couzinz rinse show from a couple of weeks back where he plays a heap of blindingly good old techy, druggy house records at the start and even name checks rinse DJs who are playing the cream of minimal! (He still plays a stack of dullsville soft / directionless gear at the end which I didn't like, though maybe that's the funky version of lovers rock...)

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Well MAW is obv. a massive influence (looms large over all House music doesn't it) but I don't see how early (emo) grime needs to be discounted in favour of other things that are also at work. It is possible to like / be influenced by both.

I also don't see the point in trying to reduce something which in itself is so expansive in its outlook.

Will try & chk that Crazis show.. but my connect doesn't get on well with Rinse.

You may be right about 'the funky version of lovers rock...'

Grievous Angel said:

Wheras funky desperately wanted to be part of the UK house scene but was rejected, same as hardcore / jungle got rejected by house, same as grime got rejected by 2step. It's about being rejected, not asserting difference, IMO - and I think they're different.

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True true, good point.

I wrote a longer reply but I'm chatting pure breeze!

Never mind...

Shonx said:

Yeah, I'd agree. I don't think it's that innovative (yet), but then I don't think that's really the point. It'd be innovative playing it through a toy megaphone and looping it in 9/16 time but it'd be shit, lets face it.

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Yeah. But there's no reason why you couldn't take it into a more progressive direction. Unlike all the instrument electronic music, Funky has two anchors: Vocal and instruments. You could leave one very conventional as an anchor, and go wild in the other dimension.

About funky and innovation: At the end of the day, also dubstep wasn't that innovative at it's beginning. You could ask that what's so groundbreaking with dark garage - isn't it just 2step but darker?

However, we know how the sound evolved when time moved on.

i would like to hear some funky reference these sounds:

http://www.zshare.net/audio/17788161b5e73c6f/

Grievous Angel said:

Nah. UKG came from being like r'n'b and house, but using jungle sonics.

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this is a really odd summation ga. how come you've written US garage out of the equation? these genre shifts are demographically led. jungle's original audience moved to garage, then some producers jumped ship, bringing their sound palette with them. just as some dnb producers have now moved to dubstep- i'm sure this partly accounts for the "aggressive" sound anathema to yr original dubstep headz

Grievous Angel said:

No big vigourous assertion of difference. Grime was about doing hip hop within garage. Jungle was about dancehall and hardcore.
Wheras funky desperately wanted to be part of the UK house scene but was rejected, same as hardcore / jungle got rejected by house, same as grime got rejected by 2step. It's about being rejected, not asserting difference, IMO - and I think they're different.

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house and hardcore became divergent for the same reasons as jungle and garage - the ladies and the men who spend money on them wanted something a little classier than an adrenal scrum. again, it's a demographic shift. same with funky and grime. should be noted that plenty of funky djs play US house and i don't buy that they ever sought much acceptance from the broader club house scene. the tempo shift allows a context for big crossover club records to be played but the audience is different.

in terms of this thread...precedents can be found for most things but the fact is people have a greater breadth of musical taste and awareness these days thanks to the internet. the shock of the new has to be contextual after all.

Also...on the subject of new money for old rope...the current grime/ electro house crossover club tunes really remind me of the awful euro rap/dance hybrids that blighted the 90s charts...Dr. Alban etc. i mean skepta's rolex sweep is about as camp as it gets. is anyone seriously feeling this stuff? it seems to carry the justificatory stamp of money makin'...beyond that it's surely indefensible

fokse vektaire xeven said:

Also...on the subject of new money for old rope...the current grime/ electro house crossover club tunes really remind me of the awful euro rap/dance hybrids that blighted the 90s charts...Dr. Alban etc. i mean skepta's rolex sweep is about as camp as it gets. is anyone seriously feeling this stuff? it seems to carry the justificatory stamp of money makin'...beyond that it's surely indefensible

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to be sure pretty much all of the johnny-come-lately grime/ca. 2003 electro house tunes I've heard have pretty much been warmed over shite, but I have to stand up here for Wiley's original which kicked the whole trend off. "Wearing My Rolex" is another piece of unqualified Wiley brilliance. Thing is, half of its' greatness comes from the fact that it's Wiley - not in an "everything he touches automatically turns to gold" sense (though that also seems to be true - warning: I have been a massive Wiley stan for yrs) - more in the context of his personal/career arc; PAUG-Eskibeat-Roll Deep don-Juan Atkins to Dizzee's Derrick May-grizzled vet early 30s (grandap in grime yrs) who still drops mixtapes at an insane pace & argues w/14 yr olds on forums-etc. and then one day he gets up & thinks "Bad, outdated electro house + me warbling vaguely @ skeezing ladies in da club! That's the ticket!" like, what? sure, it has a big stupid pop hook, but still. it's not as if it was a guaranteed pop success.

in the larger context of new trends mixed w/old ideas it's a good example of what works/doesn't as well, I think. the grime/electro thing shamelessly mines an older sound, and rather vapidly at that, but Wiley's works b/c it comes off as sincere, or at least weird/awkward enough to not seem ruthlessly calculated, whereas, say, Skepta's forays almost uniformly come off as pandering (not that I'm criticizing him - I mean, whatever, let him get paid).

I'm not discouting anything, especially us house, and definitely not grime. Can't cover everything in one post . (oh and when I say "nah" I'm saying, "this is how I remember it happening at the time - it's an invitation to offer other perspectives!)

A thought on dubstep - has it evolved from being dark 2step garage, as in "progressed"? Or is it better the more it references its roots, especially the "roots of dubstep" / dj touch / el b stuff? In the same way as halfstep is better the more it references its instrumental, dubby, primal grime roots? (Mix of that coming when I can clear some time!)

the answer is probably no, though I think about this quite a bit. Where joker fits in - other than being near-genius-level dubstep/grime crossover outthereness I don't know...