Slothrop
Tight but Polite
Why is the nuum still taken as beginning with hardcore?
I can see why that's the way the idea developed - essentially because it started off as a way of talking about hardcore / jungle, which really was a musical continuum, rather than about the social / musical / cultural continuum of East london + pirate
radio + dubplate culture + bass weight.
But why do we take the point at which UK hip hop and dancehall fans got involved in acid as being some sort of year zero, while the points at which jungle people get involved with garage and the point at which grime people get involved with funky house are taken to be new mutations of something that was already there? Shouldn't we view hardcore itself as just another step in a continuum that we could extrapolate back to whatever was happening in east london in the late 80's (I'm guessing UK dancehall soundsystems)?
I can see why that's the way the idea developed - essentially because it started off as a way of talking about hardcore / jungle, which really was a musical continuum, rather than about the social / musical / cultural continuum of East london + pirate
radio + dubplate culture + bass weight.
But why do we take the point at which UK hip hop and dancehall fans got involved in acid as being some sort of year zero, while the points at which jungle people get involved with garage and the point at which grime people get involved with funky house are taken to be new mutations of something that was already there? Shouldn't we view hardcore itself as just another step in a continuum that we could extrapolate back to whatever was happening in east london in the late 80's (I'm guessing UK dancehall soundsystems)?