Random Nuumological question

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)?
 

john eden

male pale and stale
I think the wheels really came off it when people started talking about funky.

I think the 'nuum has to be seen as an analytical tool which sprang from a specific time and set of cultural conditions. Most writers hated or ignored 'ardkore at that time.

UK soundsystem culture, or the black atlantic, or the history of dance music going back to disco (or beyond, if you check things like History Is Made At Night blog). All of that is equally as valid.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Yeah, to go a bit dynamic systems on the whole thing, it's half tempting to see UK urban music as having an underlying sexy / screwface oscillation, with hardcore as a sort of druggy euphoric peturbation of the system and the subsequent 'nuum' as the gradual dispersing of that energy as the whole thing settles back into its previous pattern. But I don't really know enough about the pre hardcore scene to make that argument convincingly.

But yeah, is funky any more a product of hardcore than it is of UK soundsystem culture in general?

I'm planning a half hour talk on the subject to demonstrate in a job interview that I have communication skills, so it'd be good to know what people think...
 

Leo

Well-known member
I'm planning a half hour talk on the subject to demonstrate in a job interview that I have communication skills, so it'd be good to know what people think...

wow...don't mean to pry but wondering what sort of job that might be.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
It's a random software job, but they want a talk that could be on a "hobby or interest" rather than an academic / technical type thing, and I'm probably better at talking interestingly about music than most other subjects...
 

Leo

Well-known member
It's a random software job, but they want a talk that could be on a "hobby or interest" rather than an academic / technical type thing, and I'm probably better at talking interestingly about music than most other subjects...

that sounds pretty cool. just be careful, you're future boss might quiz you on how uk funky fits into the picture. ;)
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Well, it seemed to work. :D And if they were concerned about why earlier UK soundsystem culture doesn't count as part of the 'nuum, they didn't mention it.

Although they did ask a rather interesting question about why pirate radio still happens despite the fact that internet streaming is basically cheaper, easier, and less likely to get you busted - presumably it's basically a flag of being still local and still committed enough to risk getting busted?
 

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
I once gave an off-the-cuff 15 minute lecture about the evolution of drum-and-bass at a PhD presentation skills seminar.

I dare say the audience were as confused by that as by your effort, Slothrop. ;)

Very few people will stumble across your music if you hide it away in a corner of the internet - much better to have it irrupt forcibly into people's consciousnesses as they make their dial makes its happy way from Heart to Melody FM and back again.

In fact, giving a largely unsolicited talk on hardcore to an unsuspecting audience is as close as you can get to pirate whilst still wearing a suit.
 
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john eden

male pale and stale
Well, it seemed to work. :D And if they were concerned about why earlier UK soundsystem culture doesn't count as part of the 'nuum, they didn't mention it.

Although they did ask a rather interesting question about why pirate radio still happens despite the fact that internet streaming is basically cheaper, easier, and less likely to get you busted - presumably it's basically a flag of being still local and still committed enough to risk getting busted?

I think it is that but also a lot of target listeners still have analogue radio in the house, car, place of work, etc and maybe not broadband connections?
 
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