nostalgia in uk street music

G

gumdrops

Well-known member
would have said 'nuum' but i dont to encourage any more discussion on that stuff.

this might be a bit hardline but i find it a bit dissapointing when you get so many 'back in the day' flashbacks listening to sets these days, whether its old grime classics getting dropped into spyros set, dubstep guys making 2steppy beats, or worse, trip hoppy beats, people like brackles (no offence to him, hes a great dj) dropping in old grime classics into sets of otherwise new material.

all good to remember old tunes, and occasionally for there to be a new remix or update or retooling (like what bless beats did with what would we do for wearing my rolex for example) but when theres so much blurring between the now and the past all the time, i just find it a bit strange. esp wrt grime, i dont want to constantly hear classics being dropped into sets - its too easy, and its also a bit depressing. like its almost accepting that theres nothing new that can compete. im all for pride in the history, but thats what back in the day old school sets are for. youre not meant to be doing that all the time. what happened to 'always looking forward, never looking back' etc?
 
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A

alex

Do not read this.
just dont bang it (the classics) out like all the time i suppose..Its nice to hear those tracks now and again, and if a DJ choses the right one well, to go into something thats new & on the same sort of tip/has the same sort of formula it can work wonders..

my 2p, for what its worth
 
mixed_biscuits

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
I think the standard commercial house scene is the most nostalgic electronic music scene of all. Pete Tong's progs present an endless procession of tunes that recycle or reference the bygone essential selections.

I wonder whether it's because the original audience have grown up with the scene and dictate that it stays rooted in the past or because, if the audience is new, producers can get away with rehashing dependable old ideas.
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
I sort of agree with your sentiments Gumdrops but my fave dj in the world at the minute is Oneman, so I dunno really!
 
mos dan

mos dan

fact music
Benny B said:
I sort of agree with your sentiments Gumdrops but my fave dj in the world at the minute is Oneman, so I dunno really!
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yeah it's a point worth raising gumdrops definitely, but then brackles and gumdrops are two of my fav djs right now too.. don't have time right now to get into it fully alas - but the 2step-in-dubstep thing is less a throwback and more a reinstillation of something that's seen as lacking. even in early 06 the likes of whistla were saying that the missing swing was a problem...

weirdly i was going to start a thread like this the other day, when i stumbled on a mysterious, forgotten word document entitled 'grime and world-weary nostalgia'. the content of the word doc is as follows (lol):

Scorcher – Back to one-on-one with no guns - freestyle (Rinsessions)
Skepta – Back when Margaret was the government leader - freestyle
Ears – Happy Dayz
JME – Punch in the Face
Smasher – Back in the Day
Goodz – Switching Songs
 
Z

zhao

there are no accidents
sorry not exactly what this turned out to be about but couldn't resist with that thread title:

trinidadiancalypso_london.jpg
 
benjybars

benjybars

village elder.
mos dan said:
yeah it's a point worth raising gumdrops definitely, but then brackles and gumdrops are two of my fav djs right now too.. don't have time right now to get into it fully alas - but the 2step-in-dubstep thing is less a throwback and more a reinstillation of something that's seen as lacking. even in early 06 the likes of whistla were saying that the missing swing was a problem...

weirdly i was going to start a thread like this the other day, when i stumbled on a mysterious, forgotten word document entitled 'grime and world-weary nostalgia'. the content of the word doc is as follows (lol):

Scorcher – Back to one-on-one with no guns - freestyle (Rinsessions)
Skepta – Back when Margaret was the government leader - freestyle
Ears – Happy Dayz
JME – Punch in the Face
Smasher – Back in the Day
Goodz – Switching Songs
Click to expand...


that doesn't even scratch the surface - pretty much half of grime's lyrical content is based on the 'back in the day' concept.

anyway, gonna have to disagree with you overall gumdrops cos i love hearin the old stuff played out.

having said that, it was a bit weird seeing brackles drop So Solid at the only night slugs rave i went and seeing everyone go nuts for it. i just thought, don't lie - you all hated So Solid when they were on top of the pops.

might be being too cynical tho?
 
G

gumdrops

Well-known member
mos dan said:
the 2step-in-dubstep thing is less a throwback and more a reinstillation of something that's seen as lacking.
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maybe, but then sometimes its abstracted 2 step, other times it sounds like its actually trying to just do 2step beats in earnest, which i really dont see the point of. im sure it would have been a bit odd if slimzee or tubby or whoever kept dropping 2 seconds or dillemma in their sets in 2004 lol. i suppose now, cos the whole emphasis on looking forward in pop culture as a whole isnt there as much, even grime/dubstep has fallen prey to it, but thats a shame imo.

btw i dont really like the term uk street music but its better than nuum/urban/bass music lol.
 
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4linehaiku

4linehaiku

Repetitive
benjybars said:
having said that, it was a bit weird seeing brackles drop So Solid at the only night slugs rave i went and seeing everyone go nuts for it. i just thought, don't lie - you all hated So Solid when they were on top of the pops.

might be being too cynical tho?
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No I doubt you are.
I certainly thought they were shit, and I think I'm far from alone.
But we all make mistakes as teenagers eh?
 
Tentative Andy

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
I genuinely liked 21 Seconds at the time, but then thought they came off as a bit daft when they immediately started to sound harder. I still think that to an extent, although a few things like Dillemna have grown on me.
 
G

gumdrops

Well-known member
yeah ill be honest and admit i hated so solid at the time too. was too into hip hop to care about PAUG, so solid etc. the only track i liked of theirs was the one with ms dynamite. changed my mind totally about garage rap etc shortly after though, when i first heard dizzee.
 
B

boomnoise

♫
putting music into new contexts can be incredibly exciting. it's often a dj device as well mixing something familiar with the freshness.

everyone involved in music loves music. so what do you do - abandon what you love to push things forward at the expense of what got you there in the first place?

this stuff feeds into the new stuff so it only makes sense that it's referenced.

can be awkward when done in a more conservative sense of nostalgia but with oneman, brackles et al it is exhilarating

except that time on rinse one time when they dropped that manfred mann tune

it's joining the dots, as it were and sometimes you need to go back to go forward.
 
hint

hint

party record with a siren
benjybars said:
having said that, it was a bit weird seeing brackles drop So Solid at the only night slugs rave i went and seeing everyone go nuts for it. i just thought, don't lie - you all hated So Solid when they were on top of the pops.

might be being too cynical tho?
Click to expand...

Maybe, but regardless - how much weight does that hold if half of the crowd were 12 at the time? There's definitely an increase in requests for "old UK Garage like So Solid" in certain circles, for whatever reason.

Sometimes it's easy to forget that today's 18 year olds will have never heard a lot of these tracks played out loud in a club.
 
T

Tim F

Well-known member
So Solid Crew material feels relevant again though - the grime-funky crossover is very close in vibe to early So Solid stuff like "Oh No", "21 Seconds", "Envy (They Don't Know Remix)" etc, including the faint veneer of silliness.

(all those tunes are straight fire btw)

Most revivalist trends that gain traction tell us something about present trends as much as past.

Mind you given so many present trends are at least quasi-revivalist this point starts to seem a bit tautological or at least circular.
 
B

boomnoise

♫
surely relevancy is the key here.

if something's relevant is it nostalgia?

if something's a sick track is it nostalgic to include because it's old(er)?

i mean this is dance music and - not to mention the nuum - there has been a constant feedback loop which i don't think you can equate to retroism - much different to nostalgic regurgitation in other music forms.
 
A

alex

Do not read this.
going back to what hint said, I am only 19, so hearing old stuff for the 1st time in clubs is obviously going to get me hype...sorry for being young :(
 
D

droid

Guest
You could make a case that the re-using of samples, rhythms etc... is the 'nuums version of reggae's 'multiplicity of interpretations' - reinterpreting the same riddims and sonics again and again to create new tunes whilst also constantly referencing the traditions of the scene - old skool and jungle samples and references standing in for studio one and treasure isle riddims as the primary source.

It's an approach that hasn't done dancehall any harm.
 
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