1990s hypes revisited - loose series installmant 02 - "Big Beat"

firefinga

Well-known member
Was Jilted Generation a big influence on this stuff? I was wondering if that album was a bit of a one-off but thinking about it now seems obvious that it belongs to that breaks lineage.

No I don't think so, "Music for the Jilted Generation" was still very much preceived as "uk breakbeat" - hardcore/proto-jungle of sorts - at least that's my teenage-self remembering it when it came out. The track "Poison" though was proto-big beat without a doubt.

I personally think Big Beat rather was the rude cousin of Trip Hop

And then there was this odd "hope" of Big Beat finally breaking "electronic dance music" for the masses in the USA around 1996/97.
 
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Numbers

Well-known member
I personally think Big Beat rather was the rude cousin of Trip Hop

They're certainly linked, also demographically. But big beat's bad reputation (rude, drunk student music) is a very UK thing. In Belgium, big beat was for many the only palatable type of dance music. Especially when compared to house and techno which were still stigmatised by the new beat era.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
And there was that comeback Prodigy album where they were doing 'nu skool breakz' ala Plump DJs/Freestylers/Deekline et al... That stuff was pretty big when I was at uni in Nottingham - was much more student (and - excuse potential sexism here - girl) friendly than drum n bass and even techno.

I'm guessing there was some intersecting going on between garage and breaks in the early 00s - cos I've heard sets from that time where you'll get some of those tunes sneaking in. 'I Don't smoke the Reefer'...

i like breakstep but god the purist nu skool breaks is so dull.
 

blissblogger

Well-known member
i picked this up a year or so ago on your recommendation

it's the position normal end of big beat isn't it?

exactly!

i could have done with a whole album of tunes in this vein but they squeezed out a couple more not quite as good EPs and then vaporized, seemingly both guys leaving the Music Biz altogether
 

blissblogger

Well-known member
i thought the ancestry of Big Beat was more from Madchester and indie-dance - Norm having been in the Housemartins before he did Beats International and other dancey things, Chemical Brothers having been an indie group and based in Manchester I believe... World of Twist seem to be spiritual forebears if not directly ancestral - the same combo of sounding antique-and-vaguely-Sixties with bang up to date 90s

people also talked about Balearic as part of its ancestry - a large part of which involved finding odd danceable indie records

perhaps mod revival is in there somehow (and that groovy small combo thing - James Taylor Quartet)

jungle would be the real reincarnation in 90s flesh of mod spirit; big beat would be the mod revival, i.e. the faux retro thing

so the crossovers between Big Beat and Britpop make sense

^^^^^^^^^

there was a lot of Big Beat shite - Propellerheads, awful. i don't think i liked anything on Wall of Sound. Skint had moments but much of it barely stood up then let alone now.
 

droid

Well-known member
In my mind here's a cultural synchronicity between Fatboy Slim and Oasis, the same mindless white beer swilling aesthetic mirrored at the same time in both rock and dance. An anti-E, anti rave, reactionary ethos in the ascendent.
 

luka

Well-known member
In my mind here's a cultural synchronicity between Fatboy Slim and Oasis, the same mindless white beer swilling aesthetic mirrored at the same time in both rock and dance. An anti-E, anti rave, reactionary ethos in the ascendent.

yeah ive talked about this a lot with a mate of mine. it was definitely the counter revolution, funded by the breweries and so on. jump up jungle is part of this.
anti-urban. revenge of the provinces and suburbs. ugly boorish and willfully stupid.

(mr tea will be along to make a hoegaarden gag soon)
 

hucks

Your Message Here
FBS was certainly the nadir of the scene, or close to it.

He was nowhere near the nadir. He was probably above average. There was so much shite

And whoever says it above is right- it was anti rave. It sort of looked back to acid house- you’d hear quite a lot of 808s at BBB- but skipped over rave.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
In my mind here's a cultural synchronicity between Fatboy Slim and Oasis, the same mindless white beer swilling aesthetic mirrored at the same time in both rock and dance. An anti-E, anti rave, reactionary ethos in the ascendent.

It definitely wasn't anti-E - maybe lager and pills is a better way of looking at it. Big Beat was eclectic which means that bits of it were definitely shit but there were people involved like Cut La Roc and Hardknox who definitely didn't fit into that anti-rave thing when you saw them DJ. They played a lot of jungle and ragga tunes in fact. Maybe this doesn't come across on the records.

Also Fatboy Slim was an amazing DJ before he went all stadium. It's mentioned in my blog piece upthread but I saw him play all night in the small room at The End once and it was incredible how we took the crowd with him (yes, on a journey!), an incredible party DJ.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Also can we agree that "nu breakz" was worse than Big Beat? I mean that supposedly had the urban/rave/E aesthetic but it was joyless.
 

luka

Well-known member
selling students a retrograde idea of working class masculinity. prove youre a man drink as fast as you can.
dont be a queer drink all your beer. waaaaay tits! like a viz character come to life.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
See the things I'm thinking of aren't laddy they're more family friendly, safe, middle aged sort of reference points. Probably because I was too young to see this music in its natural environment. By the time I was 18 it was ageing lads remembering their glory days in the student union
 
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