rolling back to the future garage/post-dubstep/alt-funkstep/intelli-2step etc thread

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CrowleyHead

Well-known member
FairiesWearBoots said:
it was james Blake, now its easy to target Jamie XX - easy to hate
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There's actually two different issues with Blake and Jamie.

With Blake, after a good period of making dubstep that depending on your tastes, was excellent, the guy started making something that was less 'beat-driven' and more 'song-oriented'. He's not a real song-writer, but he gets adulation why...? Because of his prior successes musically.

With Jamie, there is a vampiric relationship with dance music. While I'm sure Jamie does listen to and enjoy dubstep (because I'm sure he doesn't walk around saying he likes 'post-dubstep') he contributes nothing up to this point. But he's guaranteed a degree of adulation because of his status OUTSIDE of dubstep. Which again, is no different than Skrillex or the kids from Enter Shikari making dubstep and having their own pockets of fans that keep them successful, without ever having to be organic. Just a different tempo.

This would be entirely different if, you know, he'd actually been putting records out beyond that goofy "Space Bass" mix. If this was just him releasing these low-key, it'd probably be fine. But BECAUSE he got on Numbers, BECAUSE he's Jamie XX and he's guaranteed focus, that's the big underlying problem.
 
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SecondLine

Well-known member
CrowleyHead said:
There's actually two different issues with Blake and Jamie.
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On the contrary I'd say there are identical issues here: the hype train running away with itself, ascribing 'heavyweight' status to artists who aren't particularly outspoken and probably never intended for that to happen. Then any critics who may have been indifferent or mildly unimpressed by the music feel the need to amplify their sentiments to be heard...that's what a backlash is, right?

Fwiw I think both artists are very talented at what they choose to do, but the ways in which they're working are inevitably going to throw up the classic old cultural dissonances between scenes/musical perspectives.

So James Blake's beatless songs are variously 'wet', 'meandering', 'pretentious' etc...because they're viewed through the prism of dubstep when for the most part they're divorced from that now. Jamie XX essentially makes very finessed pop music but clearly, compared to a lot of dancefloor stuff, it's seen as overly polite and hung up on melodic development. Fine, but his Adele remix was some of the smartest pop music I've heard getting radio play in a long time.

And this idea that his relationship with dance music is 'vampiric' is weak, you may think his music is bloodless but it's certainly not deflating the scene it draws on...my dad always says: 'it'll only get to ya if you let it son!'
 
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CrowleyHead

Well-known member
UFO over easy said:
lol come on dude
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Repeating a hook over and over again doesn't make you a songwriter.

I'm all for the fact that he's minimalistic, but gimme a goddamn bridge once in a while if half the internet is going to think you're a genius. It's hideously telling that the most complete song on his album is a cover.

@SecondLine; The thing is, James isn't divorced from dubstep entirely... CMYK certainly still fit in the spectrum. It's just that his songwriter material is, and that's forged his big new identity... It's sort of like if Skrillex were to go back to his old AFX-Fetishist singer-songwriter material that he was peddling not two years ago, and people started referring to it as "Sonny Moore, Dubstep Artist". Obviously, Blake's a lot more indebted to dubstep in his production, but it's more mis-translation and confusion that's already been plaguing this genre.

But Jamie has NO RELATION WHATSOEVER other than being a fan to dubstep. But because of his 'outer genre' status, he's a star in the genre. I think that's unfair that he gets to play superstar, whether he does it consciously or not. If anything, these should've been things he could put out independently, and just have fun. He doesn't need to be letting labels bother with chasing the dollar signs of Jamie's fans.
 
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daddek

Well-known member
Idk, i think the critique you've made is perhaps transporting a dislike of an audience's reaction to an artist onto the artist themselves. You might make a case for it being unfair for him to have extra press attention, but the unfairness aspect is less compelling when many core djs and fans are supporting him; people who are less distracted by his past. And is there really much evidence for him playing a special status card.. other than, using "XX" in his name? So if he had used a more detached pseudonym and covered his past, there should no issue right.

its reviews like that which create the issue, much less his actions.

also, wouldnt say Blake got adulation because of past successes.. as they were tiny blips compared to the post album fame. but they made his backstory seem more legit- which it is. In figuring out the reasons behind his adulation, its relevant info that most of my female friends are batshit crazy for his album, the hits at least. young adults just seem to love that shit.
 
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SecondLine

Well-known member
daddek said:
i think the critique you've made is perhaps transporting a dislike of an audience's reaction to an artist onto the artist themselves.
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This. Much more succinct than I managed...

And surely the idea that Jamie XX...

has NO RELATION WHATSOEVER other than being a fan to dubstep
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...well isn't that all of us before we start making the stuff? He just happens to have had a successful prior career in a slightly different area of music. As Daddek says I don't think he's particularly milked his 'famous' status in the process of promoting his solo stuff, I think the press have done that for him. He also spent 6 months giving his tracks to people like Mary Anne Hobbs under different aliases, the name obviously didn't come easily.

It's obviously fine to think his stuff is shit. I don't really like Far Nearer. But I think the title of vampiric bandwagoner is a bit much.

oh and

Repeating a hook over and over again doesn't make you a songwriter.
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No, writing songs does...pretty sure James Blake's done that. If your ideas of structure are that narrow then I think that's more your hang ups than his.
 
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Ory

warp drive
daddek said:
So if he had used a more detached pseudonym and covered his past, there should no issue right.
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yeah, "jamie, you know, of xx fame" comes across as a bit... conceited?

but more important than that, this 12" is just tremendously shit.
 
Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
SecondLine said:
...well isn't that all of us before we start making the stuff?
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Yeah, being influenced by music you like and co-opting elements of it into your own music has been going on since the year dot, it pretty much goes with the territory of being a creative musician.

It's one thing to observe that scene 'outsiders' doing their own take on a genre often leads to boring and anaemic music and creative dead ends (although you also could point out that it sometimes leads to very good music or things that take on a life of their own), but trying to paint it as somehow intrinsically morally wrong or use it as a criticism in its own right seems kind of backwards.
 
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tom lea

Well-known member
Jamie XX essentially makes very finessed pop music but clearly, compared to a lot of dancefloor stuff, it's seen as overly polite and hung up on melodic development. Fine, but his Adele remix was some of the smartest pop music I've heard getting radio play in a long time.
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on point.

im not a huge jamie xx fan or anything but his tunes are good - you've just got to judge them against the pop music they're supposed to be judged against, rather than dancefloor-efficient tracks.
 
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Phaedo

Well-known member
tom lea said:
im not a huge jamie xx fan or anything but his tunes are good - you've just got to judge them against the pop music they're supposed to be judged against, rather than dancefloor-efficient tracks.
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100%. Again its the media that's made all these connections, I very much doubt Jamie XX could care less that hardcore continuum royalists think his tunes are shit.

Also with regards to his name I think people are looking all a bit too deeply lol, he's called Jamie and he's from the band The XX, it's just a functional name.
 
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