Big Beat!

wascal

Wild Horses
Now that theres a Dissensus thread on it surely we can only be months away from the Big Beat(Step?) revival :eek:

re the Lo Fi Allstars; At the time I had the same distaste for them I'd have for a band like Kasabian nowadays and never really checked them out, guessing they did lumpen plodding dance-rock. What were their best tunes?
 

ether

Well-known member
@wascal. I dont really no much about them either to be honest. I was reffering to bigbeat scene in general.

I Just remembered a really good remix by dave clarke which came out on skint. untypical of the sound a great track non the less.
 

massrock

Well-known member
But the Fatboy Slim on the beach thing where a quarter of a million people turned up in Brighton was pretty much when I decided to move to London.

I got into Brighton later that evening when it was over and there was VOMIT everywhere. I mean far more than a typical weekend in Brighton. Also rather hazardous at the train station - had to do some walking across tracks and climbing just to get out.
 

rivetrenuck

Well-known member
i can see how this might be indie friendly typa thing. and thats why after discovering techno and house music, i seized searching for that big beat sound.

but of recently i just love it. After capoiera training, i ussually am in a dancing mood, and put on the fatboy slim - on the floor set and was just absolutly blown away, it was a mini rave in my head. very effective.
 

atoga

Well-known member
To elaborate a bit - insofar as they're both basically messy / fun / silly / druggy / boozy party music (albeit for a fairly specialized type of fun party in the case of breakcore, but look at eg Bang Face), both slightly studenty / indie kid friendly, both engage with older forms of 'street' music in a basically respectful but slightly decontextualized way, both have a sort of open-ended anything-goes approach but without ever feeling like they're about to do anything radically new...

i agree, but surely big beat has more in common with guys like rusko and caspa - all the things you mentioned above are true of their music, plus i'd say their music has loads of aesthetic & structural similarities with big beat that breakcore (or more joyless wobble like fucking 16bit or something) doesn't. i can hardly listen to their music without thinking of the prodigy or fatboy slim...
 

jimitheexploder

Well-known member
I use to love Big Beat when I was a kid. I even learnt to DJ with it. I'm pretty sure it made me hate breakbeats mind. If anything will put you off breakbeats it's growing up with Big Beat. It was kind of fun for a bit though. Pretty sure Fatboy Slim converted me to dance music in some way, I'd hear his sets and hear loads of old house and techno weaved in with all the cheese and it got me hooked and looking for more of that. I must have been 15/16 or something, it was the only thing you'd hear that was kinda fun to puntuate the sound of Brit Pop on its arse in my younger days on radio one and all that.

Its hard to pick out a track that still stands up today, this is all I can think of really...

Cut La Roc - Freeze

http://www.muzu.tv/skintrecords/cut-le-roc-freeze-music-video/48358?country=gb
 

martin

----
Big Beat was great. The thing about it being the preserve of indie kids and students is way off the mark, most of those types were more into Metalheadz and 'intelligent d&b' (having slagged ragga jungle before), Big Beat was just a mixed crowd who wanted to put on cheap nights and have a laugh. Don't forget this was the time that people were churning out books about MDMA and spirituality and taking trance far too seriously. And though I love certain handbag house records, check out the video to "Push the Feeling On" by Nightcrawlers - that's how that whole Covent Garden handbag scene used to dress, for real. They actually dressed like that and used to look down on US... You couldn't get into most house clubs back then, Big Beat tore up the dress code and brought it all back down to fun times out.

Though I agree that after that fucking Wiseguys track got to number one, there was no hope.
 

luka

Well-known member
i thought big beat was terrible when it came out and i think it sounds even worse now. its a more balanced thread now ive added my opinion.
 
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