Before you post yet another, ask yourself

[hint]

(the idea that its journalists who Puff-ed up that ego is daft.... the ambition and delusions of grandeur and high hopes existed long before the press showed up... again, the Puff sample on Roll deep's 'terrible', that's from 99 -- no, what caused it was watching American rap, especially the Bad Boy stuff....

Hmmm... I don't think it's so daft. What are we talking about here? Wanting success in the industry? Or expecting it? I agree that watching Puffy et al would certainly encourage the former, but not necessarily the latter.

You don't think that praise from certain areas might be taken as a sign that you're on your way? It's once the initial hurdles are behind artists that the delusions of grandeur might kick in. "Our music's out there and people say it's good. Now what?"

The story of Jay Z is one of graft and hustle. I can't imagine that any artist listening closely to his lyrics might be convinced that it was ever easy for him to make it. The quote on Terrible doesn't contradict this, since it refers specifically to "trying". There's no delusion there, in my eyes.

 

[bun-u]

it's a nasty cycle: labels say grime doesnt sell because it's angry, labels & PRs dont push it, grime doesn't sell ... the artists get angrier.

but it's proving much worse when they've sold themselves to a more commercial watered down version grime.

the hero status in the endz is severely tested, they get taunted by rival crews about failing chart positions, and the rest of the industry sit sanctimonious in their judgement not to back this horse.

I'm still hopeful though that scene's the figureheads will work to build the infrastructure needed for their 'own situation'...though by the time they do it (and by that I mean something to rival pop), it might not be called or sound like grime but it will be the son or grand daughter of it

 

[mms]

i blame the industry a lot for this. look at CD:UK etc, tedious TV stations like The Box, VH1, MTV. look how PR lead newspapers are, how blinkered rock-dominated magazines are ("no we can't cover XYZ grime artists, we've already done a grime feature <i>this year,</i>" said OMM to me once). it's like an artist doesnt exist until a PR says they do. the whole industry is so safe, so managed, so corporate. they can not deal with genuine, angry, exciting, unpredictable genius/maverics like wiley n co.

i'm sure the industry would argue back that no one buys grime because it's too angry, but that never stopped metal or punk. it's a nasty cycle: labels say grime doesnt sell because it's angry, labels & PRs dont push it, grime doesn't sell ... the artists get angrier.

well there is anger and anger - you have alot of stage managed anger in rock music - esp today where most of what covers 'cutting edge indie' are pub punk tunes from 20 years ago and the 'anger ' is the same well trodden angsty clitches that signify typical rock and roll trouble or rebellion for years now, just utterly boring rights of passage stuff.
You even have genres which encapsulate and exploit these things such as 'emo' .
the anger of grime mcs stands outside the accepted carefully controlled and marketed emotional life of rock to some extent.
The other thing that strikes me is that having a career in music is seen as an actual career choice nowdays, as if its something you can learn, maybe do for a few years then turn rich etc.
Far more people fail than win in it..far more peoples dreams of stardom are mocked on shows like pop idol than will ever actually have a successful career from the most bland would be pop idol to anyone else.

 

[Logan Sama]

Artists like Jay Z were in a position where their music was receiving critical acclaim, but there were still artists on higher levels to keep chasing.

In the grime industry everyone seems to be rushing headlong towards an album deal, but there's no one to emulate and chase when you get there. That's why they end up making what they think they should be making on their album, rather than carry on making what got them to that point.

 

[k-punk]

Artists like Jay Z were in a position where their music was receiving critical acclaim, but there were still artists on higher levels to keep chasing.

In the grime industry everyone seems to be rushing headlong towards an album deal, but there's no one to emulate and chase when you get there. That's why they end up making what they think they should be making on their album, rather than carry on making what got them to that point.

That's what I meant by my unclear comments about the lack of a 'success infrastructure' in grime... there's no 'career structure', nowhere to progress to... that was part of the drama and pathos of the second Dizzee album, on which he sounds like he's adrift in a world of empty success, and the price of admission has been isolation, a repudiation of the scene (which also repudiates you).

 

[blissblogger]

that was part of the drama and pathos of the second Dizzee album, on which he sounds like he's adrift in a world of empty success, and the price of admission has been isolation, a repudiation of the scene (which also repudiates you).

on one of those DVDs, risky roadz i think, there's an interview with dizzee and he says, responding to accusations of deserting the scene, "oh i'm still part of the scene, of course i am -- only difference now is, i don't do pirates anymore and i don't do raves anymore either" -- as if there's anything else to the scene but pirates and raves!

 

[Blackdown]

the way dizzee has been treated, and is viewed, reveals volumes about the attitudes and relationships within the scene.

 

[Grievous Angel]

Why doesn't Grime sell?

Partly industry machinations -- "it's too hard to sell, by which I mean it's too much hassle" -- which isn't new. Every new youth form since trad jazz has had that. There's always been a desire to sell less problematic "nice", "beige" music...

Partly drastically reduced channels to market compared with rave / 2step -- fewer shops, way fewer venues for raves, pirates are still going but getting less and less profitable (from spin-off products) -- even Rinse is border-line AFAICT...

Partly artist indolence / not knowing how to capitalise on initial success / not having the working capital to get enough records out...

Partly because few other than Dizzee has really had the songwriting talent to cross over. (Apart from Skinner, though he doesn't quite count... cf Nite Nite, which I adore, BTW...)

But also, there are fewer teenagers around now. The volume of cash in the market has dropped dramatically from the 70s. I'm going to pull out some statistics about this if I have time -- last time I had a presentation about this it was quite shocking.

Fantastic thread BTW...

 

[Logan Sama]

Because kids spend their money on weed

And the underground audience download most of the stuff even when it is available on CD.

Only way it will make money is through putting on events for the core market and having the culture spread like it did for Jungle and 2 step into the affluent suburban m25 orbital towns and beyond

 

[Blackdown]

Logan, you done some distribution for Wiley. why do the grime lot chose to sell 12"s for £7-8 and not £5-6? is it the shop's cut or the artists cut that's increased since 2step?

 

[gumdrops]

i dont think kids buy vinyl anymore though, unless theyre thinking of becoming DJs. most kids into grime would probably settle for a mixtape like those made by bossman or logan, as they have all the big tunes on one CD, which is cheaper. do many kids even have turntables anymore? i wouldnt be surprised if a lot of parents only had CD players these days.

 

[blissblogger]

> even Rinse is border-line AFAICT

translate, please!

grime does seem to becoming an amateur culture, by which i mean increasingly the motivation to do it is pure love. which is inspiring on lots of levels -- i've always been amazed by the fact that djs and crews pay subscription fees for their shows on pirates

it does suggest a kind of identity crisis, though, or at least painful evolution... i think the pirate culture, on account of its memory of hardcore invading the pop charts in the early 90s, and then UKG and 2step circa 1997-2000, has had this idea itself of almost a party in opposition, or a government in exile, or something. Ie. that sooner or later it'll get back in power, ie the charts. But maybe now it'll have to adjust to being a minority taste thing, a semipopular verging on unpopular avant-garde. where the internal rewards of status and prestige and being the cutting-edge don are the motivation, along with the buzz and release of actually doing it.

the thing that struck me most when i was last over was how you didn't hear grime out and about -- this year is supposed to be its 1994 c.f. jungle but in 94 when you went down oxford street you heard jungle coming out of clothes boutiques -- you heard it from passing cars all over... i think i went the whole week i was in london earlier this year without hearing grime except when i tuned into a pirate station

 

[Blackdown]

this is what i was talking about before simon with the music industry. it's so corporate now and safe, probably because the large profit margins have gone, that it is largely having nothing to do with grime.

 

[dHarry]

But the music biz has ALWAYS been conservative, it was completely side-stepped by the hardcore and jungle thing - for a while there '92-'95 there were wall-to-wall "Hardcore Ecstacy/Jungle Tekno"- type compilations advertised all over prime-time TV, in mainstream record shops, even in airports, and like Simon says playing everywhere you went in London - this was all about POPULARITY - teenagers all over were experiencing E & clubbing and these crazy sonics, and it was one of those rhizomic punctures in the hegemonic state of things, a spontaneous pressure-leak, not the against all odds stance of grime.

The bottom line seems to be that grime is simply never going to be as popular as hardcore, jungle or 2-step/garage. And maybe that's partly a historical thing - the timing is wrong. (this happens in rock all the time; some retro NME darlings get nowhere, then a couple of years later another band/scene with an identical vibe become huge) And partly, I feel, because grime just isn't as good as those predecessors. The carribean-cockney rap voice isn't as appealing or expressive as US rappers or Jamaican DJs, too many records sound like they were made by kids with their first keyboards using the horrible preset sounds, and the style can be too diffuse to get a handle on- no-beat tracks, awkward anti-funk, 4/4 house, dark dub-step (which sounds just like slowed-down techstep drum and bass to me). And then the stabs at chart action don't always convince - Dizzee's Fix Up sounded to me like a really poor attempt to appeal, whereas So Solid's 17 Seconds took no prisoners.

 

[Blackdown]

dont agree with you about the sonics of grime at all. i think maybe a better answer is that dance music/urban culture is more divided into disparate fragments too, whereas acid house/rave united everyone.

 

[gumdrops]

this is what i was talking about before simon with the music industry. it's so corporate now and safe, probably because the large profit margins have gone, that it is largely having nothing to do with grime.

the industry might be boring, safe, and corporate but that never harmed the popularity of 2step or jungle. those musics didnt become popular thanks to the backing of a major, they got big thanks to an underground street level base. for whatever reason, grime just hasnt taken off in that way.

 

[Grievous Angel]

> even Rinse is border-line AFAICT

translate, please!

I think that Rinse FM is, as far as I can tell, on the border of profitability -- indeed, on the border of sustainability. I doubt that it covers its cost of capital -- i.e. I think that the people who run it would make a better (monetary) return on their investment by doing other things (like put the money in a bank). One cash crisis could potentially put it out of business -- except it's not a real business, it's more a labour of love. I believe comments to this effect were reported in Matt's article.

BTW the record business in general is not experiencing plunging profitability. The majors are reporting enhnced profits for all their bleating about downloads damaing their business.

However, what is galling is that there is Logan points out undoubtedly a big download culture among Grime fans, some of which helps to sustain the scene, but much of which robs it of the economic capacity to expand beyond its niche.

In the future I think "grime" will just be a particular flavour in the genre of "urban", with little in the way of dedicated artists. R&B acts will sing over grime beats and wil signify little. But I think some great records will be made that way. That''s certainly how it felt at the 3dom festival in Sheffield last bank holiday -- grime was just another style, with all groups switching between styles. (Though my hero Tippa Irie didn't spit over any grime, sadly ).

 

[k-punk]

The industry is no more boring, safe and predictable than it was a decade a go when jungle was everywhere... and jungle didn't emerge out of a unified rave scene, quite the opposite, it was an effect of the disintegration of the rave consensus

but perhaps jungle was satisfied with that non-Spectacular ubiquity --- ready availability on comps in high street stores and airports as folk have already observed on this thread ---- Grime, however, wants stardom in that US hip hop sense ---- total recognition, faciality, full arc lights-style Spectacle ---- that means that it relies on the industry in the way that Jungle never did ----

 

[gumdrops]

but perhaps jungle was satisfied with that non-Spectacular ubiquity --- ready availability on comps in high street stores and airports as folk have already observed on this thread ---- Grime, however, wants stardom in that US hip hop sense ---- total recognition, faciality, full arc lights-style Spectacle ---- that means that it relies on the industry in the way that Jungle never did ----

you just have to look at how artists are all holding back on these apparently finished albums they have in the can, in wait of that all elusive deal that never actually arrives. grime expects too much. you cant necessarily blame the artists though. look at their influences. grime has come into full swing after the commercial mainstream explosion of hip hop which is everywhere, and dancehall which has submerged itself into the mainstream in a way that simply wasnt there ten years ago. grime expects something similar - little effort, quick returns. as others have said, theres also these conflicted impulses pulling it in all directions, they want to get in the charts but dont want to compromise, on the other hand they cant wait to compromise cos they dont think anyone wants to hear 'real' grime. its a vicious circle.

this idea that there is no precedent for a album/career path in grime holds some weight but there is always so solid, and better yet, dizzee, yet no one wants to use them as templates of what to do/not to do. im not sure why. its alright though - hip hop albums in the early 80s werent that great (and incidentally they were put out nearly all on indies, not majors), it took a while for the artists to find their feet and a more accurate, comfortable way to translate itself to record in an album format that was more reflective of how it was as a live medium. well just have to wait and see if grime artists will keep at it.

a more prosaic problem for why grime might not be doing that well in sales terms is that perhaps the songs just arent good enough. everyone knows grime is best on pirates, barring a few tunes, so hearing the songs/MCs away from the pirate context for me at least, just doesnt have the same allure. therefore why would i want to buy those records? by and large, its still a live medium. bizzarely, the outlets for it to BE a live medium (clubs, more pirates other than rinse) seem to be dwindling.

 

[k-punk]

but there is always so solid, and better yet, dizzee, yet no one wants to use them as templates of what to do/not to do. im not sure why.

Isn't it precisely because there was nothing long term or sustainable about what they did? The So Solid thing fell apart really quickly (and if you are looking for reasons for industry cold feet about grime, think back to the moral panic surrounding them), while Dizzee's current fate doesn't exactly seem enviable. Yeh, he's well-known, but that does seem to be at the cost of being totally removed from the culture that sustained and produced him.