why do you think us dnb/grime/dubstep producers never quite get it right?

[spotrusha]

http://www.riddim.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=75&Itemid=37

"At the end of the day I know that when you hit the charts and a certain level of success you also get a date stamped on your forehead. That's you at your peak right then and everything from now is going down. We are button pushers. You are in fashion now and gone tomorrow"
he said this in regards to wookie's success. and as time told, he was right =/
i'm not taking anything from wookie by quoting this (and i don't think el meant in that way either), cause he was a wicked producer.

 

[Guybrush]

And um, hip hop was basically officially born somewhere around '78 (or '79), and I heard clips of early DnB from '91 (go to this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drum_and_Bass), by '95 there was already a good jungle and 'rave' scene in Toronto (it got HUGE around '98-01, then died down, and seems to be getting popular agian right now), that's how I was introduced to it, from somebody who went to the clubs (I was 11). So DnB is really 16 years old, and 16 years after '78 is '94, when hip hop was really getting started, Pac n Biggie were getting popular. They called that time the golden age of hip hop, right now wer're in the silver age. For info on hip hop history go to here: http://www.b-boys.com/classic/hiphoptimeline.html. And the comment about hip hop changing 10 times (once every 3-4 years) is just my opinion, and it really seems to be true if you ever payed attention to hip hop. I know DnB will stay popular, and hope it gets very popular once again, DnB is a really good form of music.

We can discuss time-spans until the sun goes down (again, I refer to Last Night a DJ Saved My Life where 1974 is considered hip-hop’s year zero and 1993 the year when jungle started to get singled out at raves), but my original point remains: hip-hop also experienced ups and downs in popularity early on, so the comparison is a halting one.

I think you are very wrong about the hard-style approach keeping d&b vital. I would single that out as the most contributing factor to most clubber’s indifference towards the genre; the genre is not going to renew its popularity until it gets more effeminate and ‘Saturday Night Fever’, I think.

 

[turtles]

In a sense. I often think"street" music (such a shit term) tends to have certain focus, which the other lacks. Im using the term broadly, including reggae and hip hop as much as 'ardcore and punk. Middle class (.. fucking hate this termonology. its lazy) takes on these tend to be more floaty and wayward, and more open to drifting experimentation. While that can be great (there was massive student influence on jazz fusion and post punk, right?), but it does generally lack the original intensity, the original point of the music gradually dissapates. I mean m-ddle cl-ss / student artists tend to toy with music. It often serves a more vital function "on road".

This just a thought, not a concrete opinion. I can think of so many objections to that. And I think the british fascination with class is dumb.

Agreed that the terminology is pretty shit, but sometimes you've just got use these things as short hand for the much more complicated concepts that are involved behind them, otherwise you'd never actually get around to discussing the music for all the debating about definitions you'd have to do.

Having said that, I think it may have just as much to do with location and local culture as it does class. There are plenty of fairly middle-class (or at least not all that "street") producers of any highly localized genre you can point to, from dubstep & grime to all the regional subvariations of hiphop throughout the states. But some types of music seem to be very heavily influenced by local culture, while others aren't, such that when dnb went global, it really just split up into many more regional variations, as dubstep would likely do. I guess house music, when it originally went global split up into a bunch of regional variations as well, but now, perhaps since it's moved so far from its roots, it can now be said to be a truly global (actually probably "international" is more accurate) phenomenon, at least in the case of minimal. So are we just 5-10 years away from an across-the-board international form of dnb?

 

[turtles]

Also: influence of the internet, globalization, homogeneity of capatilist culture, etc etc etc...

 

[mortal grey]

Lastly, I do not care what anybody has to say, Grime is a terrible form of music, it doesn't even sound like music, it sounds too weird, and I don't care who makes it "right" or "wrong", it just sucks, period.

Either you haven't heard enough of this stuff to make such a statement, or your testicles just haven't dropped yet...In which case it's cool...just stick with your safe hip-hop beats. This shit isn't for everyone.

Piece

 

[daddek]

I think you are very wrong about the hard-style approach keeping d&b vital. I would single that out as the most contributing factor to most clubber’s indifference towards the genre; the genre is not going to renew its popularity until it gets more effeminate and ‘Saturday Night Fever’, I think.

its like you've never heard liquid dnb. no what's wrong with the music is that it's creatively bankrupt. The shining lights have lost faith, they're just in it to keep up the mortgage repayments. And for the type of groove that those liquid boys aiming for, its blatantly too fast. the mash outbreakcore end might work at 185+, but the soul/jungle/swing aspect fails utterly at that speed. All the rhythmic tension between the snares is lost, there isnt the time-space for any swing or tension (ie funk) to be felt when it runs that fast. Just sounds shit.

 

[Parson]

last time i heard a new dnb tune that really turned my crank was exile and sub focus - silicon chop

i want more of that kinda illness

 

[Guybrush]

its like you've never heard liquid dnb. no what's wrong with the music is that it's creatively bankrupt. The shining lights have lost faith, they're just in it to keep up the mortgage repayments. And for the type of groove that those liquid boys aiming for, its blatantly too fast. the mash outbreakcore end might work at 185+, but the soul/jungle/swing aspect fails utterly at that speed. All the rhythmic tension between the snares is lost, there isnt the time-space for any swing or tension (ie funk) to be felt when it runs that fast. Just sounds shit.

I have heard liquid d’n’b songs (but I didn’t know the genre name existed) and that’s definitely the style I like the most. I have friends who put on d’n’b nights (with various styles of d’n’b), however, and most of the tunes they play seem quite abrasive. Liquid d’n’b is not exactly what I meant by ‘Saturday Night Fever’ music, actually (an awful description, I should be ashamed ), I was thinking of slower (say, 160-ish), more tuneful tracks, with breathing-room between the drum hits (i.e. exactly what you described above). This may apply to liquid tracks too, but not the last, and crucial, ingredient: songs you can hum (nothing cheesy, think ‘Sambasim’ or ‘Watching Windows’); but the lack of ear-catching elements may be what you meant by creative bankruptcy, perhaps. I’m not saying all d’n’b tracks should be like this, of course, I just think it’s a good general direction.