Part-Time Punks: Are Amateurs Ruining Dance Music?

john eden

male pale and stale
Oh wow.

What's best? "Music made by people who don't really know what they are doing"?

Or music made by "career" "professionals" like Swedish House Mafia?
 

Leo

Well-known member
but he's not sticking up for swedish house mafia, though.

what struck a chord with me was the part about the dance music press being easily swayed by PR (free records/DLs, show comps, etc.) there no money in it, so websites can't afford to pay good writers with experience/knowledge...and in the end, you hardly ever read a critical review of anything, every record and gig is "good".

and it's not just dance music, indie/alternative rock in the same boat.
 

trza

Well-known member
I know some people who became interested in dance music after hearing deadmau5 for the first time. There is a whole generation of producers who are inspired by edm and try to sound like swedish house mafia or skrillex, but barely know how to make a tune.
 

Leo

Well-known member
I know some people who became interested in dance music after hearing deadmau5 for the first time. There is a whole generation of producers who are inspired by edm and try to sound like swedish house mafia or skrillex, but barely know how to make a tune.

and i think one of the author's points is it's common now for some of those people to hire a PR firm to promote them, which in turn results in the music blogs/websites writing hype articles and reviews about guys who "barely know how to make a tune"...which in turn helps ruin dance music.

not saying i agree with every aspect of this article but it did seem plausible based on my reading of the music press.
 
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droid

Well-known member
Amateurs* have been ruining dance music for about as long as I can remember. The only differences nowadays is (1) that the ratio of amateur>>skilled has gone from silly to outrageous and (2) Any semblance of a coherent career path/progression is non-existent.

*As in the 'doesnt know what theyre doing' amateur as opposed to the 'doing it for the love' amateur.
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
but he's not sticking up for swedish house mafia, though.

what struck a chord with me was the part about the dance music press being easily swayed by PR (free records/DLs, show comps, etc.) there no money in it, so websites can't afford to pay good writers with experience/knowledge...and in the end, you hardly ever read a critical review of anything, every record and gig is "good".

and it's not just dance music, indie/alternative rock in the same boat.

Dance music journalism always had a problem with a lack of proper criticism. It's not down to amateurs being swayed by PR so much as the writers also being DJs and the DJs also being record producers and the record producers also being label owners and the label owners also being writers. No wonder everything's 'good' or better. (at least that's how it used to be – I wouldn't claim to be in touch)
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Also a downside of the sense-of-community going-forward-together thing in smaller scenes. The idea that the scene needs a united and relentlessly positive front if it's ever going ot make any headway. Not to mention the really small everyone-knows-everyone scenes where you don't want to step on peoples' toes because you run into them in person a couple of times a week.

OTOH I've never really had much trouble finding people with some sort of discrimination who you can rely on to actually promote good stuff, and it's easy enough to ignore the rest.
 

droid

Well-known member
The complete tear down of barriers to entry is the one of the worst things that has ever happened to human culture.
 

luka

Well-known member
Not nearly torn down enough. The day someone let's me through the door we can stop tearing. until then there's a lot of work to be done
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
is it really about amateurs? or about people from 'non-dance' (or non dance-related, i.e. indie, or whatever) backgrounds trying to do it. or about people who are maybe better off than producers might have been in previous eras doing it (or seemingly, doing a lot of it).

a bigger/another problem might also be who a lot of writers/sites seem to support and highlight more. its usually people like pc music or whoever, people from similar backgrounds to the writers...
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
Forget PC Music, all the people from Noise (AKA lets be serious, Rock) backgrounds doing the "Oh well I've always loved techno...." thing in the last few years was really fucking trying.
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
makes me think of this -
http://www.factmag.com/2015/06/09/lotic-pens-response-to-controversial-remarks-by-pc-musics-gfoty/

there is so much music being made by incredibly talented queers and people of color that it’s almost always comical to read headlines about straight white musicians.

i think he might mean 'comical to almost always only read headlines about straight white musicians'

but. you can congratulate pc music et al. for their mystery and ‘clever’ use of ‘irony’ or you can just investigate and realize that it’s merely a vapid art project by a handful of rich kids (mostly male, with female avatars btw) that’s diluting the club pool and that your making excuses for their boring music is part of the problem. you actually don’t have to pretend that anything that’s even vaguely non-conforming is good or cool?
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
Its a little fucked though that he wants to call the girls just avatars when they insist they're collaborators and they have artistic input to bring, that they insist on, that everyone in the planet commenting seems to override.

Also, Lotic is on Tri-Angle. Tri-Angle has just as many rich white straight males there blowing up, but OK.
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
i think its just a point about proportion. although, his comment was about some pc music person saying a musician from mali was a 'blacked up' version of bombay bicycle club (off topic, why do we have so many of these colonial-ish band names like bombay bicycle club, viet cong, east india youth etc??). he should have made more effort to actually talk about THAT more rather than turn it into another op-ed piece about representation.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
The weird exotic name band thing has escaped me for quite some time.

TBF, this was obviously calculated. Like, GFOTY (the artist in question) said it because her artist persona is supposed to be vapid and vulgar in a bratty way. Did it overstretch the bounds of comfort for the majority of the audience? Certainly. Did it ensure she was now going to have a hint of 'controversy' around her? Easily. Would Vice of all people ever edit a piece to make it less objectionable? L-O-L. Was it something to easily back away from and say "Whoopsie-Daisy?" I mean, she's already done it. But does it ensure we talked about PC Music for yet ANOTHER go round (with Vice reaping the rewards)? I mean... *gestures*

Meanwhile, everyone's equating it with the whatever whatever techno dude claiming homosexuality is linked to pedophilia. While what she said was vulgar and dumb, in no way is it close to that genius. (Also I've recently heard whisperings Boddika likes to go on anti-immigrant rants?)

The game is 'fuuuuuuun'.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
I thought the Sophie tracks stood on their own.

Funny thing is that SOPHIE isn't actually IN PC Music, they've just bonded together. Its curious because he was on Numbers and quite frankly, LuckyMe & Numbers were obviously progenitors to some of the stuff they were trying.
 

slowtrain

Well-known member
I know some people who became interested in dance music after hearing deadmau5 for the first time. There is a whole generation of producers who are inspired by edm and try to sound like swedish house mafia or skrillex, but barely know how to make a tune.

In Heavy Metal this approach has always resulted in the best records (as is proved once those bands get some money for good production and churn out OTT symphonic evanenscene crap), so fingers crossed.
 
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