gumdrops

Well-known member
"nerdy hipster with a wonky haircut and an ironic mustache or just some kid from Devon or something then I can see why you might not even try to bother getting accepted by teenagers in Newham or whatever."

or they could just get a haircut, shave the moustache, and get some decent clothes lol.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
I do feel like the outsider perspective has it's harm, because people are using it as an excuse to avoid making music that's both populist and challenging. Here's an example: Joker makes Purple City, he's the most compelling person ever. Joker makes Tron, suddenly, HOT POTATO! After that, the guys who cared about Joker were the populist dubstep scene and nobody from the scene who were finding something great in his work (and borrowing his ideas).

These days, you get so many people trying to avoid making something populist in this scene, out of some frustrating sort of... I don't know the proper word, but I feel like it's a divine lack of ambition. I feel like this is a very wishy-washy scene in which I don't think too much is going to come from as far as guys thinking "I'm going to be the very best who ever did it!" and falling flat on your face. Sometimes you NEED someone to try to overdo it, whereas there's so much restraint this scene's constipated.
 

SecondLine

Well-known member
to track back a bit, Woebot at Critical Beats in Stratford last night touched on this 'music isn't coming from the streets any more' thing. Aside from suggesting some of the talent has been siphoned off into road rap, his main point seemed to be that working class artists (sorry, I really do think it is class-related in this context) are far more motivated by financial gain than us naive middle class music nerds give them credit for...so now they don't perceive there to be any money-making potential in dance music, they redirect their talents to video game design, business etc. Mike Paradinas seemed to be in agreement on this too.

I'm was surprised to hear that argument used though...firstly, there are still role models who at least appear to be making a tidy sum in the charts (i.e. magnetic man). And secondly, I just feel slightly uncomfortable with ascribing a large group of people that motivation from the outside...I mean given the low overheads of making a track, uploading it to youtube, sending the MP3s to your favourite DJs, and the obvious social/cultural capital to be gained from being a badman producer, there must still be an appeal there?
 

gumdrops

Well-known member
i think woebot was mostly right about that, and about how its almost pointless judging things as we used to, as 'the conditions have changed' so much. yeah theres still a rep to get from being a great mc or producer, but considering how money minded/aware of commercial demands a lot of music has been over the last 10-odd years, its not surprising thats entered peoples way of thinking, esp as theres little opposition to that way of thinking. the only way to make money is going all out mainstream it seems, and as thats always been limited to only a select few when it comes to street dance music, maybe thats had a lot to do with reduced motivation. though im not sure how it is that road rap artists are still motivated to press up and sell their cds on a small, wholly underground scale, and grime mcs, for example arent. its prob just cos road rap guys know their stuff hasnt really sold that much (like ukhh), while grime mcs have always known of/expected crossover potential. the other reason for lack of motivation from the places that dance music talent used to come from is prob just cos unless youre sounding really pop, theres no place for you at labels. theyve become so much more conservative. before, even though say, jungle producers knew they were making hard underground music, there was still a glimmer of hope they could get signed doing what they do, now that glimmer is microscopic.
 
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CrowleyHead

Well-known member
Doesn't help that it seems everyone and their mother has a label. You get one single, and then suddenly "Oh, I got this label me and my mates formed to put out our tunes." NOBODY NEEDS YOUR FRIENDS TUNES ON VINYL. PUT THEM ON SOUNDCLOUD AND BE HAPPY, NOBODY NEEDS YOUR FRIEND'S SHITTY 2-STEP CASSIE REMIX PRESSED UP. IT'S CLUTTERING UP THE GAME.
 

gumdrops

Well-known member
NOBODY NEEDS YOUR FRIENDS TUNES ON VINYL. PUT THEM ON SOUNDCLOUD AND BE HAPPY, NOBODY NEEDS YOUR FRIEND'S SHITTY 2-STEP CASSIE REMIX PRESSED UP. IT'S CLUTTERING UP THE GAME.

whoever said the thing about restrained/constipated is kinda right too.
 

SecondLine

Well-known member
i think woebot was mostly right about that, and about how its almost pointless judging things as we used to, as 'the conditions have changed' so much.

I guess what this boils down to for me, as somebody who's come into writing and talking about this music really in the last 2 years, is that it's a debate waged by older people comparing 'A' to 'B', when for us young tykes there's only a 'B', and a second hand 'A' supplied through those very people. I think a lot of younger people, who maybe only came to dance music through dubstep in its mid-late stages, are just really nonplussed by the terms of debate - the scene is what it is, and they/we obviously love it for that otherwise we wouldn't be involved, but there's a constant requirement to 'justify' it that I daresay the Reynolds generation never had (or rather, they were justifying it against a critical orthodoxy which considered rave to be dumb/insignificant, rather than against an orthodoxy which lionised specific points in its history - a far more clear cut thing to have to do if you ask me).

That's a more general point really, prob not particularly relevant, sorry. I know I won't get much sympathy for that viewpoint from dissensus vets ;)

also, that boiler room vid is just...wow
 

Leo

Well-known member
I guess what this boils down to for me, as somebody who's come into writing and talking about this music really in the last 2 years, is that it's a debate waged by older people comparing 'A' to 'B', when for us young tykes there's only a 'B', and a second hand 'A' supplied through those very people. I think a lot of younger people, who maybe only came to dance music through dubstep in its mid-late stages, are just really nonplussed by the terms of debate - the scene is what it is, and they/we obviously love it for that otherwise we wouldn't be involved, but there's a constant requirement to 'justify' it that I daresay the Reynolds generation never had (or rather, they were justifying it against a critical orthodoxy which considered rave to be dumb/insignificant, rather than against an orthodoxy which lionised specific points in its history - a far more clear cut thing to have to do if you ask me).

That's a more general point really, prob not particularly relevant, sorry. I know I won't get much sympathy for that viewpoint from dissensus vets ;)

also, that boiler room vid is just...wow

this makes sense, but would add that every wave of young tykes getting into music has faced a similar situation. maybe it just gets publicly analyzed more now because of blogs and message boards that didn't exist in the same way 20 years ago.
 

Elijah

Butterz
Is that what goes on on Boiler Room these days. Earlier on this year they said I wasn't big enough to do one :D
 

Blackdown

nexKeysound
to track back a bit, Woebot at Critical Beats in Stratford last night touched on this 'music isn't coming from the streets any more' thing. Aside from suggesting some of the talent has been siphoned off into road rap, his main point seemed to be that working class artists (sorry, I really do think it is class-related in this context) are far more motivated by financial gain than us naive middle class music nerds give them credit for...so now they don't perceive there to be any money-making potential in dance music, they redirect their talents to video game design, business etc. Mike Paradinas seemed to be in agreement on this too.

I'm was surprised to hear that argument used though...firstly, there are still role models who at least appear to be making a tidy sum in the charts (i.e. magnetic man). And secondly, I just feel slightly uncomfortable with ascribing a large group of people that motivation from the outside...I mean given the low overheads of making a track, uploading it to youtube, sending the MP3s to your favourite DJs, and the obvious social/cultural capital to be gained from being a badman producer, there must still be an appeal there?

This is a huge claim by Woebot and I'd love to hear more about it. If he still posts here it's be great to see some evidence for this kind of change, numbers metrics etc.

There's black, working class people in dubstep who can now charge £15,000 an hour for a DJ set, and half of grime have made a fortune by commercial route so it's hard to rule out finances as a motivator.
 

Blackdown

nexKeysound

tbh people very rarely talk about the money in dubstep, but if people are playing major US festivals to near hundreds of thousands of people, then i'm sure £15k is by no means the ceiling here... so my point is that kind of success must be aspirational to the 'streets'.
 

alex

Do not read this.
Does boiler room have an intentionally ghastly set-up so the DJ’s have to work extra hard to get a mix in time? Only I saw that Jaques Greene on there once and his mixing was an atrocity, that might just be him though. Sure it’s happened to a few people mind. He played a really ackward set, it was like oneman, but just shit.

@ Elijah have you not done a butterz takeover? That's surprising.

It seems now they've done a few things @ ADE & got richie hawtin on, so they don't need the artist's theyve been pushing all year any more...
 

trilliam

Well-known member
boiler room have been making waves, seth troxler, levon vincent (was overly shocked at this), steffi, jamie jones, thom yorke and richie hawtin all in the past 1-2 months.. hope they can do something with it that'd benefit the scene over here.

@alex, mele has a pretty much perfect set up on there, manhandles the mixer.
 
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