rolling back to the future garage/post-dubstep/alt-funkstep/intelli-2step etc thread

[routes]

do the armchair skank

 

[PiLhead]

s. All of this is such an intrinsically different experience that it might make you a)enjoy music you don't listen to at home, and probably never could enjoy at home b)intensify the enjoyment of music you already enjoy at home. .

that's a good argument in favour of wobble of course -- makes no sense at home, but ooooh when that womp pressure drops

i actually think the rise of nuum-IDM/postdubstep owes quite a bit to how much people listen on computers and iPods, those kind of tricked-out intricate productions are busy in the mids, right? lots of tinkly little melody lines and stuff. it's great to listen to on headphones, or while you're multitasking at your screen.

but you're basically saying people shouldn't opine on a track until they've heard in situ? i doubt very much the journos doing track round-ups for Mixmag or Wire or wherever have road-tested every white label in its ideal club circumstance

 

[PiLhead]

I agree - and I also think it's wrong to just judge music by the waveforms. It is a social process.
.

this is true but the funny thing about dance journalism today, and online discussions of dance music too, is that it hardly ever registers the social dimension. there is almost no on-the-scene reportage, descriptions of crowd behavior, dance styles, rituals, vibes etc.

discussion is almost entirely at the level of tracks, auteurs, production, genre formation, genre history, etc... the talk is largely divorced from how the music is actually used in practice, in real social space

so people are in fact judging music just by the waveforms, constantly

 

[Fundamental]

For a long time Reynolds was considered the main voice of rave criticism. He is certainly wrote the rule book on it, and that credit will always stay with him. His opinion is still valid, just less so in my eyes due his lack of immersion in the scene today.

You need to consider the context of this music if you write about it accurately. Watching music videos and a home system are legitimate ways to consume popular music for crit, but not this stuff. And I could probably build a like for like replica of Plastic People in my cellar downstairs, install a Function One system and listen to tunes but it wouldn't be anything like a late thursday night in PP.

Ramadanman at Fabric last Friday was a bit of seminal gig in my eyes, interesting make up of people and putting Autonomic in room 3 was a huge win, the fusion has begun officially. But what was the vibe, the make up of people, what drugs were they on, what nationalities even? No bredding but at least Blackdown lives and breathes the music he writes about. I would much sooner sit up and take note of what he has to say about things, or someone like Elijah in grime for instance.

Funnily enough I agree with what he is saying in some respects, and was glad to be quoted but the post just lacked balance. The balance being that there is a hell of a lot of good shit as well out there at the moment.

 

[john eden]

I suppose a rigidly musicological approach is alright, but Reynolds' 'arkdkore continuum was originally quite explicit about things like pirate radio, record shops, clubs, women, drugs etc.

So on his own terms it's disappointing to see him retreat into stalking Joe Muggs, quoting Dissensus and listening to music via the internets.

 

[wise]

Seems like a few of Simon Reynolds blog posts rely on quoting large chunks of Dissensus these days.
So what was he right about all along? that post-Dubstep was rubbish and wouldn't amount to anything?
Doesn't he also think Wobble is great and Funky is uninteresting/unimportant? I don't really bother to follow his views these days...

 

[meatstixx]

I suppose a rigidly musicological approach is alright, but Reynolds' 'arkdkore continuum was originally quite explicit about things like pirate radio, record shops, clubs, women, drugs etc.

So on his own terms it's disappointing to see him retreat into stalking Joe Muggs, quoting Dissensus and listening to music via the internets.

this is it. and if the detached criticism is at fault, as we all seem to agree, why intensify it by parroting message boards, which are the furthest point away from what the dancefloor is really like these days.

 

[UFO over easy]

blog posts were better in the old days you know.

most of the bloggers getting acclaim right now seem to be just cherry picking the best bits from other writers and forums they like and fusing them together... it's all just a bit safe. i'm sure it's nice enough if you weren't reading those things first time round, but to me it feels stale.




.......

 

[hint]

 

[wise]

blog posts were better in the old days you know.

most of the bloggers getting acclaim right now seem to be just cherry picking the best bits from other writers and forums they like and fusing them together... it's all just a bit safe. i'm sure it's nice enough if you weren't reading those things first time round, but to me it feels stale.




.......

 

[Tentative Andy]

^Hahaha that's ace.

****
If you're doing an in-depth piece on a style of music for publication in a magazine or on a website then obviously you have to look at the music in its full context, which includes the clubs its played in and how it works in those clubs, plus the social aspects of who's making it and who's listening to it etc.
But if someone uploads a piece of music online and just give a brief, initial statement of opinion on it based on listening to it online - well, I think that's fair enough really. Perhaps as long as you acknowledge explicitly or implicitly that your view is based on digital listening and this might not be the optimum environment.
Bearing in mind what Ory says, that a lot of consumers of this music are going to be long-term club goers who can imaginatively recreate with some degree of accuracy what a tune will sound like in a club even when listening at home. Many of them will have decent soundsystems at home too. Plus if you're talking about aspects of a tune like drum programming, that's going to vary less dramatically between home and club listening than aspects like sub-bass (which you can often barely hear at all over e.g. laptop speakers).
I dunno, it seems like sometimes the 'but you've just not heard it over the right system' line is a bit defensive, as if trying to deflect any criticism of the music whatsoever.

 

[Corpsey]

this is true but the funny thing about dance journalism today, and online discussions of dance music too, is that it hardly ever registers the social dimension. there is almost no on-the-scene reportage, descriptions of crowd behavior, dance styles, rituals, vibes etc.

discussion is almost entirely at the level of tracks, auteurs, production, genre formation, genre history, etc... the talk is largely divorced from how the music is actually used in practice, in real social space

so people are in fact judging music just by the waveforms, constantly

This is true, and I'm guilty of it myself. Reynolds is (or was) very good at doing this, explaining the social context of the music he's writing on so that his more abstract descriptions/judgements are balanced out or justified.

Part of me is very opinionated about music but there's another part which recognises how taste fluctuates so dramatically (for me at least) from day to day, week to week, year to year etc. I tend to think nowadays that the best music writing is about making people understand why you (and others) love something so much.

Again, I think of my attitude towards jump-up DNB circa 2005 - I loved that stuff when I got into DNB/pills, and a lot of people love it to this day, and there's nothing really wrong about that. But at the same time, having subsequently heard jungle and DNB from the 90s, I can't help but feel that that same stuff that I loved so much in 2005 was comparatively musically disgraceful, and that the only reason I really loved that stuff was because I was ignorant as to how good DNB/jungle could be.

 

[Corpsey]

the generational thing is interesting too - I was just talking about my ignorance towards jungle etc. back there, but does that/should that ignorance really matter? I mean, a lot of the stuff coming out now is probably a lot more boring for those who've lived/listened through dance music's history than for kids who've never heard all these old house/acid tunes that are being referenced/re-used... but do those kids have to pay for the fact that, to them at least, it's all new?

Then again I don't think that's really what people have been talking about, it's more to do with the execution of ideas than originality of ideas.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Reynolds comes across as quite smug in that post but I have to admit, 9 times out of ten he is on the money. Pretty much the only thing I would disagree with him on is that I think Funky is great. He does tend to cherry-pick the quotes from here that support his viewpoints, but I've yet to read any arguments that substantially challenge what he's saying.

Further to what I was saying to Blackdown a few pages back, I think there's something to be said for the 'outside the scene' armchair journalism point of view. People that are directly involved in the scene I find often can't see the wood for the trees, or inevitably present a biased viewpoint in discussions. There's a depth and thoroughness of thought to SR's writing that is actually quite difficult to argue with and part of that is because he has a distance from it.

And the true hardcore scenes that make the most exciting music are usually blissfully unaware of all the theorising and debate that goes on, always one step ahead (I'm obviously thinking of Juke and Funky here). to my ears I can actually tell that a lot of the producers discussed in this thread read blogs, FACT magazine, probably even Dissensus and Blissblog too, and it makes them too self aware to actually cut loose and make exciting music.

 

[hint]

Further to what I was saying to Blackdown a few pages back, I think there's something to be said for the 'outside the scene' armchair journalism point of view. People that are directly involved in the scene I find often can't see the wood for the trees, or inevitably present a biased viewpoint in discussions.

I think this is certainly true.

Also -

ALL music sounds better loud.

ALL music seems more important / exciting when you're in a room full of people who are also enjoying it.

 

[benjybars]

blog posts were better in the old days you know.

most of the bloggers getting acclaim right now seem to be just cherry picking the best bits from other writers and forums they like and fusing them together... it's all just a bit safe. i'm sure it's nice enough if you weren't reading those things first time round, but to me it feels stale.




.......

haha. ben's not ramping!

 

[Sectionfive]

Still though, even if you are self aware or being talked about online, you can't really say anyone ever sits down to make unexciting music.

 

[FairiesWearBoots]

Aah the golden days of dance music blogs, reminiscing about the golden days of dance music,
soon to be usurped by the golden days of dance music forum posts, reminiscing about the golden days of dance music blogs, reminiscing about the golden days of dance music . . . .

 

[UFO over easy]

Reynolds comes across as quite smug in that post but I have to admit, 9 times out of ten he is on the money.

even if he is "right" about whatever this debate is about, that last paragraph is the kind of insecurity-masking arrogance you'd expect from a 16 year old

 

[Benny Bunter]

Thing is, people are getting in a froth about what is quite an offhand blog post. He's already written in-depth on this subject and arguably exhausted it for himself long ago. He pretty much laid out his entire position in Energy Flash and in pieces he wrote when the Hardcore Continuum debate flared up again a while back. Since then he just fires off the odd shot in the debate, like that last post he made. I'd recommend that producers and DJs shouldn't read it and just get on with making music.