the house Renaissance

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
I was being facetious with the timbaland comment ftr. I just find it slightly irritating that people associate house with korg m1s tho.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
but then again what's the difference between house and techno, really? One is more p-funk indebted, and can be faster, one is more directly post-discofied. But they come from the same source.

A lot of classic 80s house is much rougher and rawer than a lot of 80s detroit, for instance. and often a lot of the 90s ghetto house/US underground construction hard house was pretty brutal.

Even gabber was initially called gabber house. Because it was, it wasn't like the funky trickery of detroit or UK IDM, it was essentially post-disco on amphetamines.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
I don't like beyonce. I never will i think. Staggeringly overrated. I prefer rihanna (much stronger vocal character) or charli xcxx. Dua lipa even (again, just a more interesting vocal presence, one that owes sonething to Rihanna actually). But I dont like mick jagger either. Despite that, both beyonce and the stones have many good records. Just not as many as some will have you believe.
yeah I mean obv no has to justify liking or disliking Beyonce's music but let's be clear about two separate things

Beyonce is undeniably amazing, historically great, at being a star - cultivation and management of self/image/brand, organization and leadership of a huge, sprawling business/cultural empire. she combines the entire diva lineage back thru disco and soul with the Bowie/Madonna model of ultimate pop star as ubiquitous (one hesitates to say "hegemonic") chameleonic cultural figure - tho her image is more fixed than a Madonna - and a very large helping of girlboss. that last part is where most of the cringe factor comes in presumably, as well as the aggressiveness of her fanbase, and the relentlessly fawning music journo coverage that spawned this thread.

the music itself? "many good records, but not as many as some will have you believe" seems like a very fair assessment. I'd compare her more to the Beatles than the Stones in that regard - so ubiquitous (or hegemonic, depends on yr pov I guess) that some people, like our own resident troll, will question yr motives for not liking the music itself, even when the criticism is quite mild - like "how can you not like this? what's wrong you?" as if it's a moral failing and the art itself is beyond critique. which is an insane position to take, but there you go. ofc she doesn't make interesting pop any more - like I said above, stars at her level virtually never do once they've attained that level of stardom (and surely the Beatles would've stagnated - like the Stones eventually did - had they not broken up). by that measure she's actually doing pretty well, mom-dance is solid step up from latter Michael Jackson or whatever Madonna's been doing since 2005 or so.

I fully recognize I'm not her target audience - which is not a teenage audience either at this point, I'd strongly add - even for pop, where ofc I prefer weirder more interesting stuff like yeah hyperpop or Charli XCX or even yunno Solange. obv none of them are comparable to her as a cultural figure, but we're not talking about that, just who I or [x person with opinion] rather listen to.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
agreed on Kylie as part of the mom-dance canon, solid entry

I don't follow her so idk but I wouldn't be surprised if Mariah Carey has done a throwback dance record at some point
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
tho her image is more fixed than a Madonna
btw there's almost certainly something meaningful to be said about race, American pop stardom, and the changing face of pop stardom in the last quarter century on this point. I don't know enough about pop to really tease it out that meaning tho, I think.

in general tho it seems quite recent - within the last decade - that POC and esp black performers have begun having more freedom - or having the space to carve out that freedom, is maybe a better way to put it - in their expression of gender, sexuality, etc, that white performers have had for a much longer time, without being marginalized. Janelle Monae is a massive name to cite here.

tbc it's not like POC performers haven't always done this - everyone of any race messing with gender fluidity in dance music owes a debt to Sylvester - but I'm talking at the level of mainstream mass pop stardom

but like also let's not forget that it was only 15 years ago that Boondocks was getting massive mileage out of satirizing rap's peak no homo gay panic and the search for the mythical closeted gay rapper
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
in re Beyonce that's not so much about queerness as the ability to pursue that kind of Bowie/Madonna artistic chameleon

the ability to more easily pivot back and forth between and draw influence from both black and white (or rather, coded as such) musics

see also: something like Graceland, or on a more avant tip elements of David Byrne's solo career (or Hassell's 4th World)

that was until recently, and possibly still is, essentially a one-way exchange

a black rock band for example is still usually seen as a kind of self-conscious anomaly
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
The girlboss thing is critical i think. Thats a large part of her appeal. The mama dont take no mess/Strong Black Woman persona, but not in a cliched pam grier/old soul diva way. More a modern businesswoman fashion, a female artist who is in charge. The SBW archetype isnt new ofc (eg aretha) and its appeal to white women isnt new either but beyonce serves it up with on trend SJW-friendly/shaping themes, nu third or fourth (idk) wave feminism flirtations, and other on trend areas that shore up her political cred. Shes been part of pop-feminism post spice girls with destinys child. you never get any vulnerability with beyince though, even her tenderness can seem a bit self conscious. But that's not what her fans want from her. And it would get in the way of the whole bossin it thing.
 

trilliam

Well-known member
beyonce been on the dance music ting since she done that lion king afro/gqom album with all them south african man pfork ra only just started sucking off

it might be commercial but hows it exploitative when shes bussin scenes and being a shitty gateway that gets ppl lionizing the real thing (even if its perfomative), at worst shes a parasite with mutually beneficial motives like drake if anything

fuirthermore certain, actually gay, actually black ppl r saying she diana ross levels of gay icon n while thats obviously wild gas idk if u man r even allowed to question it if we're doing this superwoke billionaires r bad rah rah shit
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
beyonce been on the dance music ting since she done that lion king afro/gqom album with all them south african man pfork ra only just started sucking off

it might be commercial but hows it exploitative when shes bussin scenes and being a shitty gateway that gets ppl lionizing the real thing (even if its perfomative), at worst shes a parasite with mutually beneficial motives like drake if anything

fuirthermore certain, actually gay, actually black ppl r saying she diana ross levels of gay icon n while thats obviously wild gas idk if u man r even allowed to question it if we're doing this superwoke billionaires r bad rah rah shit

I agree with a lot of what you say here, and yet...

I don't think she's exploitative, i mean not relative to anyone else in capitalist society who has access to appropriate means of production.

It's just boring tho isn't it? this need to constantly present dance music to be the underdog. For sure dance music has been whitewashed as i said up thread but its just this long ting when mans are like save the underground. fam the underground was kaput when them lot went to fucking beefa and brought that shit back to london. let's get real now. The face, nme and melody maker were hardly writing about Ron Hardy in 85 were they? If you want social commentary and dialogue, you'd be better following rap, which is always generating and regenerating ways of presenting that. But almost 30 year old pastiches? Most people writing about this stuff just want to think they can disavow being indie wankers. and it's like, nope, I ain't swallowin it.

Personally I don't even have an opinion on the record. Like it's not bad enough for me to hate, but it's not good enough for me to like.

But I should probably come clean and say I'm also too old for pop music as pop music itself. Like, I have listened to enough music in my life that when I talk about pop music, I have frames of references, be that hip hop/rnb, funk, middle eastern stuff. I'm not consuming pop music (even that i like) on its own terms necessarily, I'm looking at it from a slanted angle. Reading it right to left or something i dunno. So if it brings awareness of house being black music with black roots into the mainstream culture then of course that is a good thing, i just don't think I can talk about that adequately, because even if I wanted to, I'm not in pop cultures garden of Eden. I know too much. and I think this is where poptimists end up being rockists in denial and get it wrong.
 
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thirdform

pass the sick bucket
there are actual berlin clubs which ban entry to people wearing kefiye cos not standing with Israel is apparently going against some kinds of nebulous utopian impulse where everyone is supposed to feel safe, even those who support the apartheid of the Israeli state.

Like fine Beyonce might get people digging into the history of dance music but if critics think this will mean more black n brown ppl start going to clubs then oh boy have i got news for you.
 

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
She won't though. It's doing what it's supposed to be doing right now: have people talk about it. Every serious music forum right now will be on this shit. They knew presenting it this way would be bound to ruffle some feathers on the house head side while twinkling to the uninitiated. Controversy is good marketing. Sensationalism too
 
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thirdform

pass the sick bucket
She won't though. It's doing what it's supposed to be doing right now: have people talk about it. Every serious music forum right now will be on this shit. They knew presenting it this way would be bound to ruffle some feathers on the house head side while twinkling to the uninitiated. Controversy is good marketing. Sensationalism too

yeah i can't help but hink this will all be forgotten about in 3 years max, at todays speeds.

I mean most relationships and friendships last 1.5 to 2 years in todays world (I'm not saying this as a positive, it's fucking disgraceful) but it is what it is.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I'm assuming she started rapping so much due to the ascendence of Nicki/Cardi/Megan?

I've given this the customary 2022 middle class white man scan

5 ones I somewhat enjoyed, though none I'd say was a 5 star smash
  1. Alien Superstar (this is probably the standout tune as shiels said – would assume the follow up single to break my soul)
  2. Break My Soul (has grown on me a bit)
  3. Virgo's Groove (is decent)
  4. All Up In Your Mind (this is pretty weird, big fan of this)
  5. America Has A Problem (really like the reese bassline, this would probably go hard in a club actually)

Interesting looking at the credits for this, I know a lot of the writing credits are from interpolations post-blurred lines (right said fred) but I wonder if there's something about music-by-committee that you can sense in the music itself? See: https://www.dissensus.com/index.php?threads/13995/
 
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rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
Shes doing a triple album as a staggered release. the rumour is one part will be a country rnb album. Black country is very hot right now so im sure thats what itll be: 'A reclamation of the roots of country'. That one will absolutely kill in the thinkpiece contests.
 
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