Another interesting article:
A US journalist interviews Plasticman and 1/2 of Vex'd.
http://www.dustedmagazine.com/features/397
The whole article was really interesting, but in light of this discussion, i found two points extremely...pointed.
First: pirate radio and the size of the country. There really isnt any pirate radio in the US, and internet radio is still pretty new, without the saturation of airwaves, and so is not influential in a cultural sense yet. Underground movements wallow in their own little local scenes, never breaking into anything more lasting.
Then there is this quote:
C: It was so simple. It was kind of what made me want to make tracks because I heard it and the fact that that track got so big, it was like everyone was like, I can make a tune like that, get Fruity Loops…it was built for MCs, totally. Everyone was kinda like, I’m gonna have a go at making a track like that. It’s simple, I can easily do it. And everyone downloaded Fruity loops who’d never made a tune in their lives, playing with Fruity Loops trying to make a tune. And then for about 6 months we had pure shit. A lot of the old school garage heads we like I can’t deal with this anymore, this is so shit, this tune ruined our whole scene. So all of the stuck up champagne-drinking tossers left the scene. And it introduced this music to a whole bunch of really young kids. 16 year olds who wanted to make music.
This sounds amazingly like the beginning of acid house, replacing Fruityloops with an 808, 909, or 303. Disco had gotten overproduced and was losing interest dude to its commercialization and the pver bearing presence of "Champagne-drinking, coke-snorting 20 year olds."