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simon silverdollar
Guest
i guess all i meant by the 'next big thing' was musical forms that:
a] are 'big leaps into the future', as you say.
b] come from the underground, but slowly filter into the mainstream
c] even when they are minority tastes, are still big enough so that they register with pretty much everybody- there's no way you can ignore them.
that seems to be the case with the examples i picked out in the first post- punk, 2-tone, rave, jungle, 2-step. i think a-c pick out what many people are looking for when they're searching for the next big thing, and despairing about whether it'll ever come about.
of course, for example, a minority of the overall record buying public was into 2-step in the late 90s. but the majority knew of it, it registered with them, they'd have an opinion about it, they would know a few 2-step tracks from hearing them on radio 1 etc...
with the music genres that are truly innovative and exciting today- grime, dubstep, minimal techno, drone-metal, whatever, i'm not sure the same could be said. they're just not big enough.
i guess the counterargument to all this is to say that the neo-realist indie of artic monkeys, jamie t etc is the 'next big thing', and is truly innovative, and important to many people.
unlike some people on here, i'm not totally against that position, but i still need a little convincing that it's an underground music gone overground, rather than a continuation of the age-old big indie sound.
Love this idea, but suspect that instead of this revelatory experience it will be more "huh? THIS is the next new thing???" Bewilderment/surprise/disgust rather than bewitchment. You'll be able to put it into words but perhaps not the most appropriate ones...
Actually the very idea of something even utterly baffling emerging now seems improbable somehow. Too much historicization too quickly = no surprises?
So you buy that there are new things, but they fail as they don't connect as mass-market phenomena? The neo-realist indie thing is big, yes, and came from a semi-underground starting point (perhaps) but how is it in any sense a leap into the future?
swears
preppy-kei
Well, the point I was making was: what would you like to see as the next big thing? Rather than a prediction of what it might actually be. It'd be interesting to hear some people's "musical fantasies." All realisic expectations aside, what personally would be vindicating, or even just pleasing for you to see get big? What sort of scene could you walk into and say, "Well, I was into this kinda thing all along..." I suppose Lester Bangs loved Punk because bands like The Ramones and The Clash were on the same wavelength as him, or in the case of Tom Morley, the whole New Pop thing was instigated or at least forseen in his writing for the NME.
Post up your dreams of scenes, I'd be fascinated to read them.
Precious Cuts said:
Yeah, I could see something emerging out of hip hop, it's been around as long as rock 'n' roll had been around in '76. So having a shift within hip-hop were kids don't feel like they relate to it any more in the same sense certain british youths in the 70's didn't relate to ELP or Pink Floyd or whatever. Jiggy/gansta rap as the new prog? Perhaps. Although someone like Jeff Chang or whoever is far more qualified to talk about this than me.
the undisputed truth
Banned
I think there will always be a next big thing more than likely it'll be a little thing hyped up to be a big thing and then maybe hyped even more to be a BIG thing. Cyberhype, hyperstition, hyper-extension, super cyber hyper tension.
Truth be known, there never was a BIG thing only lots of little things cobbled together, interpreted to create the myth and market the illusion, sell the preception. People need to believe in BIG things so we manufacture it and feed it back to ourselves in the hope we might believe it ourselves. Knowing full well the only BIG thing is death and change, the cyclic rebirth metamorphosing into the next thing.
The emos know it, the goths knew it, the punks knew it, the gangsta rappers know it, we all know it . Denial prevents us from internalising it. The rules of the game neccesitate we perpetuate the myth, hiding the truth behind every calculated lie. The spell must not be broken, we must become what we fear, power comes in the form of a lie. The spell seduces us to feedback into the loop the little things, the mutations that effect the BIG thing.
Creative destruction, industrial mutation, social innovation call it what you like. I call it hell science. The death cycle. Pedal as fast as you can, travel without moving, look over your shoulder and see the darkness catching up , look to your side and see only what you want, look forward and see the past in all it's blinding glory. Close your eyes, hold your breath for a moment, get off your bike, step into the darkness, open your eyes. Now breathe with me. What do you see and what do you hear?
We collectively expect too much in looking for the next big thing, knowing it doesn't exist, breeding the futile wish of ourselves to be important in the evolution of it. Failing that we excuse ourselves as out of time objects lost in space. Meaningless and purposeless.
My space is all there is. It's all about me, My Evolution. It's my time, it's your time, it's our time. Make of it what you will cos you haven't got much left. If its music you make, make it, just don't expect anyone to buy it or you, cos chances are machines will soon do a better job of it. Programs already exist that can simulate the great works of past masters re interpret their music into new forms designed to maximise the sensual effect of music as art customized for your own personal pleasure.
That is the next BIG thing. The lie then is to fake being the machine and re name it in your own image. As a snake renews it skin so too must we believe in the new flesh beneath. The question is, is it blood and sinew or electric circuitry ?
So to answer your question what if and will there be ? It doesn't matter. It only matters that we simulate it.
IMHO
but as has been shown before I don't really know what i'm talking about. So what ? I'm talking and that's all that matters. It doesn't even matter if no one is listening.
swears
preppy-kei
I think there will always be a next big thing more than likely it'll be a little thing hyped up to be a big thing and then maybe hyped even more to be a BIG thing. Cyberhype, hyperstition, hyper-extension, super cyber hyper tension.
Truth be known, there never was a BIG thing only lots of little things cobbled together, interpreted to create the myth and market the illusion, sell the preception. People need to believe in BIG things so we manufacture it and feed it back to ourselves in the hope we might believe it ourselves. Knowing full well the only BIG thing is death and change, the cyclic rebirth metamorphosing into the next thing.
The emos know it, the goths knew it, the punks knew it, the gangsta rappers know it, we all know it . Denial prevents us from internalising it. The rules of the game neccesitate we perpetuate the myth, hiding the truth behind every calculated lie. The spell must not be broken, we must become what we fear, power comes in the form of a lie. The spell seduces us to feedback into the loop the little things, the mutations that effect the BIG thing.
Creative destruction, industrial mutation, social innovation call it what you like. I call it hell science. The death cycle. Pedal as fast as you can, travel without moving, look over your shoulder and see the darkness catching up , look to your side and see only what you want, look forward and see the past in all it's blinding glory. Close your eyes, hold your breath for a moment, get off your bike, step into the darkness, open your eyes. Now breathe with me. What do you see and what do you hear?
We collectively expect too much in looking for the next big thing, knowing it doesn't exist, breeding the futile wish of ourselves to be important in the evolution of it. Failing that we excuse ourselves as out of time objects lost in space. Meaningless and purposeless.
My space is all there is. It's all about me, My Evolution. It's my time, it's your time, it's our time. Make of it what you will cos you haven't got much left. If its music you make, make it, just don't expect anyone to buy it or you, cos chances are machines will soon do a better job of it. Programs already exist that can simulate the great works of past masters re interpret their music into new forms designed to maximise the sensual effect of music as art customized for your own personal pleasure.
That is the next BIG thing. The lie then is to fake being the machine and re name it in your own image. As a snake renews it skin so too must we believe in the new flesh beneath. The question is, is it blood and sinew or electric circuitry ?
So to answer your question what if and will there be ? It doesn't matter. It only matters that we simulate it.
IMHO
Yeah, but what about shit trousers?
the undisputed truth
Banned
Never heard of them. I do know though that the machine doesn't wear trousers but it does shit itself quite regularly. We just polish it.
soundslike1981
Well-known member
I'm still wishing for somebody in mainstream hip-hop to interpolate gamalan/jaipong/kacek, maybe over Jaki Liebezeit beats, with music concrete or Eno-ambient textures surrounding the core. But that hardly a scene makes.
I'd like to see more people combining the synthetic and the organic in pop music in the ways Bjork began--but her success might've been overly dependent on the virtuosic talent of herself and her producers.
I guess ultimately, though, I fall into the camp that doesn't really care if there's never a big scene again. I get depressed every time I'm exposed to "pure" strains of subculture, the uniforms, the poses, and the generally shitty music.
I'd like to see a trend toward the synthesis of dance culture and "live" music--performance where the performance is hidden, live musicians playing out of sight from the audience, such that the audience can't just be an audience and stand looking forward in the rock/classical mode--where everyone is forced to interact or just look around, whether they dance per se. Went to hear a drone guy the other day, and in this tiny room with some fairly intense noise with no "performance" whatsoever--everyone still stood and stared forward, when it would've been so much more interesting for the sound to have just filled the room with no indication of a "performer". I say either go with the full-on show, or don't show yourself---either sounds preferable to a crowd staring at some guy with his laptop or yet another bored indie band.
well that often is the case isn't it?
especially if you've grown to love the last big thing or settle for the dominant thing as the standards you adhere to.
If you assume that the introduction of a significantly advanced musical technology will lead to a new wave of music (as with samplers, synths, electric guitars) then maybe the next big thing will be when we have instruments we can control with our thoughts alone. I imagine there'd be some pretty compelling and original stuff around if it could be streamed straight from the cerebral cortex.
IdleRich
IdleRich
That's not how I see it. Why do you need to slot them together? I think Bruno said much more eloquently what I was trying to express in my previous post.
Likewise Soundslike here
Precious Cuts is also right, this is the hip-hop era but I guess that doesn't preclude asking what the next big thing is (or if there will be one).
Swears said
Perhaps my imagination is limited but I really don't know. I would like to think that if I did know I would do it. I don't think saying "it's just a fantasy" gets you off the hook from doing it yourself.
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simon silverdollar
Guest
yeah i agree, it doesn't seem to be anything new, sonically.
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simon silverdollar
Guest
but new technology isn't a necessary condition for the next big thing: punk and 2-tone both used music equipment that had been round for decades.
also, could the development of cheap, poweful laptops be seen as a significant step forward in terms of music technology (particularly when you consider programs like ableton)? yet they don't seem to have ushered in a next big thing...
people still just love guitars, i guess.
Guybrush
Dittohead
This is a likely development, but I think one should also take into account adolescents yearning for something to rally behind. The description above suggests that musical preferences is the driving force behind The Next Thing and I'm not so sure about that, indeed, the happy hardcore story told upthread indicates that it is not always so (and I do love me some Sharkey now and then).
I would like to make a distinction between scenesters (e.g. the MySpace kids) and common adolescents. The former are the ones creating the scene's defining attributes; the latter are the ones deciding whether a scene will become a movement or not, they differ from the scenesters in that they don't join a particular scene so much for the music as for the sense of communality that comes with associating with a certain group (that's not to say the music's not great -- there's great music within any scene). This means, I think, that it's irrelevant to the grey masses whether they now have the possibility to join an infinite number of obscure MySpace coteries or not -- they want a common cause more that anything else. (This division of the masses into two groups is pretty fluid in practise, a given person can change groups many times a day, but I think the absolute majority of people [especially drunk ones] are at any given time always going to end up in the don't-care-the-about-music-but-want-to-belong group.)
Thus, I don't think the music has to be particulary exciting for a New Big Thing to emerge (nu-metal being a fine example), all it takes is a sequence of fortunate events (or pooloads of cash) and a little bit of clever marketing and, voila!, suddenly you have the ordinary kids swarming the scene. And, yes, I still think such a movement can arise, but I very much like how it is now (all the comparisons to the pre-house 80s seem spot-on to me, the current void of musical direction is an eclectic DJ's dream -- one can get away with almost anything).
Needless to say, the above is just random pseudo-profundities with no factual ground whatsoever. Feel free to debunk it.
MATT MAson
BROADSIDE
I understand the getting depressed and bored with new scenes thing. But surely thats just a function of getting older?
If you are 12 and you've just discovered a new scene today, its exciting cos your 12 and new music is how you define yourself.
If you're 30, its can still be exciting, but less so because you've already experienced a fair few and used them to define who you are (or aren't) and you've seen othersw come and go.
The music we consume in our teens and early 20s tends to define us. The older you get and the more subcultures you consume after that, the less relevant they become. It's a sweeping generalization I know, but it fits nicely with the law of diminishing returns...
If you are 12 and you've just discovered a new scene today, its exciting cos your 12 and new music is how you define yourself.
If you're 30, its can still be exciting, but less so because you've already experienced a fair few and used them to define who you are (or aren't) and you've seen othersw come and go.
The music we consume in our teens and early 20s tends to define us. The older you get and the more subcultures you consume after that, the less relevant they become. It's a sweeping generalization I know, but it fits nicely with the law of diminishing returns...
Leo
Well-known member
absolutely, but i'd also add that the grounding you get during that earlier impressionable age can help you relate to certain newer styles. i spent my early 20s heavily into On-U Sound, which is not a tremendously huge leap from my current interest in dubstep.
swears
preppy-kei
Are we living in the shadow of the nineties now?
There were so many avenues of musical exploration, particularly in dance and electronica, that it's sort of hard do anything without sounding like something that would have been original ten years ago.
And I think the one thing that is testament to the quality of nineties music and youth culture is the fact that nobody equates the that decade as naff. Ten years ago is always considered crap (bit of a generalistion, but still...) and twenty years ago is cool. I never hear anyone say "That's so nineties". Too much was going on to really define something to react against. Everybody thought the eighties was shit ten years ago, a bit of a shallow stance but it's good sometimes to have at least a myth to react against.
Jarvis Cocker, in a 1992 interview defended his love of the seventies (not quite cool again yet) describing it as an exciting, sexy time as opposed to the eighties when everybody just stayed in and "watched the Antiques Roadshow". Wildly inaccurate, but perhaps useful to him as a way of thinking, a way of going on.
There were so many avenues of musical exploration, particularly in dance and electronica, that it's sort of hard do anything without sounding like something that would have been original ten years ago.
And I think the one thing that is testament to the quality of nineties music and youth culture is the fact that nobody equates the that decade as naff. Ten years ago is always considered crap (bit of a generalistion, but still...) and twenty years ago is cool. I never hear anyone say "That's so nineties". Too much was going on to really define something to react against. Everybody thought the eighties was shit ten years ago, a bit of a shallow stance but it's good sometimes to have at least a myth to react against.
Jarvis Cocker, in a 1992 interview defended his love of the seventies (not quite cool again yet) describing it as an exciting, sexy time as opposed to the eighties when everybody just stayed in and "watched the Antiques Roadshow". Wildly inaccurate, but perhaps useful to him as a way of thinking, a way of going on.
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Good point. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what the 90s were all about, isn't it? musically it gave us jungle and a million potential branches for electronic exploration, but the culture was a sort of mish-mash of borrowed trends. Who'd of thought that flared trousers and platform shoes would ever make a comeback?! The only defining fashion statement of the 90s was 'The Rachel' haircut and body piercing/tatooing (as a mainstream option), neither of which are considered terminally unhip today. There just wasn't enough for anyone to rebel against today! Although perhaps the current trend for teenage new wave pop bands - guitar-bass-drum format - is a reaction against the dance music and the vocalist-only pop group format that dominated much of the 90s. And girls will happily where white stilettos again now - but crucially platform shoes are still a viable option, because the 70s are still a bit cool. you see, the 90s lacked it's own voice. and the naughties will suffer too from it's obsession with the 80s. can't we go back to before the 60s for inspiration? or, getting really crazy now, make some whole new shit up?
sorry, what was the original question again...?