Yussel said essentially the same things I wanted to say, but I wanted
to respond to a couple of points:
On Fri, Dec 05, 2003 at 02:02:45PM -0600, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> However, I'd like to know how many people who went to all the
> Chemical Bros. and Fatboy Slim shows back in the heyday of Big Beat
> are still listening to this music? It seems to be more of a "flash
> and it's over" movement as opposed to the steady life of techno and
> house. So - after the party was going for a few years how many
> people were already heading for the door? Now the White Stripes are
> "saving rock 'n roll"
There's truth to this, but...
o Played any videogames recently? SSX 3, for reasons I will never
understand, included "Leave Home" on the soundtrack. Either the
soundtrack programmers for SSX 3 are very, very lazy (unlikely,
given the diversity of the rest of the soundtrack, which is
admittedly all Virgin artists), or "Leave Home" has attained the
status of classic normally reserved for, oh, "Evenflow".
o Listened to any 2 Many DJs comps / mashup sets recently? Those kids
will use any and all source materials for their sets just to get
the party going (which is why that stuff's probably about the most
entertaining thing happening in dance music right now, even if it
is getting kind of played out), but they have two backbones: cheesy
old hip-hop (cf. ref. Steinski) and large-scale big-beat
appropriation.
Injecting a little personal sentiment into things, I only pulled the
stick out of my ass with respect to the Chemical Brothers this year. I
loved the first few Dust Brothers singles, but after Astralwerks
started their gigantic "Electronica is the next rock and roll WOO
PARTY!" marketing push, I got a little disgusted and stopped listening
to Chem Bros out of protest (I'm kind of retarded that way). That
said, I picked up the singles comp and the music is just as retarded
and fun as it ever was.
And even when I was hatin' on buying Chemical Brothers records I was
going to see them live, and I *always* had a good time. Everybody
danced, everybody had fun. At least as far as I could tell.
I think there's a large audience of folks who listen mostly to
rock-type music and aren't music fanatics the same way that people in
self- selecting communities like 313 are who still have the odd
Prodigy / Crystal Method / Chemical Brothers / Hybrid CD that gets
pulled out with fair frequency.
> The mass appeal didn't last in either case of Hardcore or Big Beat.
> I'd like to see a new addition with some kind of update on his
> thoughts or maybe "Generation Ecstasy part deux - everyone back to
> mine"
As Yussel said, Simon's tastes have continued to mutate over the
years. He's been into, at various times, PCP-style doomcore, Mannie
Fresh / Cash Money-style hip hop, and speed garage. He's a creature of
his passions, which are fickle but always sincere.
> I know that the Chems and Fatboy Slim were/are immensely popular but
> they had to cop rock 'n' roll images to get there - which does
> nothing for any music producer who doesn't want to sell themselves
> like that. I'd argue that Big Beat brought little attention to any
> other genre that wasn't presented as a circus.
I'd argue that instead what happened was that big beat diffused into
the mainstream. It copped rock'n'roll images because that's more or
less what it was trying to be -- high energy, high attitude, low
intelligence music that a random crowd of happy drunk people could get
down to. I see its influence around me everywhere, on soundtracks
(like, oh, say, THE MATRIX), games, radio bumpers, and especially on
certain kinds of heavy metal and rock music. And nu skool breaks,
which is still pretty interesting today, is a more reflective /
paranoid take on big beat, so some of the influence was back into the
dance music underground.
> Plus, how can someone write a book saying that one subgenre is going
> to save the entire world of electronic music and then turn around
> and slag off other subgenres?
Because that's how he genuinely saw it at the time? I've corresponded
a little with Simon over the years, and I don't think he's nearly as
calculating as some people seem to think he is -- he's a
quintessential music geek, which means that he argues from the heart
rather than the head a lot of the time, and it also means that his
opinions change pretty radically over time. I think a lot of us do
that, but we try to pretend to some unfelt objectivity when it comes
time to write. I'm on 313 because I still like techno a lot, but there
have definitely been times in the last 10 years when I've been
absolutely convinced that the scene has its head totally jammed up its
ass and all the interesting action is somewhere else. Putting that
sort of thought into print is a good conversation-starter, and might
trigger some actual changes as people set out to prove him wrong.
I'm not saying anything about any of the people in on this thread, but
some of the people Reynolds has irritated the most over the years are
the ones who most needed to be irritated. If he has one thing he can't
stand, it's stagnation. And stagnation is a very real threat to music
these days.
> I think he does/did a disservice to all electronic music by leaning
> so hard against some very important styles and artists. Aphex Twin
> did quite a bit bringing millions of people into electronic music
> and his influences in music production are heard a lot more today
> than any Big Beat track.
Yeah (although I'm not sure I agree with you), but is that a good or a
bad thing? For every great track on Schematic or Perlon or Cash Money,
there is a veritable ACRE of completely boring-assed Aphex Twin
worship clogging the racks (much of it made by Richard D. James
himself). Speaking as someone who had a very violent and visceral
parting of ways with the whole IDM community about seven years ago, I
can definitely see the value in agitating a little.
> Reynolds had an agenda.
Well yeah, of course. Don't all journalists?
yrz,
Forrest
--
. . . the self-reflecting image of a narcotized mind . . .
ozymandias G desiderata [EMAIL PROTECTED] desperate, deathless
(415)823-6356 http://www.pushby.com/forrest/ ::AOAIOXXYSZ::
