When dance music goes bad

[boyofbadgers]

I've spent a fair chunk of this morning reading this ILM thread about new-not-quite-dance people, MSTRKRFT. Leaving aside the worrying PRML SCRMesque splng, the thread is probably not worth reading in full. It's mostly the same old indie-dance vs dance-purist arguments rehashed around a new band

Comments

[alexmacpherson]

I really don't know why I DO like stuff like Justice because when the pro/anti arguments are along these sorts of lines (my two types of dancing are pretty much exactly the same as yours Rick) it would make perfect sense for me to be anti. Except I'm not.

That thread did make me realise how much I loathe ILM these days and that this loathing actually extends to the electrohouse dudes as well (except Tim and Ronan obv). It's a really depressing place to talk about music - there are a number of songs I love so much that even a year ago I'd've immediately gone to start a thread on them, but these days you'd get some genre fascist or Jess type making sarky comments or nitpicking and no one else showing love. And the bobbins threads are almost entirely people listing records at each other rather than conversing.

[boyofbadgers]

Heh, I haven't got an enormous beef with Justice. It just seems a bit, I dunno, pointless. I prepared to admit that I am completely wrong wrt this particular proto-genre; the entry above was more an attempt to explain why music that occupies this functional/social niche doesn't do it for me, than crticise this particular type of it.

As for ILM, well, it's just too big for me to get a handle on it. The only things I am remotely up to date on are some v.particular bits of bobbins, and it's not fun talking abt stuff you know nowt about. Saying that, from what I have seen, I do think you might have painted yrself into a corner a little with yr anti-indie-isms tho ;-)

[alexmacpherson]

but ILM SHOULD be anti-indie. That was the point of it! Or at least pro-pop. Now everyone there is either a) American indie college kid, ie should have been aborted, or b) a bitter cunt like Jess who you can't have a conversation with because they're even socially retarded online.

[boyofbadgers]

I think it should be neither pro or anti. But adopting a blanket anti-indie attitude while frequently bigging up indie does leave you open to attack, yesno?

[catsgomiaow]

RICKYT: NOT A BENTLEY RHYTHM ACE FAN ahahahahha :)

[boyofbadgers]

Mention not that dread name.

[chezghost]

i never actually heard B.R.A. in any set i danced to that i'd have considered to be largely Big Beat orientated during it's heyday. i think may have been a stretch from the dancefloor too far for even Cooky and co. (but then again, I didn't go to the Boutique until 2000).

[rgl]

Hmm... There's definitely something interesting behind the fact that musical elements tend to move from dance music (by which I mean, music to dance to) into music for other functions more successfully than they move in the opposite direction. This isn't new, either - most fast-paced Baroque music is based on dance beats, even though it has become stylised and more about the hooks or whatever.

Mmm... I'm going to have to think about this one. Possibly it's something to do with repetition. My composition tutor once said that the reason contemporary "classical" composers have failed so badly in their dealings with dance music is they don't really appreciate repetition.

[chezghost]

"it's dance music for people who don't actually like dancing"

this is a big straw man that's getting dished out all too easily now i think. but i interpret it as really meaning 'dance music for people who don't like soul and i do pretty much mean that in the cliched 'black' sense which is a thorny issue i know but still lingers when it comes to understanding why things are how they are. from one straw man to another i suppose

Re: meaning of life

[boyofbadgers]

Fair enough on the straw man, which is why I qualified it in the next sentence.

The older hip-hop thing is something I hadn't thought of before, but it definitely applies in my case.

[boyofbadgers]

The soul thing is a seductive interpretation but not quite right. There is SOMETHING going on there tho, which Ronan touched on a bit:

it really gets on my tits when people are like "oh that moody depressing minimal stuff", it's that thing where people call music which makes you actually think or use your brain or have a feeling "depressing" when it is neither happy nor sad, it's more complex than that, and that is the point of good house and techno.

[atommickbrane]

Are you saying that it is Intelligent Dance Music? :)

meaning of life

[katstevens]

I am always willing to be proved wrong on such matters. As mentioned yesterday, there are only two types of music: good and boring. Knowing the difference between the two is the key to being a great producer. What makes Peggy Lee's version of Fever better than Susan Cadogan's even though I love Susan's voice? Why can I not bear to listen to Only You by Yazoo but I love Vienna by Ultravox when they are pretty much the same record?

Re: meaning of life

[chezghost]

what about Madonna's version of 'Fever'? or Afia Mala's? ;)

Re: meaning of life

[katstevens]

I haven't heard those :-)

My point was, I can't put my finger on why one version is so much better than the other. All the ingredients are there but mixed up wrong somehow.

Re: meaning of life

[chezghost]

Afia Mala's was my first Togo song in the Pop World Cup.

I can't remember the Susan Cadogan version. is it the reggae-y/lovers rock version?