Well I hated grime, dubstep, bassline and broken beat. Gave me a headache.
Wasn’t the brilliant thing about London around that time that all this stuff could co-exist often within 5-10 minutes of each other?
Or are we back to the “my Dad’s bigger than your Dad” arguments that used to rule forums?
Maybe cos it was so much more popular here and had things like the NME writing about it all every week? Also, the bands were all either fast-tracked to superstardom (albeit briefly) or A&R people just signed another band that sounded like them-but more commercial and it lead to the landfill indie period.
A lot of the bands that made up the Nu-Rave era were quite fun bands to see live (CSS, Datarock, Klaxons, Shitdisco etc) but I doubt many people would be clamoring to read a book about it.
New York had a feeling of untouchable coolness in that period, and whereas London looked the same (if not slightly better in many ways) if you knew what you were looking at I doubt your casual fan who wasn’t there would agree nowadays that it was as cool.
The Rapture were getting pissed & passing out with Courtney Love live on MTV, whereas the Libertines were making polite jokes on Never Mind The Buzzcocks.
all true. Maybe also, the likes of Shoreditch Twat or Nathan Barley were sending up any pretensions to cool? maybe the kiss of death in London is to wear a badge before you get parodied?
I guess the point I’m kinda making here is that it wasn’t always totally the hot bed of eclectic freedom it sometimes gets made out to be. And often from people who never spent much time in Glasgow as well to be honest. I’m a being a bit cheeky obviously but I kinda don’t buy the “play the fuck we want” angle, because whilst dropping pop tunes / black Betty etc did go against the restrictive nature of the prevalent “dance music” landscape at the time (great, obviously) there’s the other side of it.
You also heard that shit in student unions and poppier venues all the time. Still do. There was a very significant element of not losing the interest of people who only listen to popular music or shit they know when they’re pissed. I think being honest about that is balanced and I don’t think it takes anything away from them being a much needed tonic in general. But they absolutely weren’t playing punk / new beat / minimal wave / UR shit hours on end without heavily appeasing a student crowd. I think they gained more and more trust over time, and I think that is really amazing. At the time I went, the balance felt more studenty than eclectic but I wasn’t there loads or consistently. And to be fair, Glasgow has always had plenty of good options for music alot lesser sung ones as well which I favoured at the time. Best music city I lived in hands down.
Love the DFA stuff, would go and see the Optimo lads in a flash these days and with regret missed them just gone over my way due to a very pregnant partner.
And all respect to everyone who supported that night because I’m glad it was there and thrived. That’s some stint @Discophrenia fair play!
Library music……ducks for cover
The first hour or so was always the highlight for me
Even the queue to get into Optimo was fun back in the day.
aren’t you just being the old man who yells at cloud here because dance music didn’t conform to your idea of what it should be past 1999? I don’t necessarily have a problem with that, personal taste is personal taste, but why does the indie continuum always get a free pass and us who were raised and participated in blacker (/urban) scenes or scenes of black origin have to be held to ever more stringent standards? Just reads a bit morressey coded to me.
I’m not saying you’re engaging in a racist attitude here, so don’t take it that way. But if we dismiss whole genres like you have done here we’ll get a million people telling us how we’re being myopic.
I’m unsure as to how bruk could ever give you a headache though, it’s pretty much a london take on deep house and techno with jazz funk influences.
I mean this is why I have a policy of never going to berghain or in fact most German clubs. Yes, I could definitely eventually get in provided I had a white spokesperson. Otherwise I look and present as too muslim, too Turkish, etc to go alone or with people I know in Kreuzberg. So I think to claim it’s a case of my dad is bigger than your dad is off the mark.
But Tony Teasedale started bigging up LCD sound system the other year with some hyperbolic stuff about how the kids wanted punk attitude, they were sick of club culture. The working class kids round my way (of all races!) never wanted guitars and never hugely cared for indie rock. Don’t fabricate arguments for clickbait lol.
We certainly weren’t sick of club culture because we’ve always had a transactional relationship with it, depending on the moods of club owners and the police. ‘the wrong types etc’. There was an old article where Norman Jay was saying he told Jules to put on his poshest oxbridge accent when talking to the old bill. Many things have changed but that hasn’t really. In fact, the idea of ‘club culture’ is an insulated construct that prioritises the histories and experiences of middle class white people and the rare token minority (almost invariably middle class as well.) So it has always been about the modalities through which class is lived in ‘clubland’.
There’s certainly truth to the idea that raving enabled people from different walks of british class society to interact, but like most things it is heavily romanticised. even the ‘acid ted’ thing was pretty dodgy in retrospect, though as someone who uses the term chelsea shed-ted (instead of shed head) I can appreciate how it intended to come across as facetious in '89.
sigh
didn’t mean to kick up a hornet’s nest. just find I have to be on the defensive when I talk about 00s multicultural london dance music. Apologies all.
God… do you remember how often you’d hear those phrases back then? That really must have had some impact on things over here.
I can only speak for me, but you dont have to be on the defensive or apologise. I think most of us just think that music is the answer, the bond, the salve and the thing that connects us all…
I mean I get it, but there are some absolute bangers! Keith Mansfield etc. It’s the rarity value I think…
look mate I don’t want to engage in needlessly overanalysing peoples posts but it read to me like a dismissal of a whole part of London’s multicultural fabric. If the idea was that they don’t understand or find these musics, uninteresting then that is totally cool, it opens up avenue for discussion.
but grime, dubstep, bassline and broken beat all sound starkly different.
It would be like me saying I hate ‘hip hop, rnb, and bashment’. Or any music but hip hop, rnb and bashment. Can you see how that comes across as a bit dodgy?
I’ll concede that I said I find the DFA /trash type stuff ‘really dull’ but I couldn’t say I ‘hate’ it, because I don’t know enough about those circles, the scene and that subculture. But I’m always willing to revise my opinions on music.
I’m not going to champion everything black london has produced because that would be some kind of deplorable racial/cultural fetishism. For instance drill, as a genre … let’s just say it’s not meant for me. I will listen to it, always keeping my ears to the ground; some of it I find interesting (and will be like check out what the kids are doing) some of it I find cliched and dull, but I’m happy to accept that I’m an older guy and it’s not meant to appeal to me as a social movement.
Similarly whilst I love dancehall and 90s ragga, the christian-derived rastafarianism is not where I am coming from and I would never say I am the target audience.
So many incredible library records!
I love multicultural London. I dislike the music you’re into. End.
if only it were that simple! But dance music has been a multi million pound industry since the late 80s at least. power structures form, certain people are in positions to shape narritives. Others are excluded, intentionally (or more than not, unintentionally.)
Anyway I’ve said what I have to say. there’s no point dragging it out any further.
please don’t patronise me telling me what and what not to get into my head, thank you.
But as above I have nothing more to say on the topic and the fact you are taking this personally is completely at odds with the point I am making. you could personally dislike all dance music including house and techno, for all I care. your tastes as a private individual are just that.
Probably a good idea. We’re all passionate about the music we love. We all have different opinions and tastes. Some overlap, some don’t. It really is that simple. No hidden agenda just banter with like minded music lovers.
That’s the beauty of this forum.