and as for Matthew's post, perhaps the people want rave culture to be more popular in America because they're into it. not because they hate Britney. fairly certain Simon R did actually do a blog entry about Toxic anyway, so good example
― Ronan (Ronan), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:22 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ronan (Ronan), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:23 (nineteen years ago) link
xpost - it is all the same!
― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:24 (nineteen years ago) link
hence some people in the US, flagrantly, on this thread, while knowing what dance music is, can't understand the wider concept of it, that which distinguishes it from hiphop etc.
― Ronan (Ronan), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:25 (nineteen years ago) link
you're so defensive about this, is all i mean ronan. I sincerely doubt that dance music needs defending, it does quite fine on it's own.
― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:26 (nineteen years ago) link
There seems to be a spate of disingenuousness about the specific meaning of genres round here lately, too.
― noodle vague (noodle vague), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:27 (nineteen years ago) link
― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:28 (nineteen years ago) link
In accords to non electronic dance music, Im still waiting for a Funk revival
― Mike D (nullnvoid), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:28 (nineteen years ago) link
yes, raves didn't take off on a large scale in america because of homophobes, yep, uh huh.
perhaps it's just because, duh, the US and the UK are completely different countries? with different economies, social customs, class traditions, and even property rights? (there's no way that in America circa 1988 you could've commandeered a big farm estate for a rave, like you could in the UK).
― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:30 (nineteen years ago) link
― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:30 (nineteen years ago) link
― Matthew "Flux" Perpetua, Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:31 (nineteen years ago) link
I think it's stupid and overstepping the mark to complain about Americans who like dance music and the culture inherent to that wanting it to become popular.
Just because you can fucking dance to anything does not mean it sounds like Tiefschwarz or Kompakt. Hence the Britney comparison seems like lazy tossed off rubbish.
It's as if to say 'why the fuck would you listen to kompakt or tiefschwarz, YOU CAN ALREADY DANCE TO THE MUSIC IN THE CHARTS'
And you can apply that example to pop vs any other genre that isn't successful in America.
― Ronan (Ronan), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:31 (nineteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:32 (nineteen years ago) link
That doesn't explain the relative sales positions, does it? And are you saying that a big part of the anti-Disco thing wasn't the perceived Gayness of the music and its fans?
― noodle vague (noodle vague), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:33 (nineteen years ago) link
― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:35 (nineteen years ago) link
I dunno if anybody's actually saying this. My reading on SR's article is that, if anything, he's lamenting that 'dance music' is not popular in the US, without going into any realistic discussion as to why that music would be on a different scale here than in the UK or Germany. And he does it in such a simplistic way (tho given the NYT audience, and more likely his editors, i understand that) that if I was, say, German, I'd be offended! I mean he writes like Tresor or Basic Channel or even Kraftwerk didn't exist!
― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:35 (nineteen years ago) link
to say that there is one sole reason why some people didn't like disco is as just as specious and strawman-ish as anything a homophobe could actually say about homosexuals!
― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:36 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ronan (Ronan), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:37 (nineteen years ago) link
However there are US internet radio websites such as
dirty radiohttp://www.dirtyradio.net/
I have read comments by Felix Da Housecat and Cannibal Ox, for instance who are scathing in their contempt for US mainstream music media.
― DJ Martian (djmartian), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:37 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ronan (Ronan), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:38 (nineteen years ago) link
The thing is, the u.s. already has its own unique dance culture in place - european dance music would have to supplant the weird hip-hop/pop conglameration that currently rules the charts in order to have any effect. And Philip Sherburne's article from a couple months back did a better job at this - european dance music is having an effect subversively, in that hip-hop artists use some similar sonics to euro dance artists. But the idea that european rave culture is going to (or ever really had a chance of) supplanting American dance culture is sort of ridiculous.
― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:39 (nineteen years ago) link
xpost - i wasn't responding to any point you made, ronan, but to that specious claim that all disco haters are fag bashers or whatever.
― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:39 (nineteen years ago) link
― Matthew "Flux" Perpetua, Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:40 (nineteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:40 (nineteen years ago) link
― Lovelace, Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:41 (nineteen years ago) link
Also, perhaps what puzzles people about the relative failure of dance in the US is House and Techno's American roots?
― noodle vague (noodle vague), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:41 (nineteen years ago) link
also in today's NYT:
One Word for What's Happening to Actors' Faces Today: Plasticshttp://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/movies/23darg.html?oref=login
― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:42 (nineteen years ago) link
I agree that what people dance to is entirely dependent on context, I said pretty much the same myself above. It's worth noting that pop dance which does not fit the super minimal description counts for alot of the 'dominance' over here, or has counted for.
― Ronan (Ronan), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:42 (nineteen years ago) link
― Matthew "Flux" Perpetua, Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:42 (nineteen years ago) link
― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:43 (nineteen years ago) link
And are you saying that a big part of the anti-Disco thing wasn't the perceived Gayness of the music and its fans?
were you at Comiskey? I didn't see you there with me and all the other homophobes!
(actually i was like 1 or 2 at the time, wasn't there, and why would i go anyway? I like a lot of disco)
― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:44 (nineteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:45 (nineteen years ago) link
― Lovelacegmail.com, Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:45 (nineteen years ago) link
Ignore metal at your peril.
the weird hip-hop/pop conglameration that currently rules the charts
Wait, why weird? I can't imagine anything LESS weird.
It's a bit like bioengineering a creature that's a big blob of tits, asses, and vaginas and expecting straight men everywhere to want to fuck it.
Sounds like the Internet to me!
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:46 (nineteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:47 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ronan (Ronan), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:47 (nineteen years ago) link
I think the argument about hip-hop and r'n'b producers adapting European dance sonics is perfectly fair, dee. Timbaland and the Neptunes being obvious examples. It still seems strange that those particular rhythms exert such a stranglehold on American dance culture tho.
― noodle vague (noodle vague), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:49 (nineteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:49 (nineteen years ago) link
― Matthew "Flux" Perpetua, Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:49 (nineteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:50 (nineteen years ago) link
OTM. it is completely ridiculous that hip-hop is never mentioned in the article. it's dance music, just not in the above referenced parameters (see bugged out's post). and it gets played in plenty of clubs that are marginalized along racial lines. until that line gets broken, until kids of different economic and racial backgrounds get together, we won't have a dance movement like the late 90s supposedly foretold.
― john'n'chicago, Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:50 (nineteen years ago) link
― Matthew "Flux" Perpetua, Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:51 (nineteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:51 (nineteen years ago) link
Haha Ned I direct you to Jess' blog post about Lil Wyte:http://shutyrgob.blogspot.com/2004_10_01_shutyrgob_archive.html#109788172574591929
Lil Wyte himself is one of those ghetto ass skinny white guys with the veiny arms and unshaveable pube 'stache which us fat, vein-less, clean shaven white kids were always scared of because they would beat your ass (i.e. the subtext of his new hit single.) This may well be the first racial stereotype that occurs everywhere, as applicable to Olympia as Biloxi. They've just traded Priest and Maiden for Triple-Six and Mobb Deep.
― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:51 (nineteen years ago) link
Seriously, did he just miss the whole Crunk thing?
― Matthew "Flux" Perpetua, Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:52 (nineteen years ago) link
This is spot on. I guess there's also a long history of European paranoia about American cultural dominance and American paranoia about European cultural snobbery running alongside it.
― noodle vague (noodle vague), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:53 (nineteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:55 (nineteen years ago) link
Yeah, but wishing and expecting are a bit different, don't you think? To me, it sounds like Simon (and the people on that CMJ panel that I mentioned earlier) really think that Americans have fucked it up and that they were SUPPOSED to embrace this culture. Maybe I'm being unfair to them. Definitely a possibility.
― Matthew "Flux" Perpetua, Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:55 (nineteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:56 (nineteen years ago) link