Simian Mobile Disco - Attack Decay Sustain Release

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Something like "Hustler" is much more of a proper dance record than something like LCD Soundsystem, where I think much of this criticism is valid.

― Spencer Chow, Thursday, 10 May 2007 23:44 (seventeen years ago) link

i am a dinosaur but i spend a high % of my life i discos frequented by people in their early 20s, and younger.

x post

― stirmonster, Thursday, 10 May 2007 23:44 (seventeen years ago) link

is it so hard to escape? i manage to never, ever hear any of this stuff.

well, I avoid hearing it as much as possible but it's discussed practically daily on our club messageboard.

"It is just so eager to please and has the much discussed "let's all jump up and down" feeling!" sounds like a good time, no?

yeah but what's the fucking point!

― Ronan, Thursday, 10 May 2007 23:45 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh, I never hear it in the dancing. Just in other social situations it's thrust upon me.
xpost.

― jim, Thursday, 10 May 2007 23:46 (seventeen years ago) link

ideally this stuff gets mixed in with other styles that do have heavy and distinctive bass.

let me know about some that stuff dude, sounds good. :)

i love 'D.A.N.C.E.' - more than anything else they've done maybe. i just hear it/see the vid and think 'this is cool fun electro-influenced pop music', different enough from . it needn't get more complicated than that...but sound wise the guitar lick reminds me of DP, the string stabs are neat, the vocals cute/annoying/cute. good if you liked Jackson in theory but wanted something more accessible. i'll probably not get to dance to it out somewhere even if i did want to tho.

― blueski, Thursday, 10 May 2007 23:49 (seventeen years ago) link

ok. i tend to avoid social situations :-)

i think this music gets played in clubs lots (though not the ones i seem to frequent) partly because a lot of djs assume this is what everyone under 25 wants to hear when that is patently not the case.

― stirmonster, Thursday, 10 May 2007 23:50 (seventeen years ago) link

"It is just so eager to please and has the much discussed "let's all jump up and down" feeling!" sounds like a good time, no?

yeah but what's the fucking point!

man you would've hated Happy Hardcore

― blueski, Thursday, 10 May 2007 23:51 (seventeen years ago) link

is it not the case?

when people ask me to play css/hot chip/justice/simian/boys noize, a small part of me dies inside.

there isn't much left by now!

― Ronan, Thursday, 10 May 2007 23:52 (seventeen years ago) link

x-post to stir

― Ronan, Thursday, 10 May 2007 23:52 (seventeen years ago) link

i've never been asked to play css/justice/simian/boys noize ever. i do like and play the odd hot chip song though. if i'm asked for something i don't like i just pretend i've never heard of it which seems to confuse people enough to make them go away.

― stirmonster, Thursday, 10 May 2007 23:56 (seventeen years ago) link

I like Hot Chip well enough, I just don't really play any of their stuff. People seem to absolutely LOVE them.

Normally I just say "I don't have it" if someone asks for something like that.

― Ronan, Friday, 11 May 2007 00:00 (seventeen years ago) link

i like everything, i mean i probably have the most varied taste of anyone on this thread

Lex this really is the most ludicrous statement you've ever come out with.

― braveclub, Friday, 11 May 2007 00:13 (seventeen years ago) link

Also to dismiss producers for making music to make people want to dance to... that really is the worst. Also:

"It is just so eager to please and has the much discussed "let's all jump up and down" feeling!" sounds like a good time, no?

yeah but what's the fucking point!

I know I've rubbed you up the wrong way enough today, Ronan, but really - what's the point in making people dance? Is that what you're saying?

― braveclub, Friday, 11 May 2007 00:15 (seventeen years ago) link

UH that was badly edited hence the repetition

― braveclub, Friday, 11 May 2007 00:16 (seventeen years ago) link

It was more the "sounds like a good time" as a defence I was questioning.

You can make people dance even if music isn't happy or goofy.

And sure, there's nothing definitively wrong with music for music's sake, but I don't see that SMD are the chief exponents of this, nor the best, I mean why not just listen to actual pop music?

― Ronan, Friday, 11 May 2007 00:23 (seventeen years ago) link

Sure. But I see SMD more as pop than dance music. Also Justice. As dance acts these are shitty, but I think they make good pop msuic.

― braveclub, Friday, 11 May 2007 00:26 (seventeen years ago) link

what pop music sounds like SMD, Justice etc. - apart from them?

― blueski, Friday, 11 May 2007 00:27 (seventeen years ago) link

Daft Punk maybe?

― braveclub, Friday, 11 May 2007 00:27 (seventeen years ago) link

not pop

― moonship journey to baja, Friday, 11 May 2007 00:52 (seventeen years ago) link

ok explain why daft punk aren't pop then

― braveclub, Friday, 11 May 2007 00:53 (seventeen years ago) link

I put these acts squarely into "DANCE music" and not just because you can dance to them, but because the structure and function is obviously house.

― Spencer Chow, Friday, 11 May 2007 00:53 (seventeen years ago) link

spencer nails it on the head.

― moonship journey to baja, Friday, 11 May 2007 00:55 (seventeen years ago) link

pop is not just some catchall where we throw everything with lyrics, choruses and headbands

― moonship journey to baja, Friday, 11 May 2007 00:55 (seventeen years ago) link

i mean sweatbands

― moonship journey to baja, Friday, 11 May 2007 00:56 (seventeen years ago) link

the structure is that of a classic pop song though! i fail to see one reason why daft punk is not pop music. also pop IS a catchall, it is not a genre

― braveclub, Friday, 11 May 2007 00:58 (seventeen years ago) link

are we talking about the same daft punk?

probably not.

― moonship journey to baja, Friday, 11 May 2007 01:01 (seventeen years ago) link

I think some Daft Punk tracks are more pop and some are more dance.

― Spencer Chow, Friday, 11 May 2007 01:35 (seventeen years ago) link

daft punk is to blame for blog house

― cutty, Friday, 11 May 2007 01:36 (seventeen years ago) link

and jogging

― haitch, Friday, 11 May 2007 01:49 (seventeen years ago) link

It should be noted that "jumping up and down" is not the same as dancing! The marginilisation of bass, where it occurs (it's being overstated in this thread), is intimately connected to the fact that at the club nights that play this music very few people are doing anything with their hips!

This does have its roots in electroclash except that almost all the best electroclash anthems actually did have great basslines e.g. the sampling of Bobby O in "Silver Screen Shower Scene".

For me the key tune to explain the distinction is "Rocker", where the "verses" (the squiggly noise beats) are actually quite erm funky, while the "choruses" (the faux guitar anthemics bit) is like straight rock almost. I always liked the verses more, but the converted-rock-kids crowd that was just emerging within electro-house in late-2004 always seemed to respond massively to the choruses instead.

― Tim F, Friday, 11 May 2007 03:41 (seventeen years ago) link

if i saw someone in 2007 dancing with their hips i would probably laugh them out of the club. rocker is definitely the touchstone though, and it is funny that people who were once celebrating the fact that alter ego were making synths sound like guitars are now bemoaning it

― creme1, Friday, 11 May 2007 03:54 (seventeen years ago) link

Tune in next week for an enthralling new episode of "Why do people get tired of overused ideas in dance music?"

― Tim F, Friday, 11 May 2007 04:00 (seventeen years ago) link

also, the guy who tried to explain to me how geht noch is basically a punk song to thread

― creme1, Friday, 11 May 2007 04:04 (seventeen years ago) link

i don't know anything about simian mobile disco, but recently i had to review their remix of muse's 'knights of cydonia' and it was an absolute crock of willies. the beat remained, static and tuneless, for five minutes, neither building nor diminishing, and bearing no discernible resemblance to the original, although occasionally interspersed with entire, untreated vocal samples from the song (these occurred when no other music was playing), as if to remind the listener beyond any doubt whom they were remixing. i've never heard such a shoddy effort before in my life. ugh.

― Just got offed, Friday, 11 May 2007 04:12 (seventeen years ago) link

RECENTLY I HEARD THEIR SONG WE R YOUR FREINDS VS JUSTICE IT WAS REALLY GOOD

― cutty, Friday, 11 May 2007 04:19 (seventeen years ago) link

but because the structure and function is obviously house.

no more than techno or electro half the time, esp. in Justice's case. i think people stick the house tag on to make it seem more 'friendly'/accessible - seems to work.

all the best electroclash anthems actually did have great basslines e.g. the sampling of Bobby O in "Silver Screen Shower Scene"

indeed. i don't hear that so much now but would like to. it's gotta rumble and throb, even on earphones.

― blueski, Friday, 11 May 2007 10:44 (seventeen years ago) link

if i saw someone in 2007 dancing with their hips i would probably laugh them out of the club.

friendly

― braveclub, Friday, 11 May 2007 10:47 (seventeen years ago) link

if i saw some cute girls dancing with their hips i would throw my drink over them in disgust

― blueski, Friday, 11 May 2007 10:51 (seventeen years ago) link

from a non specialist's view it does look like some fault line is opening up here.

― Alan, Friday, 11 May 2007 11:18 (seventeen years ago) link

"It's the beat" is rubbish. "Tits 'n' acid" is great though, and well produced, and if it doesn't have a big bassline as such, it still sounds deep.

I have difficulty guaging how well known or popular this stuff is. I keep ending up in bars where there are people laptop djing this sort of stuff to completely indifferent audiences or indeed empty rooms. But there clearly is a well defined crowd, just perhaps a small one.

Also, it seems that it IS dance music, in terms of structure and so on, so a few comments upthread are off the mark. It's just adding a certain kind of rock sound or rock dynamics to the mix. This isn't that different from the edits people, turning soft rock or krautrock or whatever into dance music, or big beat turning hip hop into dance music, (or indeed jungle also turning hip hop into dance music).

VICARIOUS BLISS "LIMOUSINE" off the ed banger comp is ace, by the way. Lex would HATE it.

― Jamie T Smith, Friday, 11 May 2007 11:35 (seventeen years ago) link

fault line=gates of hell

― Ronan, Friday, 11 May 2007 11:39 (seventeen years ago) link

The problem with Tits and Acid is that the beat is too stuttery which makes it difficult to actually dance to.

I was being a bit OTT upthread about it being not really dance music, it's not functional dance music is what I meant, I can't see much of it working in a club context.

The first couple of tracks are the most successful I feel, the most content to settle into a groove and not pile on too many noises or annoying vocals. I Got This Down is my favourite, something about it reminds me of early Get Physical although I can't see it ever coming out on that label.

― Matt DC, Friday, 11 May 2007 11:51 (seventeen years ago) link

i think simian mobile disco have had their successes - two, to be exact: i actually like "it's the beat" (as tim f pointed out somewhere, it's basically a homage to "pump up the jam", plus it's got a sparkly breakdown), and their remix of "downtown" is anchored around big sticky stompy synth hook, with nice acid-y splashes - gets squealy and bludgeoning by the end, but it's rather good for a while.

as an aesthetic though, the concerted abstinence of deepness of almost any sort gets, yeah, tiresome. sebastian, in particular, seems to represent the real dead-end of the muddy, monochrome stutter aesthetic, and his upcoming remix of rage against the machine might just be the final point where this stuff migrates from dancefloor to moshbit.

― jermainetwo, Friday, 11 May 2007 13:23 (seventeen years ago) link

and if it doesn't have a big bassline as such, it still sounds deep.

or at least dense. packed full of five different kinds of nut.

― blueski, Friday, 11 May 2007 13:25 (seventeen years ago) link

moshbit was a typo but i actually quite like it.

― jermainetwo, Friday, 11 May 2007 13:28 (seventeen years ago) link

oh wait, i like "i believe" too! which is quite obviously more pop than dance. even so, i prefer the prins thomas remix.

― jermainetwo, Friday, 11 May 2007 13:30 (seventeen years ago) link

I actually think I mean Animal House, anyway. But yes. I should actually listen to this record before commenting.

― Jamie T Smith, Friday, 11 May 2007 13:30 (seventeen years ago) link

btw, ronan, you might like maurice fulton's remix of "over and over" if you're ever looking for a crossover record.

― jermainetwo, Friday, 11 May 2007 13:33 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost about "people making synths sound like guitars": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOtrPlIXRYE

― Drew Daniel, Friday, 11 May 2007 17:33 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah "I Believe" is good.

― Tim F, Friday, 11 May 2007 22:23 (seventeen years ago) link

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