rolling uk urban pop thread

and please believe when i say fuck dizzee for 'dirtee disco' i speak as the #1 supporter of tongue n cheek and everything on it without exception.

if that track comes out titled loose and not lose then i will kill everyone and everything in sight.

I.K.R.

why is "dirtee disco" any more egregious than "holiday" or "dance wiv me"?

"love drunk" is good but as with "frisky" suffers from being a bit of a "pass out" retread. i really hated aggro santos's debut single with one of the non-scherzinger pussycat dolls that his PR bugged me about endlessly. surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE8P3iCcrIc

love how this thread has so far studiously avoided dubstep even though it's magnetic man in the actual top 10 this week. i'd like to see funkystepz or ill blu do that. (not being sarky, i really would.)

(i don't actually love "i need air" that much, i don't find dubstep beats exciting in and of themselves, and autotuned angela hunte doesn't elevate them in the same way that katy b does.)

though i may as well dump all the katy b tracks here then - LOVE "katy on a mission", really like her track w/magnetic man, and on one listen i think i'm feeling "louder" (produced by zinc, it seems). pretty interested in where she'll go for what appears to be her solo career.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNhPYj-5rIY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93AU5IkvDPY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1Ynf2ScKiA

These dubstep dudes should stop attempting to write songs and concentrate on working on that enormous bombastic doomladen remix of Shakespeare's Sister's 'Stay' that will surely be the zenith that will followed by the genre's immediate decline.

i think it's katy b who's writing the songs there

Just a general observation, I haven't actually heard Katy On A Mission yet.

i suppose you've got me there on the dubstep, but there always were and are always gonna be la roux vs skreams and whatnot and i'd like to think we were tracking something more interesting than simply the whims of annie mac and the student dubstep massive. and besides what is distinctive about that magnetic man besides its producer roster?

youtube is shifty sometimes i swear, the 'dash down' official didnt come up at all when i looked. i'm not a fan really but it does the job and i accept its popularity.

tbh i quite enjoy the ruder horrible ones like 'are u gonna bang doe' and that new 'oi you who's that lighty'. sorry ladies. it's a small tragedy however that a new breed of strange innovative mc house along the lines of 'skank calm down', 'got my beads on' or even rapid's 'report to the dancefloor' has flickered and died apparently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsyjaE_nxzM

i quite like this btw but cant be bovd to explain its meaning.

ugh all those katy b's are rank. budget lily allen wiv the enun-ce-a-shun is where her career's gonna go if you're really wondering.

actually sorry i dunno what i was talking about with 'dash down' it's clearly the rudest one of all! think i was just going doo doo doo dash down, oh how lovely

Haha Pastor Lucas is terrific. Also discovered via that link - "Lethal Bizzle remixes" of various Eastenders characters hitting each other in the face, soundtracked by Pow!

got any crisps?

Katy On A Mission is a pretty good song but I'm really not sure about the whole Mockney thing, if I was being even more uncharitable than RTC I might say "dubstep Kate Nash".

Louder is probably the best of the three, for the groove at least. Gonna reserve judgement on the songs themselves but I've got the feeling she's going to be huge.

Aggro Santos is shit, like, Fatboy from Eastenders releasing an inevitable novelty single shit, but I hope he sticks around because he's bound to lead to some good football headlines if nothing else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RBtB_vkI_o

Am I alone in thinking that slowing down to hip-hop tempo actually suits Tinchy pretty well? Like, he no longer sounds like he's desperately starting down at the lyric sheet on the ground at all times.

i suppose you've got me there on the dubstep, but there always were and are always gonna be la roux vs skreams and whatnot and i'd like to think we were tracking something more interesting than simply the whims of annie mac and the student dubstep massive.

Populist dubstep is to "uk urban" circa 2010 as big beat was to "uk urban" circa 1998 perhaps.

Endorse this thread but can't check any youtubes until I get home tonight.

Populist dubstep is to "uk urban" circa 2010 as big beat was to "uk urban" circa 1998 perhaps.

I know it's our duty to compare every populist strain of dance music we don't like to big beat but I'm not feeling this one. Magnetic Man 2010 = UNKLE 1998 maybe?

'Dash Down' is a shocker as well, not heard it before so no idea how big it is but the inevitable self-congratulatory conscious response featuring JME and Skepta may actually turn out to be preferable.

know it's our duty to compare every populist strain of dance music we don't like to big beat but I'm not feeling this one. Magnetic Man 2010 = UNKLE 1998 maybe?

I like big beat!! I simply meant that in the late 90s people just loosely following popular urban/dance music would have been forgiven for thinking people were being perverse for talking about Doolally rather than "Praise You" or "Hey Boys, Hey Girls" (or Basement Jaxx for that matter). Actually the Jaxx is a good reference point in that - as long as you ignore what the music sounds like - you could totally do the kind of "Katy B On A Mission" IS funky basically argument makes using a random Jaxx single and uk garage.

Big ticket post trip hop is actually a much nastier comparison I reckon.

argument Lex makes, obv.

dunno about that tinchy gangsta one but the a-side 'in my system' is a well conceived bit of ace of base channelling and will go to #1 in a fortnight.

never fails to crack me up just thinking, hi america these are our fave rappers they are called tinchy stryder and tinie tempah.

i liked big beat too!

i think that's katy b's actual accent btw.

never fails to crack me up just thinking, hi america these are our fave rappers they are called tinchy stryder and tinie tempah.

Should have proper names like Snoop Doggy Dogg.

xp both still being better than CHIPMUNK

"gangsta" was an uhhh "street single" quietly put on itunes a month or two ago, presumably to placate the people who wish tinchy and tinie were still making Proper Grime. "in my system" is the big proper single released in a couple of weeks. considered covering it in my singles column but couldn't really be bothered to have any thoughts on it. it's ok but not amazing, which counts as an improvement over the last album's singles.

three words if you don't see the dubstep/bigbeat nuum:

MARY
ANNE
HOBBS

dubstep/big beat/metal

still trying to find out why the sudden R1 departure, too

I'm broadly speaking better with that comparison if "big beat" = the Chemical Brothers rather than Bentley Rhythm Ace. Still feel that Magnetic Man = UNKLE is the better parallel now in the "we making murky smoking music but now here are our stadium sized PROPER songs" sense.

wowsers i missed that completely. will play a propellerheads, arab strap, random saul williams speech, and 'enter sandman' selection in her honour.

i'm just going to put this here due to there being no other real place for it. it sort of snuck up on me unexpectedly and i can't stop playing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1Vt9KNvIIg

lex your denial that any of these tunes are dubstep is kinda touching.

I'm quite happy for dubstep to turn into vaguely OMD-ish pop though. The little synth patterns in the high-pitched chorus are the best part.

where did i deny that "cold sweat" is dubstep?? will you stop projecting your dubstep-hatred on to everything?

I was referring to the "there's no other place for it" claim.

and you should chill.

can only admire lex's brass posting that goldielocks after matt's "dubstep kate nash" gbh earlier. sure it didn't hit you on the head after it snuck up on you?

to be fair though everything's admissable and i was the one who offered up aggro santos after all. does that g-locks look like troubling the charts or is it just a percy?

similar to the roll deep/ill blu combo, i do wonder if the crazy cousinz mix of aggro's 'candy' was really so outre that it couldn't have made chart headway by itself - perhaps a little capricious of me but not by much, surely? how real is this supposed underground glass ceiling?

not saying it's great or anything mind.

memo to self: always have a good stare at the top 40 and remind yourself of reality before saying anything.

Time lag between underground and chart success is at least four years now dude.

that's the thing tho i don't mean groundswell support, i mean producers who started off undie being the first choices for pop stabs and being marketed as normal.

like if you were ill blu what is even your career plan at this point?

cos the artists nowadays arent a million miles from the underground themselves, while a good few undie producers not only have the skills but an idea for what's pop as well - i'm not being like burial should do stuff for rihanna or anything. and yet somewhere along the line a tinchy stryder will always find a fraser t smith instead.

Surprised Ill Blu haven't tried to do another "Stick Up", though obv that wasn't such a success the first time.

similar to the roll deep/ill blu combo, i do wonder if the crazy cousinz mix of aggro's 'candy' was really so outre that it couldn't have made chart headway by itself - perhaps a little capricious of me but not by much, surely? how real is this supposed underground glass ceiling?

1st part - well has any crazy cousinz production been remotely chart-bothering?
2nd part - i'd love to know tbh, but i have zero sense of these things. i mean, uk funky sounded like pop from the get-go, and i still have no idea why the actual urban crossover took the form of cheapo electro and fraser t smith hackery instead.

i wonder if "omg" would have had any success if the ill blu mix had been the main mix.

tbh i have no idea how or why magnetic man are suddenly in the top 10, and why that couldn't happen to ill blu.

tbh i don't think you are being h there.

Magnetic Man are not "suddenly" in the top 10, it's taken years of Skream & Benga playing all over the place and building up a following before unleashing a pop album. It would take Ill Blu years to do that.

My Ill Blu career plan would probably be along the lines of: "credible" single on Hyperdub ---> Tinie Tempah remix ---> indie blog-friendly remix of I dunno Hot Chip or something ---> get on the sort of big indie-dance bills that take place at places like the Coronet ---> get more bombastic ---> play every club night and festival in Britain for two or three years --> release big pop record with either loads of collaborators or Katy B style "muse".

Getting a few tracks on an Xbox game would probably help at some point in there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH8k9Sutw_0&fmt=18

<3

i love the new jme single

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrOwSEpYLKg

You’re not lord of the place
You jacked a couple guys before with your mates
You’re not a badman cuz you robbed someone, fam
You’re just poor and brave

Beef? Slam doors in your face
Uppercut leave your jaw in a brace
Man will draw for the hadak-dak-duken
Leave you on the floor snoring away
MCs think they’re raising the bar
By spitting on 14 genres a day
Safe!
Raising the bar makes it easier for me to score anyway

well then, rudimental's new direction is fairly shameless

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oABEGc8Dus0

yet to work out whether it works despite being :/ or if it's just :/

listened to with "sexy sexy" or "spoons" in mind it's gross, but if it actually becomes a massive ubiquitous hit it might make me cave in through sheer unremitting force

meh on that personally but "shameless new direction" is a bit unfair i think - rudimental have always switched codes brightly and to a high level and if it so happens this is the one that sticks with the punters it's hard to begrudge them that really

i'm not 100% certain if black butter is their own label or if i've misread but that's similarly versatile and nicely curated too

i think it is yeah

while i'm here this rita ora song at No 1 is way more boring than even i was expecting

rudimental #1, hats off

p sure i'm fully allergic to hands in the air old man soul anthems generally? someone remind me of a classic one i might like before i note this down forever in the book of the dead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lQa9X_WvR0

HAHAHAHA this little gimp covering this, TOO GOOD

oh man i'm crying srsly

what were they thinking!!!!!!!

http://smtdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/alex-thompson1.jpg

look at this next lil twinkwave guy signed to tinie tempah's label

i swear to god if i didnt know better the whole rita ora style uk pound shop ripoff pathology often has a savagely caustic burlesque quality

why isn't rita ora better? i don't know why it surprises me that she's not but is it that hard for britain to get things right

ora is kind of the one sad exception in that she's not a misbegotten brit sketch but a cold cynical franchise clone engineered by rihanna's handlers themselves

in a period when 100% of rihanna's own material sounds like hasty, shoddy c-rate rihanna, surely it's not that hard to trump her slightly

idk, riri ripoffs across the globe have made me appreciate her more than ever as an artiste and vocalist actually

oh i appreciate what she brings, even down to the unstinting robot work ethic, but lately the material is just so mediocre it's not even notably bad

The Rudimental song sounds like Seal

it's off-topic but I have totally succumbed to "Where Have You Been"

Rita Ora Live Lounge appearance on R1 was.... unflatteringly revealing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=902-SMEGDIg

awight laavv d'yer fink this ole lahndan enunciation lark's gone a bit too far latelee?

can a mod change this to rolling uk urban pop rubbish btw, i regret my prometheusising early posts only distract from proper appreciation of the misshapen remedial lovelies i now only care to submit