The XX

my main issue with this record is that it is very boring

it also just sounds really bad and indistinct where i think it should be lush? prob bringing my own baggage

I like this record fine, I was parodying (poorly) said attitude.

I'm still hoping for some RIYL suggestions. . .

idris muhammad for one

but you know if you're looking for a record to fill this slot in this time you can't go wrong with.......... this record

Would love to check out the "much better music" this is an imitation of. Recommendations?

Oops, I see someone already asked that a scant few posts up. Ignore me.

i really like this album ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The Idris Muhammad sample is a re-sample of a house track from the early 2000's, which is why it's not quite as sharp as it could be. Harlem Zip Code - I Feel Music https://pro.beatport.com/track/i-feel-music-original-mix/475114# released on Paper Recordings

When you hear Jamie xx tracks in isolation they don't sound boring at all imo. Radio station here in NZ is playing most of the album but randomly and the tracks definitely stand up and don't sound "boring".

I find it pretty weak the RA review by Ryce had no mention of the Harlem Zip Code track or the Studio Out There sample. He's reviewing for a dance music website. i guess it's much easier to lampoon someone the "undergorund UK scene" see as a fake.

brad otm it's not about being a direct "imitation" it's just fucking limpdick weaksauce dullness

if you're not into uk dance music - now or then or whatever - that's fine, just don't make this out to be a great example of it

People realise Far Nearer isn't on In Colour right?

How many tracks are people holding up as great examples of UK Dance Music from this LP?

All under one roof raving and Far nearer are both fantastic IMO. They're not on this record which I haven't heard, right enough.

if you're not into uk dance music - now or then or whatever - that's fine, just don't make this out to be a great example of it

1) Who here is doing that or has done that?

2) Give some examples this greatness because I would love to support those doing their thing.

i didn't realize it was my responsibility to recommend better music when pointing out how shitty some music is

what a cop out

It's not, but when you specify that someone is a shittier version of something else, it helps to know what that something else is.

The problem with "what is the fresh UK underground dance that is better than this" is that In Colour doesn't really sound like "fresh UK underground dance" or a poor version of same anyway, or not very often at any rate.

However, in the spirit of public service:

1. if you like the Popcaan / Young Thug track, it er really is as simple as trying out og Young Thug (for Young Thug, groove tempo, general air of sophisticated thugs giving you hugs) or og Popcaan (for Popcaan, the shiny sparkly synths that sound like Caribbean drums or is it the other way round?).

2. if you like "Gosh" you could perhaps go right back to UK 'ardkore circa 1993 - for a handy comp, try the Moving Shadow/Suburban Base comp The Joint, or Reinforced's Definition of Hardcore. But this also reminds me of quite a few things of the half-decade which posit a composite breakbeat/funky/house/'ardkore vibe, my toppatopp pick being Purpl Pop's "The Way (The Living Graham Bond Dub)".

3. If you like "Loud Places" maybe you're just liking the XX vibes so just hang out in any cafe for half an hour to hear the debut. Otherwise, maybe you could try Junior Boys circa So This Is Goodbye for similar sophisticated modern electronic pop, at least in respect of the first half of this song. For the more anthemic second I actually suspect The 1975 are your best best (sorry to all who hate them) - try "Heads.Cars.Bending" or "Undo".

4. If you like "Sleep Sound", then you should maybe try sparkly fragile microhouse/minimal (Superpitcher's Today mix might do the trick) or if it's the clattery snares towards the end that you particularly enjoy, then (post)dubstep's earlier and more fruitful ventures into house may be more your thing. I recommend Ramadanman's refix of Jamie Woon's "Night Air" for starters.

5. If you like "Seesaw" i'd say either James Holden circa 2005 or the solo work of collaborator Four Tet.

These were all the songs I could double-check on youtube in ten minutes so if you want specific recommendations based on other album tracks I'd need to come back to you later.

this is a great post

maybe you're just liking the XX vibes so just hang out in any cafe for half an hour

lol otm

Quite a few of this album's faults are wider issues with British dance-not-dance right now, especially at the Vice/FACT end of the spectrum. Like if you listen to Evian Christ or Mumdance or a range of other producers who don't have much to do with each other, the tracks are closer to rap or grime instrumentals than conventional club tracks, so when there isn't a vocal in there it can feel half-finished. If they're all piled together or used as a breather in a high-intensity set then that's fine, but when you listen to them as discrete tracks then the gaps just feel too large.

Thanks Tim! That was a great breakdown. YouTubeing stuff right now and groovin' away.

yeah booming post Tim. thanks!

Great post Tim. Some very nice connections.

I still don't understand the rage from people too young to have experienced UK Hardcore properly themselves.

He's slowed it down and made it more palatable to teenagers 20 years later. Burn him!

It's so obviously a pop record. I think the cherrypicking of styles on such a record is what's so infuriating to purists.

why are you guys so busy defending the album by coming up with critical strawmen?

afaict nobody on this thread (with the exception of the boomkat review?) who said this album sucked said it sucked because it wasn't "real rave" or whatever

"Loud Places" is....OK? I don't care for the choir.

"Loud Places" is a definite highlight.

just throwing this out there...

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2015/jun/04/jamie-xx-in-colour-sam-smith-dance-music-snobbery

this is just uh

In the past, bands would tend to start off making safe pop and then go off in weird directions. But in the 90s, musicians realised you could reach greater levels of success by beginning your career as something vaguely trendy, then capitalise on that cool by releasing dad-rock anthems to people who actually buy albums.

read this 3 times and i still can't parse it:

And so I am left in a hypocritical position. Either I have to accept that the boring, blokeish heads are right, and that dance music that is fun and feminine and indebted to underground sounds but that interprets them in a pop way is actually terrible; or I have to say there’s nothing inherently wrong with Macklemore.

people who buy their records at Tesco

^ most actual snobbish quote of the whole piece

is this the worst music writing ever?

xp They're not critical strawmen. They're actual reviews in Resident Advisor and Boomkat, quoted and linked in this very thread.

smdh at this line from the Quietus review: "club music for the neoliberal age". The neoliberal age began in the 70s and 80s. Does he think that raves and clubs were previously run by staunch socialists?

It’s not unusual for an album to polarise critics, but this is hardly the same as the Daily Mail and Kerrang! giving a different rating to a Marilyn Manson record. This is pleasant, intelligent electronic music with no overtly controversial content reviewed by liberal-leaning journos. How could they reach such wildly different conclusions?

pleasant intelligent dance music

that guardian article is fucking dire.

how could liberal-leaning journalists possibly come to different conclusions???

I feel like every review of this album is the worst and i don't know whether to hold that against the music or feel sorry for it.

I feel like this bit of the RA review sums up the whole problem:

What we're left with is an uneven album that's rarely as profound or as meaningful as it tries to be. In Colour's core thread of raver nostalgia simply dissolves on contact. If he had anything enlightening or unique to add to his misty-eyed tributes, it'd be different, but he seems content to slip out a stream of clichés and call it a day.

Really? How does the writer know it's trying to be profound or meaningful? You get this a lot in dance music criticism, especially amongst committed partisans who just FEEL, very strongly and passionately, that the music of Pinch/Logos/Moodymann (delete as applicable) has more "depth" than the music of Disclosure/Jamie XX/Hot Creations/"wine bar house", but they literally cannot articulate why. At least garden variety rockism has a set of rules that can broadly be adopted to justify the writer's prejudices, no matter how wrongheaded they may be. These guys don't, so they end up throwing around inane criticisms like "club music for the neoliberal age" that miss the mark altogether.

I suspect it expresses exactly the feeling Jamie xx was going for: a little bit sad, a little bit hopeful. He doesn't strike me as a guy with broad emotional bandwidth.

I'm buying this album on the strength of the singles, the Romy track is soooo soothing. Don't know anything about Jamie's ambitions but if he was trying to make a soul sampling hit with some 90s house vibes that was a lot more cheery than the xx debut then to me he succeeded.

this is not a pop album other than the fact that jamie xx is somewhat well-known in the mainstream. too easy for idiots to set up a false pop v snob binary and to position themselves on the correct pop side. except this album doesn't work as pop (other than the popcaan/thugger anomaly) and mostly doesn't set out to

It isn't particularly pop, although large bits of it are straining for the anthemic, but then again so does lots of underground music. Otherwise it doesn't seem to be positioning itself anywhere radically different from, say, Four Tet, or that Caribou album from last year (although both are more accomplished as producers than Jamie is).

I don't particularly get the charge of "rave nostalgia" either given that his two signature sounds (that spindly XX sound and that bright synth steel pan noise) don't have an enormous amount to do with rave (of any era) either.

Maybe the problem is that there isn't an enormous amount of interest to say about most of the music here, but because of who he is it demands a disproportionate number of column inches that people then fill with these convoluted false ideological positions?

It's far more a pop record in that you would expect to hear the songs on radio than in a club.

Worth a mention for the "Gosh" video, which is a whole sight better than it has any need to be. Superb direction by Erik Wernquist reprising the style of his Wanderers short i.e. extensive use of NASA/Goddard Center etc images with overlaid VFX, this thing really is beautiful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjNssEVlB6M

too easy for idiots to set up a false pop v snob binary and to position themselves on the correct pop side.

I don't think that's what's happening. The snobbery runs through the reviews like lettering in a stick of rock but that doesn't mean there's only one "correct" answer. You could write a vicious takedown of this album's aesthetic and production without resorting to tired cliches about lifestyle music.

too easy for idiots to set up a false pop v snob binary and to position themselves on the correct pop side.

nu borad description?!?