is it brostep?

I love the way it pisses of all sort of old guards (within dupstep or otherwise), and the fact that its bloody everywhere, with tons of crap being pumped out. That’s how it should be, a sign that it truly have made an impact. I can’t say the current dubstep mainstream (“brostep”, or “EDM”, apparently) does that much for me, but then, I haven’t expected it to do so. Rather than bandwagon jumping drum’n’bass producers, the wobble aesthetic now seem to be fusing with electro house, to form a new all purpose rave music, much like punk rawness/intensity eventually ended up as a part of a wider “real rock” sensibility in the eighties. It’s all about the Skrillex/ Deadmau5-axis, of course, and while Deadmau5 doesn’t seem all that exiting to me, Skrillex is actually pretty good. Sure, he might not have that many tricks up his sleeve so far, and the electro house part of the equation is a bit of a drawback, but he’s nevertheless really good at using wobbles potential for catchiness and dynamics, redefining it to meet his own ends. It would be tempting to go all the way and see him as some sort of, I dunno, dubsteps Sex Pistols, but that would be taking it too far. Perhaps something like Metallica is probably a better comparison, if a historical comparison have to be made.

My own view of all this is kind of informed by the fact that a friend of mine makes and plays dubstep that, while not quite as in your face as a lot of stuff itt, definitely leans toward the populist side of the genre, and it's all really enjoyable and fun to dance to if I'm in the right mood. And so that has me feeling more charitable towards a lot of this stuff than I was on initial contact.

including a shout-out to the 'ambient/intelligent' response to wobble with dungeon-style dubstep, which after some Googling I discover is also a thing that exists

there is already a "coffee table bass" thread on ILM

tell you what, though, arguing something is good because it pisses the wrong people off is not going to get me to listen to it

seriously, a tired argument. icp's music pisses people off - so great, they made an impact. it's still wack.

it's only tired after you're like 25 or 30 which i'm pretty sure s.r. is

that's the guy SR linked to saying that not SR himself

not a big fan of that line of thinking either but he is v readable in his praise for this ish I think

True, but the pissing people off aspect is totally visible in this thread. The tracks from LtE above, I would never have listen to given the way that 'brostep' is dealt with by music journalists as a joke, as annoying, as noisy, trashy, cheap, as something that the kids are into, etc. But some of these tracks are really great, I can totally hear echoes of things I LOVE in them, like hardcore and breakbeat house - early Prodigy and XL stuff, Hyper-On Experience, etc. These are all clearly rave tracks for the Soundcloud, YouTube, downloaded ProTools and pirated sample pack era. There's nothing weird about just embracing available tools however possible and go for 'the drop.'

By contrast, I'm actually reminded of this totally arrogant and kind of asshole-ish chart on Beatport by Nicolas Jaar - http://www.beatport.com/chart/nicolas-jaar-july-chart/37443 - whose own music is nothing but tasteful coffee-table house if you put them side by side, paying homage not only to ancestors of house/jazz/soul, etc, but also the recent history of minimal itself.

So OK, maybe it's the same politics as usual. I'm just surprised that I never even gave this genre the time of day. Could even be related to my age, first hearing 'brostep'-ish developments, I have to admit, did make me feel old :/

i don't see what's so arrogant and asshole-ish about that beatport chart?

lol i know right

bringing nicholas jaar in to a discussion abt how brostep pisses ppl off is pretty o_O

can't see it at work, is that just the one where it's just a collection of silly tracks?

tbh I think he's halfway forgotten by 2012 but making a one-time funny isn't much to be offended by

ok, ignore my second sentence, that one started off as two thoughts and ended up as zero

How would you describe that chart then? (genuinely curious)

making a halfhearted funny?

I mean, Nicolas Jaar strikes me as a pretty nice guy, not one of the James Blake butthurt school, so he probably just thought it'd be entertaining?

also that Tetris theme remix in there is one of the funniest things I've ever listened to

lol otm

I'm sure Nicolas Jaar is a lovely guy. In fact, that move seemed even out of character when I saw it somehow. But I guess that speaks to the consensus position on wobbly dubstep.

And OK, the Tetris theme remix is stoopid (that's the point, isn't it?), it's right in the Sesame's Treet terrain, but Doctor P's track Garoyle is on an entirely different level imo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqqAQ7CEAVQ

yeah, but that isn't on the playlist :)

I mean, I didn't ask the guy personally what his deal with the playlist was (if this thread was last week, I could have gone to his panel at mutek and done so, but..) throwing a bunch of stuff that is really meatheaded and of-the-moment on a playlist seems just goofy to me

ugh do i really have to pick a side of either yon brosteppers or the minimal crowd? where's the plank i'll just walk that instead

I'm sorry, it's brostep or nothing. But if you pick brostep you get a complimentary Korn album

Wow, it's not about choosing sides, surely. Not for us anyway.

I would say though, a dude like Nicholas Jaar might be better served than to draw attention to the tastefulness of his music (I also can't believe we're now discussing this)...

idk if that's the point

unless your fetish for this music is that it's not "tasteful"

I mean, there have been pretty intellectual dudes making flat-out crazy and silly dance music forever, but there are also total meatheads. I don't know that intellect or "good/bad" taste come into it from a one-off joke

like... could Jaar have been POKING FUN AT HIMSELF by posting that?

There's so many possibilities :)

idk, being 22 years old and being near a college campus sounds like it'd be a way to get tired of bros and brostep pretty fast

In any case, this isn't criticism of Jaar (I own some of his records, if that matters to you). But I do think the chart was weird. If its a sign of his own insecurities or a plea for laughs, he went for this genre either way. And honestly, I'm starting to regret linking to that chart...

given the way that 'brostep' is dealt with by music journalists as a joke, as annoying, as noisy, trashy, cheap, as something that the kids are into, etc. But some of these tracks are really great, I can totally hear echoes of things I LOVE in them, like hardcore and breakbeat house - early Prodigy and XL stuff, Hyper-On Experience, etc

early XL stuff and Prodigy and the like were also cheap and things the kids were into and there were undoubtedly old people bitching about them then, with some of the critical olds occasionally saying they were ok

big obvious things that lots of young people like are always mocked, nothing new to see here

Well, yeah. That's sort of what I'm getting at, except for that final part of there nothing new to see here. It's both a return and mutation of rave aesthetics.

And there's another possibility, of course, that the Jaar list is genuine endorsement! ;)

Carnival madness:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBg-_6yXP9k&feature=related

This has been an interesting revive (though it's played havoc on my last.fm stats oh dear, I'm going to blame that on the hacking, shall I? It can't possibly be me listening to all that Doctor P and SKisM and terrible, terrible things.)

I started looking at this stuff because I accidentally fell in love with a track I suspect to be Brostep-ish, I know to be objectively horrible, and yet I still have become completely obsessed with. And my question was kind of "HOW the fuck did this genre get from X to Y?" (Being someone who only really pays attention when a breakout single from a genre crosses over enough to be ubiquitous.) Where X was probably Night by Benga & Coki and Y was someone saying "well, Full Attention is probably a better fusion of that Dubstep-Pop sound than Britney Spears" when I liked *both* Full Attention and Femme Fatale.

I suppose it's a cliche to find genres interesting either 1) when they haven't fully coalesced yet and they're still quite wide open or 2) when they're so overblown (in a floral sense) and past their prime that they start to totally disintegrate.

But listening to this stuff is the same sense I get sifting through freakbeat/garage pop nuggets from the 60s. That when a genre is this big, this crossed-over/successful and this *active* that due to sheer volume there is going to be some of it that is actually really interesting - especially when the whole hook to the genre is "let's make the freakiest, most fucked-up sounding wacky carnival of sounds using a mass produced version of new technology." Maybe Fruity-Loops is to this kinda music what Vox was to the 60s or the cheap digital delay was to the 90s. If not just dozens or hundreds but thousands of people hear a sound on pop radio or clubs and try to recreate it, with varying degrees of success or mutation, 99% of it might be garbage but the 1% that turns out to be Voices Green And Purple or Sweet Shop is going to make it worth digging through.

But I'm so far removed from this, I don't have to deal with context or bros. (Or S Reynolds unless someone on ILX links to him.) For me, it's just seeing someone on twitter complaining about "wub-step" and me going "hang on, WUB is my favourite sound in the world, are you saying there's WUB in it now coz ifso no matter what it is, I am there." The references to Dungeons & Dragons and green goo type stuff just seems, well, silly to me, because I am not nor have I ever been a teenage boy. But the carnival aspect of some of this sounds a lot more psychedelic in a "whoa, what the fuck was that sound?" than music which is slotted into the "Psychedelic" genre.

Jaar is someone whose music I just can't see the point of, though. It's mystifying to me. But BeatPort charts are also kind mystifying to me tho I know DJs love doing them.

Going through the Wicky Lindows stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKutvCtVk9c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BwaEg0tOj4

k clearly they're dancing to house but still

http://media.laweekly.com/7932028.0.jpg

That guy stepped in something.

i don't know about that, if that dork w/ the white shorts and sunglasses is on beat the beats are definitely in the 135-140 range (which i suppose could be like hard trance or whatever)

hello sailor

tiesto

http://media.laweekly.com/7932028.0.jpgp

do the brostep!

dude in what looks like furs and shorts and slippers on the far left is pretty cool tho

he's like the token rave shaman

How does one become a rave shaman?

dunno but raves always have a few of those guys, at least the Cali ones

i frankyl can't believe how this thread's turned.

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

we've come a long way, baby

https://twitter.com/RaveSnob/statuses/301467708426448897 @RaveSnob

the ACTUAL fact of brostep being the soundtrack the State of the Union address HOW. EVEN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwuEnyV1Cb0

state of brounion

#FOLKSTEP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7iHfhBfRKs

why should we donate to the keeplove movement?

For the topical but not necessarily political - though the news prompting this is likely to get very political.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22630303

apparent eyewitness account:
https://twitter.com/BOYADEE