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Author: breno
Date: 09-27-11 07:48
I checked out the album by Katy B, who is being hyped as some sort of dubstep superstar and I dunno, it just sounded like every other electronic dance diva album released in the last 30 years. Now I happen to like electronic dance divas so I'm fine with that, but honestly, to my Philistine ears there is nothing on her album that sounds particularly different from what one might hear on a Lady Gaga album.
So I still have no frigging clue what the hell "dubstep" is, except perhaps a term snobs can use to provide cover for liking electronic dance music when it's done by English people while simultaneously disdaining it when it's done by Americans. But surely music fans would never be so shallow! Perish the thought!
And James Blake, who I like very much, is apparently a "post-dubstep" artist. So we've moved into a brave new post-dubstep world, and I feel woefully underprepared for it. The dubstep train is departing the station and I've never even been able to decipher how to buy a ticket.
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Author: nosepail
Date: 09-27-11 09:10
Dont worry, Breno. You're not alone on that train. I barely even figured out what house and drum-and-bass were! (Dont even get me started on trance and IDM.) The endless taxonomies of electronica and heavy metal are simply un-necesary and stupid.
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Author: breno
Date: 09-27-11 09:44
I've never actually understood what House is, but drum and bass at least had a unique enough sound that I could see why it got its own classification. I did get that one, but apparently even drum and bass is subdivided into about 40,000 subcategories.
But mostly, I just generally have better things to do than count beats-per-minute and figure out that if every 7th beat of the 9th bar in the 3rd quatrain is a bass beat instead of a snare beat than that makes it "Drrrty-Ass" while if every 3rd beat in a song with 250 bpm played on Korg Whats-a-whooz-it in the month of May in an odd numbered year is replaced by the sound of a cuckoo clock, that makes it "Donkeycore," unless there's a snare beat every 20 seconds in the first, third and eighth minute of the song, which makes it "Dreaming Angel," but only in Iceland and the Maritime Provinces. In the UK, it would be classified as "Arcweld."
I do like this Katy B record, though.
Post Edited (09-27-11 09:56)
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Author: Delvin
Date: 09-27-11 09:57
> The endless taxonomies of electronica and heavy metal are simply un-necesary and stupid.
That's certainly true of electronica. But for a metal fanatic, those distinctions are crucial. How else can such a devotee be sure he's listening to the right metal? More importantly, how else is he to feel suitably superior to a so-called fan who's listening to the wrong kind of metal?
Seriously, I've seen vehement arguments and pushes-come-to-shoves get started over this topic.
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Author: breno
Date: 09-27-11 14:33
Another hallmark of electronica in general and dubstep in particular is that any attempt that's made to explain it usually just ends up leaving me even more bewildered after reading it than I was before.
To whit:
http://www.spin.com/articles/dubstep-101-us-primer
I read that article and felt like I was trying to decipher a chemical formula sung in Sigur Ros' made-up language. And the wikipedia entry might as well be chanted at me by druids on the surface on the moon.
Post Edited (09-27-11 17:50)
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 09-27-11 15:01
Wow, that Spin article isn't helpful at all. Of course, I'm almost totally ignorant of electronic music genres, so I have no base of reference.
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Author: zoo
Date: 09-27-11 15:45
Wow, that picture of that Skrillex dude (dudette?) lying on the ground with his/her beer, smokes, and laptop made me laugh out loud. It was worth opening the article page just for that if nothing else. (BTW, I stopped reading once I hit that picture, less than half-way in...I realized it was all hopelessly beyond my comphrehension and that I just didn't really care.)
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Author: kwk
Date: 09-27-11 16:26
Nobody lays that way. And nobody, I mean NOBODY, puts their beer on the floor by their feet. Why would you do that? That picture bugs me.
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Author: totaji
Date: 09-27-11 16:47
Yeah, dubstep is based on beats per minute or whatever, but that gives it a very distinct sound. I am not a fan at all, but like reggae it seems very distinct...or atleast the stuff I have heard. Very slow.
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Author: Paganizer
Date: 09-27-11 17:45
It's all akin to the early 60s dances craze where if you held a pinky out, it was a different dance entirely.
But beyond
drum-and-bass (jungle) vs.
Ambient (and drone) vs.
Dub (you know it when you hear it, usually slowed, moody, more experimental) vs.
House (4/4 Disco beat) vs.
Industrial (the dance kind not the old-school kind)
it's only a point of reference if you're a 12" collector or live a club lifestyle. Though I do keep a toe in these waters I like almost none of it, so I can round it into Techno or Disco.
Eurotechno is easily some of the worst music in the world and in some countries it's simply ubiquitous. On the radio, in the subway, on the sidewalk, in the stores. Instant headache.
edit::btw, Dubstep just means Dub-style (i.e. dub, but often styled with bass-and-drum elements) wherein the beat includes lots of half-steps (in between where the beat would normally be) and skitters. Because it's the artists that get labelled as much as the style, fans don't agree on the terminology anyway. Gives them something to converse about besides copping and who's holding. But instead of 4-on-the-floor (straight dance music) it gives it a sound that's more experimental sounding. It's all just techno. I'm with devlin, metal is more logically divisible (because the divisions are by the atmosphere, culture and delivery and not the digital/graphical representation of the beat).
edit 2: and btw, it's all purposely contrived. In the club scene it's hard for the DJs and auteurs to make a name for themselves so they have to cultivate an image and project an aura of creating something incredibly fresh. It's trendmaking and product placement. Brits historically eat that stuff up. Americans historically love the exoticism.
edit 3: another factor is that now that we can all see the exact differences in beat visually represented in our software, and can experiment with a mouse click, it leads to labels.
Post-dubstep means: most albums, if they want to be pop crossover, can't be one whole album of the same sound, so they incorporate a variety of beats, samples, styles. Something of a misnomer; perhaps a short-lived moniker. Again, it's product positioning and refreshening.
Post Edited (09-27-11 20:01)
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Author: breno
Date: 09-27-11 18:53
Thank you, Paganizer! That's the closest thing I've ever seen to a concise and clear definition and also somewhat affirms my suspicion that I'm not hopelessly tone deaf in not being able to see much of a difference between what's called Dubstep and every other type of music that's ever been called "Techno." "Dubstep" is just what they're calling it this year.
As I suspected, it's mostly just a way to sound smarter than Mary-Sue down the street and to make sure one has a cover story to like something that sounds exactly like what she likes while simultaneously dismissing her taste.
Sort of like the sudden popularity of the phrase "Italo-Disco" amongst indie music sources over the last couple of years. It all just sounds like Stacey Q back in 1985, but ick! no one wants to admit to liking that, but "Italo-Disco" is exotic and obscure sounding and makes anyone namedropping it sound like they're making a learned judgment about why they like Sally Shapiro, who in fact pretty much sounds just like Stacey Q back in 1985, only shyer and more Swedish.
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Author: Paganizer
Date: 09-27-11 19:19
Yeah well fuck her anyway. She still owes me a Benjamin and why is she always down the street no matter where you go?
Half-step (skitters/2-step/breakbeat; grime, when done by a hiphop group); these already have music theory terms:
Syncopation and Tuplet
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Author: Paganizer
Date: 09-27-11 19:25
...and then there's trance:
Inserting an ambient or drone breakdown in the middle of dub, house, industrial or other ambient
(pointed out because aside from terminology describing the beat, there is terminology describing linear structure as well)
--------
"difference between what's called Dubstep and every other type of music that's ever been called "Techno."
My take is that just saying "techno" implies general or home listening* whereas the other terminology was originally more club and DJ-specific (or collector-specific). If you look at the way a DJ groups his collection, for example, it might be grouped by specific style and then BPM. But dubstep is just a specific type of techno. It's not all techno any more than jangle is all alternative; emo is all indie-folk; math is all laptop; psych is all prog; motorik is all kraut, symphonic is all baroque, etc.
Another weird thing is the term "electronica" was replaced with "IDM", which is a misnomer when applied (as often happens) to music with no dance beat.
*Though I think one reason for the popularity of dubstep is that most techno is rhythmically repetitive and clearly dancefloor informed - made at least in part to dance to. While this is true of dubstep, the unusual break in syncopation requires a bit of engaging beyond just the body, which makes it more "heady" for listening off the dance floor.
----
OR
Does disco still suck?
Post Edited (09-27-11 20:22)
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Author: Heff
Date: 10-07-11 12:36
Yesterday, in the Washington Post there was an article about Skrillex. The Post is calling the whole movement EDM (Electronic Dance Music).
Reading this and other reviews of similar shows, I just wonder what is the difference between this and some yutz just playing his favorite songs at a party? I get the fact that there is usually an elaborate light show but is that worth standing in line and paying a cover charge?
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Author: HollowbodyKay
Date: 10-08-11 01:01
Quote:
It's all akin to the early 60s dances craze where if you held a pinky out, it was a different dance entirely.
Well, you know … when the small farming community you call home outlaws a specific dance, you have to take drastic measures to keep youthful rebellion alive.
So you hold your pinky out while twisting and everything is cool.
Until (in a fit of Scroogian pique) the town elders simply outlaw all dancing altogether and you have to wait until some edgy cool kid from the big city moves into town and ends up in a game of chicken involving tractors, and despite not knowing how to drive a tractor, he wins and then he steals your girlfriend and single-handedly revives the embers of youthful rebellion that have nearly been extinguished by the elderly fussbudgets.
Sans girlfriend, you skip the prom altogether. Who wants to go dance in a #$%^& grain mill outside of town? All the music they're playing stinks on ice anyway.
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Author: MrFab
Date: 10-08-11 01:39
Why couldnt Kay have written the remake of Footloose?!?
you could call it "Pinkie."
i want to know what happens after they skip the prom. go on a bloody rampage? Play punk rock on banjos and fiddles? Both?
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 12-13-11 17:33
Listening to Skrillex now (as research - seriously). About half of it sounds like disco to me (as does most dance-oriented electronica), and the stuff that doesn't sounds like the sound that probably goes through my ADD-afflicted nephew's head. At any rate, what the difference is between this and all the other electrodance twitch 'n' bleep I've heard over the years I do not understand.
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Author: Aitch
Date: 12-13-11 18:23
I really like the self-titled Burial album and was led to believe that that's what Dubstep sounds like, then there were all these review copies of various releases on this freebie table at work and there was a double disc Dubstep compilation (each disc but a different DJ) and thought, "I'll have that". Put it on at home and ALL of it is horrible so I'm none the wiser.
I wonder if that means Burial is Grime as opposed to Dubstep.
Either way when this is solved, can we then tackle jungle, big beat, baggy and DubTech?
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Author: Nile
Date: 12-13-11 19:10
Michael Toland wrote:
> At any rate, what the difference is between this and all the other
> electrodance twitch 'n' bleep I've heard over the years I do
> not understand.
Unlike adolescents I do not suffer the luxury of boredom nor have opportunity or desire to endlessly taxonomize the trivial.
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Author: erikalbany
Date: 12-14-11 07:30
I agree that the taxonomy of electronica strains is out of hand, but even though I dislike a good portion of what falls under that general umbrella, the small portion I do like, I like passionately. Boards of Canada, Trentemoller, DJ Koze, Crystal Castles, Bonobo, and the Field are usually on heavy rotation in my car. But I do get frustrated when writers, for example, try to point out that a song I like is not techno but trance. I could care if it's one or the other. "Electronica" is about as specific as I'll get, and that's good enough for me.
I liked that first Burial album a lot too. . . Though I still wouldn't be able to recognize dubstep at 30 paces.
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