10,000 raging fans get the
electro-apocalyptic jitters
>>Justice among us? Read rocker Kimberly Chun's response to this essay here.
SUPER EGO Pack up your travel-size Palin Porker-Pink™ CoverGirl Lipslick, kids, 'cuz we're about to time-travel through the recent dance floor past, with a brief stop at Negative Nellyland. All aboard the Wayback: toot, toot.
In the past couple of years, five new genres have taken over US underground clubs — all with wriggly roots in Europe and Canada. (If you're looking to read any entrails about America's loss of influence in the world, check out our lube-slip grip on global dance floors.) These genres are the following: minimal techno, a brainy but often stunning strip-down of the much-maligned techno beast; dubstep, with its post-postcolonial fusion of reggae, two-step, bhangra, and more; retro disco, summoning the shimmering ghosts of gay bathhouse, italo disco, and other pre-digital '70s and '80s micro-movements; lazer bass — or "bastard bass," or "psychedelic robo-crunk remix action" — the blippy, bowel-shaking deconstruction of chart-prevalent hip-hop.
And then, of course, there's hardcore electro.
Honestly, hardcore electro — and the glam-slam banger scene that grew up around it — can sometimes bug the bejesus out of me. The genre has mind-blowing aspects: thumping energy, quick-witted mixing, exhilarating stuttered vocals, old-school breakdowns, and key-skipping basslines. I was raised rave, so its primo combo of mannered anarchy and DJ worship — along with its genre-bending conflagration of metal, crunk, acid, and techno — is right up my tender alley. Bring the noise.
Yet there's something a little too "party like a rockstar" about it. With its accompanying over-the-top neon-hipster look (attack of the sunglass tees!), sex-obsessed provocations, and fist-pumping non-dance moves, hardcore electro is the new hair metal. The banger kids I've met are all lovely and motivated, and in the right DJ hands — Richie Panic, Vin Sol — the mix can achieve perfection, cheekily blasting stadium-size sounds to an up-to-the-minute crowd. But there's sometimes a shallow, for-the-cameras sheen to the scene — mirroring the often robotic, often black-faced "let's get fucked up and fuck" lyrics spat from the speakers. Sad face.
Plus, no one ever STFUs about goddamned Justice.
OK, look, I'm no hater — do you see any frown lines on this immaculate face? Thought not. If 10,000 people wanna throw on electric-blue shutter shades and American Apparel tube socks and lose their shit to two smirking French dudes, I'm all for it. I may even join 'em. But if I get one more MySpace friend request from a DJ tag team in Spiderman masks who fall on their knees before Justice, I'm gonna hurl coconuts. Can we get a little originality on the runway, s'il vous plaît?
Justice — superstars of the Ed Banger label, for which the banger scene's named — are OK. Any politically ...
Anyways, you're gonna mention these other genres, and leave it at that? These are all very interesting new genres, coming out of a dance music world that was declared creatively dead just a few years ago. Is this the only press that Laser Bass will get in the Guardian (and no, it's not a European concoction and only partially a Canadian one- it largely comes from our own coast in our own country: you can see so at Mob, Glitch). Dubstep has been rocking London for years now, and for some reason has only recently in the past year and a half or so made an imprint here. And it's some seriously intense music that warrants real discussion here.
Maybe you should actually try reading the Guardian sometimes -- and, of course, especially, such as, my column, which thrillingly dissects dance music every couple weeks. I'll forward you a disctionary link so you can get through it.
I broke Lazer Bass back in April complete with comment from the Glitch Mob kidz:
[link]
Here's the banger scene:
[link]
Here ya go with some dub step:
[link]
How 'bout some minimal? Bam!
[link]
and what's that I hear? Oh, retro disco:
[link]
And we've, morely, given dub step incredible due -- our resident expert peter Nicholson always gives the dub-props, and Johnny Ray Huston has been outta control on the Norway space disco invasion as well.
The context of this article was to talk about some of my misgivings about the Justice phenomenon, not explicate the entire recent history of local dance music. I listed some of these genres right off the bat (a listing, I might add, that they're teaching in Lowell High School right now, I sh*t you not, because of my correct use of the semicolon) because I wanted to provide a little framework for my argument -- there has definitely been a revival of dance music in the past few years. That was exactly my point. Pick me up sometime, dude! I'm light and I work it on the knowledgeable.
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