rooty poll

This is gonna be a walkover.

8080, 'get me off' ftw.

I voted "Romeo". ICONOCLASM.

j1k

i reckon matt means 'where's your head at' but not sure.

Actually I meant Romeo but still.

anyone who doesnt vote romeo needs a slap

'romeo' is an old ilx thing.

birth of ring-tone pop.
no beat to speak of.
kind of jokey lyrics? most b'ment jaxx has been like that since 'rooty' i guess.
lol attempt at 'songwriting'.
meh.

jus 1 kiss! (especially when coupled with 'kissalude')

anyone who doesnt vote romeo needs a slap

wvs

Objectively it's "Romeo", but I just had to vote for "All I Know".

Breakaway these days

I have never had this album!

But I kind of hate Where's Your Head At (it's a bugaboo!) and Romeo's good but I have never loved it.

Jus 1 Kiss, however, is fantastic. AAA-HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

birth of ring-tone pop.
no beat to speak of.
kind of jokey lyrics? most b'ment jaxx has been like that since 'rooty' i guess.
lol attempt at 'songwriting'.
meh.

none of these are correct! SEE ME

does anyone else tend to file this record as Discovery's ugly kid sister in their consciousness?

more like sexier cousin

it came out same time as 'get ur freak on' and 'survivor' as righteous grimey simey said at the time everyone got on board one album too late. 'kish kash' was great though and i like a lot of 'rooty' but how 'romeo' is 'objectively' best i have no idea. it's kind of sluggish and... false. it's an awkward transish from 'fly life' or 'yo-yo' to doing songs with singers and middle-eights and stuff, and not bothering to put any drums in it.

xpost

might also include 'discovery' in inferior follow-ups released in 2001 category.

it's not an awkward transition considering their work with Corrina Joseph. i'm not sure she would've done a better job singing it than Kele Le Roc tho. either way it's a perfectly fine summery disco song. i don't get your 'no drums' thing at all - have you only heard the acoustic version?

i had a roomate who was street teaming for Astralwerks when this came out. i still have about 700 rooty stickers somewhere.

i think their greatest moment was as a fake speed garage act.

i'm not mad on their pre 'brix radio edit' material.

xpost

there ARE other very good songs on this album, but ones that you can also enjoy on their other albums to a certain extent. the same cannot be said of romeo, however. sowwy.

no beat to speak of.

wtfffffffffffffffjhsfkjshdfkcksf i!!!!1

massive "so fucking what" 2 ur other points xp

well argued.

that ONE guy who doesn't like probably amongst the ten best singles on the '00s that I cannot remember a single other person IRL (even non-dance ppl's and non Basement Jaxx fans) not thinking was ACE?

ok, lex to thread maybe DP too, but fucks sake!

the same cannot be said of romeo, however. sowwy.

Always Be There has a similar vibe but a bit more going on - I think I prefer it to Romeo

Hey NRQ, guess how many people want to read your opinions on dance music? That's right, about as many as want to read Geir's opinions on grime.

i want to know what album he does rate from 2001! maybe

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/GeirH/my_top_50_albums_of_2001

You boys.

49
Miss E... So Addictive
Missy Elliott
Miss E... So Addictive (2001)
http://users.pullman.com/fjstevens/tokens/cec/CECimages/SuperTokenPlain.jpg

In any case "everyone got on board one album too late" is kinda rong seeing as Remedy was massive over here.

'Tweeterfriendlymusic' is a joke, surely?

that one sick that mouthed it

Missy Elliott and Basement Jaxx partners in the flaky as fuck albums ever with the most amazing singles club.

admittedly with enough single-worthy album tracks they just about get away with it but....

the melody IS kind of unstoppable in it's momentum and overwhelming to the point that it wouldn't really matter is there were no drums. so I kind of hear where one guy is coming from but... wai 2 h8 melody??

actually scrap Basement Jaxx in that club, I don't even like anything past Rooty except 'Good Luck'! Kish Krap more like. I'm done with this thread.

anyone else wanna be a hero?

rooty isn't dance music though...

kind of j/k but not. anyway i knew enough about dance music in 2001 to be underwhelmed by 'romeo'.

problem with arguing that it doesn't matter if the beat is weak but the melody makes up for it is that it does and it isn't.

does anyone else tend to file this record as Discovery's ugly kid sister in their consciousness?

Hells no. Talk about no beat to speak of.

I'll take "Romeo."

But how exactly is it ring-tone pop? And where are the lyrics jokey, even kinda? And even if they were jokey, what's the significance?

I hear ya re: the beat, though. It IS kinda sluggish and awkward. But that's the song's identity, a gawky, stuck in the mud giant. If you approach it less as a dance track than as a pop song (it has a singer and a middle eight, right), then its supposed mehness diminshes considerably.

'Cept....I've never known anyone to have a problem dancing to it...

There is a big ass gorilla on the cover, after all. The Jaxxs want it to feel comfortable on the dancefloor too.

such bullshit about the Romeo beat. sluggish? awkward? it's just standard 118bpm 4/4 you weirdos who probably can't even dance.

And yet I just said:

I've never known anyone to have a problem dancing to it...

That would include myself.

i just love that people are profferring the same batshit argument about something like 'Romeo' as others are about 'D.A.N.C.E.' or whatever.

But sluggish and danceable aren't mutually exclusive. People apparently dance to minimal and that stuff is sluggish as fuck.

P.S. If I brought my dancefloor down to 118 BPM, I would've been lynched. But again, I've played "Romeo" at private parties and no one ever had a problem dancing to it.

how/why does it seem sluggish to you? it just doesn't seem the right terminology (esp. not if people are dancing).

That reference to "DP" up thread better fucking not be me.

(he sez as he votes for "Get Me Off")

i like 'Deepy' ha

yeah BREAKAWAY definitely.

I am so sick of people being wrong about this album. People are always so predictable in their wrongness.

1) it is their most consistent album, and in fact is more consistent than just about any pop-dance crossover album of its nature that I can think of, so fuck right off if you were even thinking of typing the word "filler".

2) No we didn't fucking get on board one album too late, oddly enough we did buy Remedy in 1999 like half the known world.

recycled hearts

how/why does it seem sluggish to you? it just doesn't seem the right terminology (esp. not if people are dancing).

Because 118 BPM just isn't all that fast. Also, every beat is overemphasized lending it a sticky quality. You stomp to it which doesn't look all that sophisticated on the dancefloor.

It sounds brisker when dancing. But it feels slower than "Red Alert and "Jump 'n' Shout" (and certainly "Oh My Gosh" and "Plug It In" later) even though I bet they're not all that much faster.

All this is comparatively speaking, of course. I just think of "Romeo" more as a deeply eccentric pop song than as a slammin' dance track (although the last for measures of the middle eight slam with the best). And even at that, it'll probably wind up on my decade top ten, sluggish or not.

last FOUR measures, that is

You stomp to it which doesn't look all that sophisticated on the dancefloor.

That wasn't clear. Meaning dancefloor sophisticates wouldn't find the sort of stomp the song elicits worthy of the phrase "dancing." And right, fuck them. But it still gets at cretin hop nature of the beat.

Because 118 BPM just isn't all that fast.

so what about Voodoo Ray and countless other 80s house? presumably you don't think of hip-hop beats as sluggish? Romeo is probably a bit faster than this anyway. a bit faster than a lot of 90s house hits (Show Me Love, The Bomb etc.).

Also, every beat is overemphasized lending it a sticky quality. You stomp to it which doesn't look all that sophisticated on the dancefloor.

it's v bouncy/springy but you make it sound like it's 150bpm and there's no way you couldn't just dance to it like any normal-paced 4/4 track.

(That's a surprisingly angry post from Tim up there!)

"Because 118 BPM just isn't all that fast. Also, every beat is overemphasized lending it a sticky quality. You stomp to it which doesn't look all that sophisticated on the dancefloor."

This post is very OTM actually. I'd always wondered precisely what it was that caused that fitful stomping quality - which is obviously one of its key attractions, not a drawback at all.

x-post Matt serious problems require serious responses!

Romeo is 127 bpm, y'all.

lols

so what about Voodoo Ray and countless other 80s house?

By the time I was spinning (c. 1996), that shit was waaaay too slow for my floor. I'd throw on some Royal House, say. Then again, "Party People" is probably faster than "Romeo." This isn't to say 1980s house is slow per se, as an essential identity marker. But it's slowER. And sluggish by comparison. Not necessarily worse but sluggish.

presumably you don't think of hip-hop beats as sluggish?

Oh gawd yes! At most of the hip-hop parties I've been to, people stand around the DJ and bob their heads. Do I think every hip-hop beat that ever existed is sluggish? No, of course not. But to be perfectly honest, I get sick of too much hip-hop when I'm dancing because it's, well, too damn slow. Then again, I can say the same thing about Neil Young (which, yes, some hip-hop head put on at a party once). This doesn't mean hip-hop or Neil Young sucks, obv. Just that they're slowER. When you put "Mr. Dobolina" on after "The Bomb," it's gonna sound sluggish.

you make it sound like it's 150bpm

If anything, I'm trying to make it sound like it's 100 BPM (which I'm not trying to do). Look, I've seen people dance to "Romeo" perfectly fine. They didn't look like gorillas. But a gorilla's going to have an easier time dancing to it than "Red Alert."

And let me reiterate yet again that "Romeo" was my number one fave single of the year and will probably wind up on my decade top ten. So its RELATIVE sluggishness is clearly not a drawback as the post above makes clear.

something being slower != more sluggish. even by comparison.

i mean sluggish for me is THE BAD KIND OF SLOW which none of this stuff is. perhaps i'm being unfairly biased against slugs. but what have they done for us lately?

24 HOURS WITH THE KING OF SLUG

matt OTM, this is the angriest i've ever seen tim!

But you keep thinking "sluggish" is a negative term here and it's not. ALL trip-hop is (was?) sluggish. So what? Much of it's still great!

It IS a negative term. It's always used in that sense. Why say 'sluggish' otherwise?

To describe great Tricky records.

Haha yeah I have NEVER heard 'sluggish' used in a positive way before now.

poor slugs.

Tricky's stuff is more 'slithery'

tim f OTFM.

lolz at BPM mistake; I was about to go off about that

I vote for "Broken Dreams" why because it is my favorite that's why.

Romeo is the only correct answer.

sluggish doesnt have to be pejorative

romeo is a bit weird to dance to

Maybe if you can't dance!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=yl294QZtOa4

i have often heard BPMs as 10bpm slower than they actually are, i'm not sure why.

someone (Dan) please list the BPM of all the Rooty tracks

ggolbs (10 months ago)
where are the ladies? (from the states)

OTM

Maybe if you can't dance!

-- HI DERE, Monday, September 17, 2007 12:25 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

nah, its like dancing to a pop song w/out a consistent groove, like 'one thing' or similar ... you just have to do more work to dance to it than w/ most house/disco/groove-based music

(major xpost) If hiphop feels too slow to dance to, you're probably doing the wrong dances! Most of the current dance-rap hits are about 80 BPM, but that's perfect for the types of dances that are meant to be done to them. Dancing to hiphop is all about the syncopations between the beats anyway, so if you're trying to dance as you would to house, that's not going to work. That said, the stand and bob is very popular, but most of those people aren't really interested in dancing.

I guess this ties into the whole me not getting Chic thing, but I find something like "1 Thing" much more fun to dance to then something with a 4 to the floor.

i agree with you in theory

Mmmmmm.....pie.

i agree w/ rev's first post but not the second

But what of the third?

Everyone agrees with the third (unless they don't, that is)!

Listened to this in the van last night!

Love "Broken Dreams", but can not justify not voting for "Romeo."

"Romeo" is not odd to dance to in a "One Thing" way though ("One Thing" is not that hard to dance to anyway, albeit a little bit tricker than "Crazy In Love").

Kevin is right in that what is odd about "Romeo" is how it is four-to-the-floor but in a weird way such that every beat feels over-emphasised, and you don't get that seamless flow that you get in most house. Far from not having a beat (whatevs NRQ!), "Romeo" is odd in that its house beat refuses to background itself and become part of the structure of the song that you can take for granted. At the time I remember concluding that they were taking some cues from 2-step but I couldn't quite say why/how.

i feel like the only way to dance to 'one thing' is to show off, but maybe thats my problem

you have a problem with showing off on the dance floor huh

Deej have you ever danced to 2-step?

It is the best thing ever.

But I could never convince friends to go to 2-step nights with me at the time. It wasn't that people couldn't dance to it, but they didn't think they could dance to it without looking like an idiot.

well, in my own apt., yes

i dont think i've ever heard any two step out, ever.

:(

a night w/ stuff like that ayia napa mix you recommended would be amazing

you have a problem with showing off on the dance floor huh

-- s1ocki, Monday, September 17, 2007 5:38 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

dancing to '1 thing' takes some fancy footwork

Yeah fair point, it's the kinda song that invites you to attempt moves you're not sure in advance you can pull off.

you both seem quite um, professional about it?

i just kinda vogue to the stabs

deej federline

nah, its like dancing to a pop song w/out a consistent groove, like 'one thing' or similar ...

I know you're not talking about Amerie's "One Thing" here (aka "that song that is nothing but one continuous consistent groove")!

??? there's tons of unexpected syncopations going on in that song

If hiphop feels too slow to dance to, you're probably doing the wrong dances!

I agree with you 100%. I'll dance to hip-hop for a while no prob. But if you don't get those BPMs up waaaay past 80 eventually, then goddamnit, I'm off the floor in about an hour. It just makes me sleepy after too long. Or christ, at least build some sort of arc to get MY BPM up.

"One Thing" is one looped four-bar pattern repeated ad infinitum with a couple of breakdown sections.

Dan not every looped four-bar pattern feels predictable to dance to simply by virture of being a looped four-bar pattern.

yeah but i mean within those four bars the beat never, like, settles into a repeated predictable groove, it bounces all over the place. the snare doesn't just hit the 2 & 4, the second guitar hits later than yr ear expects it to, etc.

Yeah, the fact that it is a looped pattern has nothing to do with how rhythmically complex it is.

i just kinda vogue to the stabs

-- r|t|c, Monday, September 17, 2007 6:05 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

ethanbait

If you are looping the SAME FOUR BARS, there is BY DEFINITION a repeating, predictable pattern (ie, those four bars that keep repeating).

Complexity does not preclude predictability.

;_;

That has nothing to do with how easy it is to dance to.

http://www.developingstorm.com/img/snowflake.jpg

If you are looping the SAME FOUR BARS, there is BY DEFINITION a repeating, predictable pattern (ie, those four bars that keep repeating).

Complexity does not preclude predictability.

Er, YES IT DOES. I would hope it would be obvious why but apparently that is asking too much of folks...?

http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2003/WORLD/europe/11/24/albino.gorilla.death.ap/story.vert.snowflake.afp.jpg

That has nothing to do with how easy it is to dance to.

i have often heard BPMs as 10bpm slower than they actually are, i'm not sure why.

Not sure if this applies to the statement above. But it may shed some light on the affective nature of BPM:

I'm no musicologist. But as a DJ, I learned VERY quickly that two songs at 130 BPM do not necessarily sound/feel like they're at the same speed.

Case in point: On the 12"s I spun (usually dance remixes of current pop hits), there was often a Motiv 8 remix and a Junior Vasquez remix. Or, respectively, a Eurodisco remix (Eurodisco in the La Bouche, Culture Beat, Real McCoy sense) and a house remix (for lack of better terms - that's how I understood them). I MUCH preferred the Vasquez remixes (unlike my floor, truth be told) because even though they were usually the same BPM as Motiv 8's, they felt faster. That's because Motiv 8's galloped where the Vasquez remixes slammed. Or maybe it was just funkier. The Motiv 8s inserted a rumble before the second beat whereas the Vasquezs did skipped around the third so as to slam all the harder into the fourth.

Again, a musicologist could explain this much better than me. In any event, whenever I went from a Vasquez to a Motiv 8, the energy level dropped quite noticeably, despite the fact that the BPM were frequently the same.

And you can hear this when you beat match from genre to genre (if you can). Check out DJ Andy Smith's The Document to hear how a mix moves through all sorts of cognitive shifts, few of which are useful for a dancefloor, even though the beats are "perfectly" matched.

http://www.developingstorm.com/img/snowflake.jpg

maybe if i say 'order of magnitude' again then they'll understand

Cute!

Yes, if something is repetitive, then it is "by definition" easy to dance to. I hate to be asked too much of!

Apparently.

http://wwwdelivery.superstock.com/WI/223/170/PC/SuperStock_170-593A.jpg

Not sure if this applies to the statement above. But it may shed some light on the affective nature of BPM:

I'm no musicologist. But as a DJ, I learned VERY quickly that two songs at 130 BPM do not necessarily sound/feel like they're at the same speed.

http://xo.typepad.com/blog/albino-thumb.jpg

Case in point: On the 12"s I spun (usually dance remixes of current pop hits), there was often a Motiv 8 remix and a Junior Vasquez remix. Or, respectively, a Eurodisco remix (Eurodisco in the La Bouche, Culture Beat, Real McCoy sense) and a house remix (for lack of better terms - that's how I understood them). I MUCH preferred the Vasquez remixes (unlike my floor, truth be told) because even though they were usually the same BPM as Motiv 8's, they felt faster. That's because Motiv 8's galloped where the Vasquez remixes slammed. Or maybe it was just funkier. The Motiv 8s inserted a rumble before the second beat whereas the Vasquezs did skipped around the third so as to slam all the harder into the fourth.

http://www.molblog.nl/reacties.php/images/upload/1180113985snowflake.jpg

Again, a musicologist could explain this much better than me. In any event, whenever I went from a Vasquez to a Motiv 8, the energy level dropped quite noticeably, despite the fact that the BPM were frequently the same.

And you can hear this when you beat match from genre to genre (if you can). Check out DJ Andy Smith's The Document to hear how a mix moves through all sorts of cognitive shifts, few of which are useful for a dancefloor, even though the beats are "perfectly" matched.

2 step mix of Romeo would've been good

Dan is half-right: by the end of "1 Thing" you see dancers start to get the hang of it because of the repetition of the groove. But that doesn't help them early on: the tune is unpredictable in the sense that it's relatively tricky (compared to more straightforward R&B grooves) for the body to anticipate when all the different components are going to arrive, despite the repetition and the fact that they've heard the tune before. More straightforward four-four grooves are much easier for the body to anticipate.

otm

i feel like the only way to dance to 'one thing' is to show off, but maybe thats my problem

-- deej, Monday, 17 September 2007 22:37 (Yesterday) Link

Haha, this is probably true, but if there's one thing you know about me...

ROMEO

"get me off" in 2nd.

ilx dance-off

dancing to 2step does indeed rock..totally kinetic music.

i will pay good $$$ to see "HI DERE" dance to "1 thing"

The real reason you can't dance to "1 Thing":

http://img45.imageshack.us/img45/3795/nonmultitaskingkt0.jpg

I don't think I realized "1 Thing" was a straight loop w/breakdowns, mostly because the thing just keeps igniting and going off; there's so much spark that it never feels loop-like even if it is one. That's an effect straighter beats can have as well: I've made that argument on ILM before about Armand Van Helden's "Flowerz" and "U Don't Know Me," which are as straight as 4/4 gets, but whose loops have similar effects (while of course sounding nothing whatsoever like "1 Thing").

Speaking of 2step, the Stanton Warriors remix of "Where's Your Head At" is quite wonderful and deserves honorable mention.

"Romeo" for me, obv, though I want to mention my favorite moment of any Rooty song ever. I went to the Centro-Fly benefit after 9/11 and did mushrooms. I hit my peak when Junior Sanchez, I believe it was, came on and played "Do Your Thing": "I don't need no TV/I don't need no news/All I need is a bumpin' beat/To bump away my blues." FUCKING MAGIC.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

i voted get me off

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

can't argue with that

No-one wants to read my opinions about dance music, but I only like the top 2 songs on this album.

10. "Freakalude" - 0:29 1

WTF

6. "Broken Dreams" - 3:07 3
3. "SFM" - 2:39 0

A little weird.

I voted "Romeo" but love "Crazy Girl" too.

Yeah, I expected SFM a little higher. Broken Dreams is v.v. good and well-arranged and great, but I couldn't NOT vote Romeo.

"I Want U' deserved a vote or two.