PUMP UP THE VOLUME /V/S/ PUMP UP THE JAM

this "It Takes Two" voter is all about "Pump Up The Volume"

pump up the jam is funner.

Pawmp up the jam

Both these songs are about pumping.

I just realised that.

ha I was just about to comment on "Pomp up the jam" although listening to it now it seems it's more "Pump up the jam/Pump it up/While your feet are stumpin'"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMjG2s6UOaw

and u'll find out if u do that

HARD!

Pump up the Jam even if only because it has a soft spot in my heart as I clearly remember one of my cousin's German friends asking me if I knew it by singing it in very heavily accented English. Also, it is a jam.

technotronic has certain flaws imo

keep talkin

pump up the volume was totally mind blowing the first time i heard it

I was always a little made that Felly was named "Felly"

it just seems like anyone named "Felly" should have a mustache

Technotronic Vs Snap

such a treat

I don't remember why that was locked but I can't argue with the decision

Ya Kid K`s voices is a member in every music world

― loeiok (triamas✧✧✧@yak✧✧✧.c✧✧), Wednesday, November 12, 2003 4:53 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark

Pump Up The Jam is incredible. There's a strange two-note synth sound that starts around 1:20 which reminds me of Laura Palmer's theme. There's something strangely dark and almost industrial about the bassline too. Feels like it has one foot in the EBM / New Beat camp and the other in straight Eurodance. Much more interesting than Pump Up The Volume. Both classics, though.

Technotronic is absolutely tied to New Beat, there's no doubt about that.

still, only one of these songs samples Ofra Haza

pump up the volume no question

YA KID K VS REGGIE VS FELLY VS MC ERIC (TECHNOTRONIC)

locked again

went "pump up the volume" but could easily go either way

It Takes Two > Pump Up The Jam > Pump Up The Volume

all ridiculously classic

I clearly remember one of my cousin's German friends asking me if I knew it by singing it in very heavily accented English.

I was on a French exchange in 1989 and made friends with one of the French girls in school because we both like Technotronic. This music will unite us all.

a girl :) She looks like a boy , i know in 1990. Thers a pic in www.nenemusik.com --popdance--- Ya Kid K from 2003 She looks like great

― triamas✧✧✧@yak✧✧✧.c✧✧ (triamas✧✧✧@yak✧✧✧.c✧✧), Wednesday, November 12, 2003

pump up the jam >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

the threads were locked because either Ya Kid K herself or the prez of her fanclub was starting a whole bunch of Technotronic threads all on the same night

Pump Up the Jam is cute but Pump Up the Volume is much, much better, sonically it's a fucking wonder

pump up the jam >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

― sorry for party blogging (D-40), Friday, September 16, 2011 8:14 PM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark

yes yes I know you guys really treasure your childhood memories but as grown up music dudes you should rep for the clearly better jam here i.e. the one that doesn't have "get your booty on the floor tonight, make my day" in the chorus

WHAT

Pump up the jam makes volume seem leaden by comparison

Aero are u arguing for or against "jam" that last post is unclear

-1 to pump up the volume for not having "get your booty on the floor tonight, make my day" in the chorus

wow today's youth really are overly stimulated if "Pump Up The Volume" comes across as "leaden"

although they are saying this in defense of a song made up of 8 measures looped for 5 minutes so maybe it is us oldies who are overstimulated

the use of the | or / as a stylistic device is underused

just played pump up the volume for the first time

have probably played the first ar kane album about fifty times

i weirdly have no opinion about this question

gonna go listen to both in a row and see how i feel

pump up the jam is also one of the greatest videos ever

wow today's youth really are overly stimulated if "Pump Up The Volume" comes across as "leaden"

today's youth like yesterday's iirc will exaggerate the seriousness of any claim just to have something to argue about

I may not rc in my world of old codgers however

fyi google sez

http://i.imgur.com/8OUk3.png

as grown up music dudes you should rep for the clearly better jam here i.e. the one that doesn't have "get your booty on the floor tonight, make my day" in the chorus

This is Folly Itself, as William Blake would say.

anyone want to predict my verdict here before i weigh in

lol @ "pump up the kicks"

some dude you are going to vote for 'pump up the

there was a kid on my floor freshman year who drove four hours to see technotronic

he probably owns my company now or something

Pump Up the Volume always seemed to me to be trying too hard (to what? be edgy? something like that).

http://www.canningbasics.com/images/jamthing.jpg

Aero are u arguing for or against "jam" that last post is unclear

anyway pump up the jam is a fun but hopelessly dumb dance jam, no harm, nice synth sound, inane lyric but there's something about ya kid k's sort of disinterested reading that's compelling

pump up the volume is one of those songs that when the key sounds in it drop through a decent system you think "I want to die, right here, tonight, on this dance floor"

IOW pump up the volume = I'm that type of guy, pump up the jam = paid in full

ugh I hate VEVO why is the LMFAO guy at the left of my pump up the jam youtube vid

he is party rocking your jam

I feel compelled to do a Pump Up The Jam v. Buffalo Stance music vid faceoff

"get the party goin' on the dance floor, see cause that's where the party's at, and you'll find out if you do that" is perhaps the most perfect inane lyric ever

on the other hand those fat drums that come in on the middle of "volume" are pretty killer

a-ship must contemplate

I picture a-ship locking up like when the computer in star trek is asked to calculate the value of pi

this really does feel like a very subtly shaded question of ~~~values~~~

btw i had never ever seen the Technotronic video before just now so i'm kind of shocked that j0rdan has

I will say that the bassline in pump up the volume is an all time smooth groove

btw i had never ever seen the Technotronic video before just now so i'm kind of shocked that j0rdan has

― some dude, Friday, September 16, 2011 9:45 PM (28 seconds ago) Bookmark

hmm i think i've seen it on various vh1 countdowns & what not

like if you told the bassline from pump up the volume is the auditory expression of the mathematical expression that is the engine of the atomic universe I wouldn't doubt you

haha i know that i got MTV for the first time around 1992 because i've seen the video for Technotronic's "Move This" a hundred times but had never seen the "Pump Up The Jam" video

in fact i was honestly confused when i put on the "Jam" video and was like hey that's not Ya Kid K!

dang this is pretty good also but clearly showing the ar kane bloodline

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2a5Tjh10ZM

pump it up yopumpit

voting for the jam

warms my heart to see so much luv for this classic. last yr i put "jam" on at a party and someone else TURNED IT OFF -- was so pissed i almost left.

of course "volume" is also amazing.

after marinating for an hour i've decided to vote for "Jam"

yes, i know, you've all been waiting

this really does feel like a very subtly shaded question of ~~~values~~~

― some dude, Friday, September 16, 2011 8:44 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol otm

"Pump Up the Volume" might be my least favorite Jock Jams Vol. 1 song.

Well, Village People and EMF are probably worse.

"Pump Up the Jam." Man, I loved spring '90: you'd turn the dial and hear this jam, Janet's "Escapade," Seduction's "It Takes Two," and Madonna's "Keep It Together" back to back.

Seduction's "It Takes Two"

Listening to that this very second on Spotify!

Pump up the jam makes volume seem leaden by comparison

― sorry for party blogging (D-40), Friday, September 16, 2011 6:19 PM Bookmark

^^^^

Aero's habit of judging the best dance jams ever by whether their lyrics are completely cogent strikes again.

well you know those metal fans can be real lyrics snobs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Jm_O2HtdI

http://androidspin.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/paul-frank-volume-tee.jpg

http://www.gethandbag.com/images/79625_vertical_1_egyptian_lover__mens_vertic.jpg

"my sister had this album, the beats were good & the synths chilly, the rapping always sounded kinda...y'know..."the pyramids are oh so shiny" wtf are you talking about egyptian lover"

NEVER FORGET

haha A+ rev

tbrr tho, I think the kind of aloof yet forceful, butch-androgyne vocal "Pump Up the Jam" has is my favorite type of dance music vocal (see also Strafe's "Set It Off")

see also Strafe's "Set It Off"

Oh I love that song (but not quite as much as I used to). Was just recently thinking I need to try to finally pin down who did it. (A past attempt led me to buying an Original Concept CD I was not into at all.)

I guess it's kind of weird for me be to on this thread so much but late 80s/early 90s was the last time I felt a strong connection to current popular music (in English anyway), or a good chunk of it.

I also only recently discovered that Juan Arkins, whose music I was pretty sure I didn't like, was part of Cybotron.

I stand by my tendency to hold lyricists to a high standard! if your lyrics suck you could always stfu imo, since I was a kid when lyrics are inane it puts me off - if "lyrics aren't the point" then "fire the singer & keep the money for yourself" seems like a decent strategy to me, keeping 'em in is like "I put olives in your ice cream, I know they taste funky but you gotta admit the ice cream is great"

this is why death metal's great, if the lyrics are bad guess what, you can't understand anything except maybe maybe the chorus anyway

also noteworthy from the other thread:

The central breakdown drum sample in PUTV was Graham Central Stations "The Jam".
and the latter break is Holy Ghost by the Bar-Kays

this is quality use of sampling imo

If the lyric suck so what? You can always submerge the voice into the beat anyway.

I'm gonna c/p rev's c/p'd truth bomb which is changing the way I think

if it aint srs lyrics then there shld be srs dancing. this is how i judge music

-- usic, Friday, June 13, 2008 10:57 AM (Friday, June 13, 2008 10:57 AM) Bookmark Link

― rev, Wednesday, July 30, 2008 3:13 AM (3 years ago) Bookmark

If the lyric suck so what? You can always submerge the voice into the beat anyway.

yeah I have always lacked this skill unless I'm really really high. needless to say, during my clubbing years, I developed several strategies to distract from lyrics that annoyed me

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/images/photos2006/nn20060131a8a.jpg

you google image searched bottles of pills?

those aren't pills, they're inhalants

when I used to dance a lot people did pills but they were kind of last-resort, pills weren't really a thing in the pdx dance scene as much as tweak & rush & weed

I stand by my tendency to hold lyricists to a high standard! if your lyrics suck you could always stfu imo, since I was a kid when lyrics are inane it puts me off - if "lyrics aren't the point" then "fire the singer & keep the money for yourself" seems like a decent strategy to me, keeping 'em in is like "I put olives in your ice cream, I know they taste funky but you gotta admit the ice cream is great"

this is why death metal's great, if the lyrics are bad guess what, you can't understand anything except maybe maybe the chorus anyway

― pathos of the unwarranted encore (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Saturday, September 17, 2011 2:57 PM Bookmark

This completely ignores the performative aspect of vocals tho. I mean, the point of having vocals isn't always as a Lyrics Delivery System. For all I care, the lyrics of "Pump Up the Jam" could be "Everybody fart on Rodney" over and over, and as authoritatively as YKK delivers them, I'd still be down.

I don't even think the lyrics are inane tho. They're perfect for the song!

The song would be less without the vocal part, especially the hard to decipher "ah-wa a place to stay. . ." I would not like it if the lyrics were "Everybody fart on Rodney" though, I have to admit.

This completely ignores the performative aspect of vocals tho.

it doesn't ignore that aspect - I just assert that having something worth performing ought to precede said performative aspect. like you know how they say great actors can read the phone book out loud & make it compelling - fine, I'm sure they can, but guess what I don't want to hear a great actor do - read the phone book - I think we're probably in agreement that a good vocalist of any stripe is generally better when his/her lyrics aren't dumb

yep

I'm arguing on the internet about the lyrics of "Pump Up the Jam"

really making great use of my time on this planet

someone called Ya Kid K should have lyrics that sound like they're by someone called Ya Kid K

you're putting the cart before the horse xp

so-called "rap fans" D-40, J0rdan and some dude riding for the ultimate proto-ibiza bloodfart, Flo Rida-predicting, happy rappy Marky Mark Ninja Turtle instead of one of the greatest sample pastiches of all time. Fuck this industry.

next lets do Snow's "Informer" vs. Coldcut's 7 Minutes Of Madness mix and watch ILX's famous rap bloggers be all "a licky boom boom down"

this really does feel like a very subtly shaded question of ~~~values~~~

― some dude, Friday, September 16, 2011 8:44 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDW0ZnZxjn4

"Pump Up The Volume" doesn't do anything for me :/

so-called "rap fans" D-40, J0rdan and some dude riding for the ultimate proto-ibiza bloodfart, Flo Rida-predicting, happy rappy Marky Mark Ninja Turtle instead of one of the greatest sample pastiches of all time. Fuck this industry.

― moonshit journey to caca (Whiney G. Weingarten), Sunday, September 18, 2011 1:13 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

Gah! Never have you been so OTM Whiney. I feel like we're brothers and it confuses me to no end.

so-called "rap fans" D-40, J0rdan and some dude riding for the ultimate proto-ibiza bloodfart, Flo Rida-predicting, happy rappy Marky Mark Ninja Turtle instead of one of the greatest sample pastiches of all time. Fuck this industry.

we already have one Morbs, you sow.

goodness me Big Star predicted New Pornographers. Fuck this industry pip pip.

whiney "keepin it real" weingarten

Pump Up The Volume was the lead track to one of the first rap tapes I ever bought, ca. 1988, which also opened me up to Public Enemy

http://s.dsimg.com/image/R-150-2499610-1287363299.jpeg

Not to get all j0hn aerosmith about it,

In it's time, "Pump Up The Volume" was a fucking RAP SONG like the way the Dust Brothers and Steinski and Prince Paul and The Bomb Squad made rap songs. In it's time, "Pump Up The Jam"s nearest analogue was like the Bingoboys.

fwiw i never dissed "volume," i was on the fence and leaned slightly toward "jam" and think underrated's lyrical takedown of ya kid k is hilarious

like, just because deej and j0rdan were trolling itt doesn't mean i want to get caught up in the countertrolling

I probably listen to more dance music these days than rap, and "Pump Up the Jam" is a better dance track. QED, motherfucker.

Really, one of the best dance tracks ever.

Also, it should be noted that I never dissed "Volume", either. I looove "Pump Up the Volume", I just love "Pump Up the Jam" that much more.

whiney reminds us that even a kid in 1988 was not prevented from buying a tape that contained music, that is definitely the tipping point that will decide this poll

this really does feel like a very subtly shaded question of ~~~values~~~

― some dude, Friday, September 16, 2011 8:44 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

This a v otm post.

"Volume" is more ~impressive~, "Jam" is more functional.

the value, it turns out, is the question of why Ya Kid K is not more like Bob Dylan and/or the Dust Brothers

Ha, I just realized I'm not in Whiney's list of so-called rap fans.

lol xp

Steve "Silk" Hurley > Bob Dylan

I never thought I would see a bigger rockist on these boards than Geir but here we are with Whiney

"People fought and died so our generation could listen to something better." - Whiney G. Weingarten on Ya Kid K

I know this is a fucking poll but I can love both! I live in Miami! "Pump Up the Volume" was inescapable: I heard it around Noel's "Silent Morning," Expose's "Let Me Be The One," Company B's "Fascinated" and half a dozen Stevie B songs. It's awesome. But there's a BIGNESS to Technotronic that sounded ineffable in 1990.

I forget that Whiney's baseline assumption is that everybody who likes dance music is either a tasteless moron or a ponderous chinstroker. Two sides of his own coin.

Jam is a fun song but Volume sends a shiver down my spine like a reminder of a moment when something mysterious but important changed, some major part I can't even identify of who I am today started. I'll take Volume.

(remember sitting in the back of a car coming back from a wedding and for some reason pop radio was on in the car - my parents never listened to pop radio, but here we were, driving through a strange city well past my bedtime, listening to the first station my parents had managed to tune in on the radio - and PUTV came on, a delirious rush of confusion, like nothing I had ever heard before)

Still I didn't realise until just there now when I looked at wikipedia that Ya Kid K must only have been 16 when Pump Up The Jam came out, which is pretty amazing too.

I owe "Volume" for introducing me to Eric B and Rakim when I was 12.

Holy shit, I didn't know that either. xp

At the time "Pump Up the Jam" came out hip-hop was a big portion of what I was listening to. It certainly wouldn't have occurred to me that I shouldn't like it as much as "Pump Up the Volume," which was more ubiquitous, but which never did much for me. (Of course I never identified with hip-hop to the point where I would have been remotely concerned with somehow betraying it that way.)

stretching the integrity of the word "amazing" here imo

I mean rap music > anything basically

rap sux

only one of these songs features a real live rapper btw

only one of these songs features a fluorescent wearing androgyne btw

I lol'd

I forget that Whiney's baseline assumption is that everybody who likes dance music posts on ILX is either a tasteless moron or a ponderous chinstroker. Two sides of his own coin.

― skrillex pretend (The Reverend), Saturday, September 17, 2011 8:15 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

fuckin ponderous, man

In it's time, "Pump Up The Volume" was a fucking RAP SONG like the way the Dust Brothers and Steinski and Prince Paul and The Bomb Squad made rap songs. In it's time, "Pump Up The Jam"s nearest analogue was like the Bingoboys.

― moonshit journey to caca (Whiney G. Weingarten), Saturday, September 17, 2011 7:27 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

This is so goddamned OTM (if onky off in timeline by 2 years)

'pump up the volume' = masculine, 'important,' serious, hip-hop, 'classic'
'pump up the jam' = feminine, naff, pop, house, 'cheesy'

obv i prefer PUTJ like all ilxor's should

who are you and what have you done with deej

'pump up the volume' = masculine, 'important,' serious, hip-hop, 'classic', music
'pump up the jam' = feminine, naff, pop, house, 'cheesy', music

feisty, Spanish, girl

honestly 'jam' sounds like some people heard about house music and noticed that the music industry was basically a big ol' feeding trough at that time and said 'fuck it, this isn't that hard'

whereas 'volume' is basically blade runner

that was cool how deej summed up your bullshit rockist dichotomy before you even made it

I think I made it a lot earlier here:

IOW pump up the volume = I'm that type of guy, pump up the jam = paid in full

haha is that backwards or are you the type of guy that says the pudding is delicious

what does the other guy say - hard to remember over the swooshing of delicious pudding

here was the whole post:

anyway pump up the jam is a fun but hopelessly dumb dance jam, no harm, nice synth sound, inane lyric but there's something about ya kid k's sort of disinterested reading that's compelling

pump up the volume is one of those songs that when the key sounds in it drop through a decent system you think "I want to die, right here, tonight, on this dance floor"

IOW pump up the volume = I'm that type of guy, pump up the jam = paid in full

which is pretty much what I think - happy to cop to "rockism" in this, one's fun 'n' all but I don't really give a shit, there'd've been another fun song in its place if that one hadn't happened, and the other's this pretty momentous Occasion; I know arguing about "historical importance" is rockism 101, but pitv is kind of on the historical timeline. 'pump up the jam' is a fun dumb jam like crystal waters or that little blue man song or whatever it was, hard for me to imagine preferring it to one of the icons of the age of sampling

but you meant to equate "volume" with "paid in full," right

don't you dare impugn Crystal Waters in all this, she's homeless

wtf at the Crystal Waters diss!

"Gypsy Woman" is some kind of house classic.

like, the 'samples used' segment of the song's individual wiki page is a whole lotta "damn" imo

living color parody of crystal waters > crystal waters

especially the part where they invoke the flintstones

but that's like posting the list of the instrumental credits on a Yes record.

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

living color parody of crystal waters > crystal waters

no it isn't!

and no it's not particularly funny either

so aerosmith, paid in jam is like pump up the full?

but that's like posting the list of the instrumental credits on a Yes record.

if the instruments the guys were playing had all just been invented a couple of years ago, yes

aero, you seriously need some "Makin' Happy"/"100% Pure Love" penance here

xps: okay let's not be crazy Alfred, that parody IS funny

"'cause I just got cable/one hundred channels"

yeah i'd never seen that before, cracked me up

so aerosmith, paid in jam is like pump up the full?

but I laughed at this

I will always ride for the Crystal Waters parody and the mean-ass Paula Abdul "Promise of a Thin Me" parody

btw here's a great defense of "Pump Up The Volume":

http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2010/04/marrs-pump-up-the-volumeanitina-the-first-time-i-see-she-dance/

I did love the "Promise of a New Day" spoof

lol xpost oops

"volume" doesn't need a defense -- afaict almost everyone in this thread likes it and the arguments all involve people who are just shocked anyone could ever like any song more than "volume"

not "any song" just the one it's been pitted again! I'd vote "Highway Star" over "Pump Up the Volume" for example and then everybody'd kick my ass until I apologized

I don't know though I hadn't really consider "jam"'s legacy so now I'm having doubts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1Puil0j8B4

don't cut out before the chorus

i'm totally dancing up a storm while merely reading that list of samples

I do have to say, thank you silly argument for reminding me of A Split Second

"Gypsy Woman" is so good I'd probably dance to the Wayans parody in a club too.

Even tho it's mostly not funny, there is the unabashed meanness of "I should be homeless."

/but that's like posting the list of the instrumental credits on a Yes record./

if the instruments the guys were playing had all just been invented a couple of years ago, yes
--pathos of the unwarranted encore (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned)

Otm

Jam = one of the highlights in a long line of classic New Beat singles
Volume = silly novelty song w/ samples

Smh

Siegbran OTM. (I don't think I've said that in about seven years. Rarely even on the same threads with him.)

okay Jam boosters are just being silly now

conversely, I agree with Siegbran almost always but he's nutso kookoo in this case

siegbran you're my dogg

I wanna make sure they haven't kidnapped our Siebran - Sieg, who's better, Bathory or Cradle of Filth?

you nailed that one on the head which is why i voted for "pump up the volume"

silly novelty songs w/ samples trumps new beat 9 times out of 10 ... cf new beat was always best when it was also "silly novelty song w/ samples" a la

t99 and lords of acid and praga khan etc way better than like i dunno miss nicky trax or whatever

pump up the jam is just a more immediate track imo. i think what rubs the wrong way & reason i brought up the rockist dichotomy was bcuz the TOTAL SHOCK that ppl could prefer "jam" implies a kind of received wisdom value system that shits on the less 'serious' track

wait a second we are talking about technotronic not salt'n'pepa ... i was thinking about "push it" not "pump up the jam"

this is harder than i thought ... but to back up my "silly novelty" theory i want to note that "pump up the jam" often seemed immensely improved when used as part of mashups, "pump up the volume" not so much

another thing i want to note is that "pump up the volume" sounds really sweet mixed with stuff like "french kiss" and "voodoo ray" and "no way back" whereas "pump up the jam" sounds pretty dated. i think aerosmith has been saying as much all thread.

the surprise being expressed isn't always "rockism"; some of it is watching ppl whom you would expect to prefer the track more closely tied to the music they talk about most on the boards prefer the track that more closely resembles music that these same ppl sometimes talk shit about

Siegbran preferring "Jam" isn't surprising at all because it's more in the vein of stuff he big-ups all of the time; meanwhile, we just did a Timbaland poll and a bunch of the ppl really getting off on beat construction, production details and sample usage and pretty much ignored across the board anything housey in that catalog now going "oh yeah this is totally 'Jam'"; you can see why that might cause incredulous responses...?

in terms of BEAT SCIENCE 'pump up the jam' feels a lot LESS dated to me... the groove hits harder

what? really?

"pump up the jam" is really tired imo ... like hearing, i dunno, "got your money" or "california love" every time i've gone to a party in the last 10 years, it just sucks all the air out of the room

the surprise being expressed isn't always "rockism"; some of it is watching ppl whom you would expect to prefer the track more closely tied to the music they talk about most on the boards prefer the track that more closely resembles music that these same ppl sometimes talk shit about

Siegbran preferring "Jam" isn't surprising at all because it's more in the vein of stuff he big-ups all of the time; meanwhile, we just did a Timbaland poll and a bunch of the ppl really getting off on beat construction, production details and sample usage and pretty much ignored across the board anything housey in that catalog now going "oh yeah this is totally 'Jam'"; you can see why that might cause incredulous responses...?

― sick yr finger up his butt (DJP), Sunday, September 18, 2011 4:58 PM (26 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

but i mean, i listen to house & am from chicago & DJ and like pretty gay-ish dance music too & so I don't really think its at all surprising that I would prefer "Jam" -- the idea that being into hip-hop is some kind of allegiance towards 'volume' seems rlly weird to me i guess! Im not saying its rockist to prefer 'volume,' fwiw, just that there's this "of COURSE 'volume' is better" response is much more likely to raise an eyebrow than someone observing that it's pretty obviously a close contest

"pump up the jam" is really tired imo ... like hearing, i dunno, "got your money" or "california love" every time i've gone to a party in the last 10 years, it just sucks all the air out of the room

― mr peabody (moonship journey to baja), Sunday, September 18, 2011 4:59 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i feel you on that feeling for sure, esp w/ those two tracks -- i guess i just haven't heard 'jam' nearly as much as you have

the groove to "Pump Up the Jam" sounds exactly like 1989 to me

the groove to "Pump Up the Volume" was still being directly aped by ppl like DJ Shadow and the Ninja Tune roster 10 years later, making it harder to date

"Pump Up the Jam" also not helped by the existence of "The Beat is Technotronic", which is literally the exact same song/beat with a different rap.

weakest thing Technotronic ever did was "Move This", tho

Of course Jam sounds dated, it's fuckin New Beat!

ha also a valid point tbh

i think we're looking at 'dated'ness in dfft ways here, i mean at some level technotronic obv sounds way more retro, but in a way that feels more 'in' than breakbeats imo

like ninja tune & dj shadow stuff has to be at low ebb for, like, contemporary trendiness right?

Obv if you're not into new beat, fair enough. But to me this feels like putting California Love up against Ice Ice Baby. If you're not much of a rap fan, hey one of em was pretty funny and had a Queen sample!

haha oh god deej i'm getting flashbacks of the "dated can be a good thing" argument, please quite while you're ahead

^^^shitty post

i also prefer 'jam' bcuz of how lloyd used the melody on 'get it shawty'

oh wow i never even realized there's a similarity there, is that a full-on interpolation?

for sure

eh i dunno "pump up the volume" has a lot more open beat and reverb and it just seems to breathe and spring up from the ground, especially as aerosmith notes on a loud, good system ... the beat mixes breaks and 4/4 really well and when the bridge starts at 1:50 it is just brutal. in that regard it sounds a lot more "current" to me but maybe that's because i'm more into stuff like blawan and pearson sound and less into like, legowelt or holy ghost or whatever

yah im actually open to the idea that w/in the last couple yrs (nb i dont know blawan and pearson) things have swung back towards breakbeats in terms of trendy dance -- im actually not too into the new holy ghost album -- this argument i can buy

also LAST POETS FFS

just got uber-rockist here

The results of this poll should lead to separate ILMJ (Jam) and ILMV (Volume) boards.

Yes, it is that important. And I will be on the ILMV board.

deej you should check out blawan

how is "this fits into what is valued now" any less a rockist line of thought than "this was more complicated"? you're not even arguing the other side of the coin, you're arguing from a different spot on the same face

Late to this but the idea that PUTJ should be dismissed on grounds of being "a fun dumb jam like crystal waters" vs "one of the icons of the age of sampling" is such a fundamental misreading of dance music that I don't think there is much for it but to sb and start over.

Also I love "Pump Up The Volume" but the idea that it's more "in" because of Pearson Sound and Blawan is kind of ridiculous.

In other news Soho's "Hippie Chick" is allowed to be played at house parties again because some British tosser looped a breakbeat in the last six months.

that daft punk youtube is great

how is "this fits into what is valued now" any less a rockist line of thought than "this was more complicated"? you're not even arguing the other side of the coin, you're arguing from a different spot on the same face

"rockist" is mainly used as ad ad-hom now uism, its actual meaning went out the window a while back

this thread needs more cheesy new beat

Plaza kicks Technotronics' ass every hour of the day tbh

how is "this fits into what is valued now" any less a rockist line of thought than "this was more complicated"? you're not even arguing the other side of the coin, you're arguing from a different spot on the same face

i didn't bring this up as a reason for liking or disliking either, was merely trying to be more nuanced than 'x is more dated than y' description

oh wow i never even realized there's a similarity there, is that a full-on interpolation?

Oooh never heard that before (although it's not a full-on interpolation).

"Jam" over "Volume" here although both are great (and "Anitina" is a fabulous b-side). Which is odd for me because in my musicscape, sampladelia usually trumps all. But goddamn, the break at 3:21 on the album version below still puts me in a full nelson and makes me submit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXY9cxPZPIo

"Pump Up the Jam" also not helped by the existence of "The Beat is Technotronic", which is literally the exact same song/beat with a different rap.

Nope. That's what added a soupçon of both shameless poptimism and punky irreverence to "Jam"'s house sang froid rendering it an even more durable product. And here's a good place to mention that, very improbably, Technotronic made great albums (certainly better than A.R. Kane).

At this moment I would listen to "Hippychick" over both of them.

okay that's this convo finished

Also I love "Pump Up The Volume" but the idea that it's more "in" because of Pearson Sound and Blawan is kind of ridiculous.

see i feel like you and rob and the rest of the nu-ILM crew have gotten so relentlessly into the "social" aspect of music that you forget the "personal" aspect of music

i listen to pearson sound therefore it appelas to me more therefore it's more *in* FOR ME therefore i am voting for it in the poll.

DJP if you are responding to me i was saying it is rockist to even mention the last poets

no that was to KJB

oh sorry, my "rockist" post was to deej

my "fin" post was capitulation in the face of overwhelming Bozelkinization

lol

It reminds me of that EMP a couple of years ago where during the Q&A period after Pere Ubu's David Thomas' presentation about pop music Christgau politely reminded him that Britney had recorded more memorable music in the last ten years than Thomas.

"Gypsy Woman" is another classic that is way better and more fun to dance to than "Volume".

So is the followup, which is even deeper house:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJAQ1Ogng_s

Oh, that is great. Never heard it before.

xpost to soto

Whoa! Did that really happen? What did Thomas say/do?

can you guys collaborate on a Christgau-quote-a-day calender and leave that shit out of this thread

I love Christgau!

you don't say

Making
Happy Happy Happy Happy

There is no bad Crystal Waters single.

YouTube counterpoint to your heart's content. You will not change my mind.

what the hell

oh lol wrong thread

LOL, Crystal Waters proved the breaking point in the American Politics thread.

This has always been my favorite by her other than the two big hits (not housey tho):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrNkKVTWaNA&ob=av2e

I even like this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_M9QhC-lFY

another thing i want to note is that "pump up the volume" sounds really sweet mixed with stuff like "french kiss" and "voodoo ray" and "no way back" whereas "pump up the jam" sounds pretty dated. i think aerosmith has been saying as much all thread.

― mr peabody (moonship journey to baja), Sunday, September 18, 2011 9:56 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

"pump up the jam" is really tired imo ... like hearing, i dunno, "got your money" or "california love" every time i've gone to a party in the last 10 years, it just sucks all the air out of the room

― mr peabody (moonship journey to baja), Sunday, September 18, 2011 9:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

see i feel like you and rob and the rest of the nu-ILM crew have gotten so relentlessly into the "social" aspect of music that you forget the "personal" aspect of music

i listen to pearson sound therefore it appelas to me more therefore it's more *in* FOR ME therefore i am voting for it in the poll.

― mr peabody (moonship journey to baja), Sunday, September 18, 2011 11:57 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i dunno vahid, yr first two posts seem to contradict the third?

Sure I see the "personal" aspect of music but calling out a dance tune for seeming dated at house parties seems "relentlessly" social to me.

See, I think Pump Up The Volume gets played more, or at least the same amount as Pump Up The Jam

Like, I listen to Pearson Sound too! In fact you might find that I was possibly the very first person to big up Pearson Sound on ILM </bragging>.

But it strikes me as weird logic on a personal or social level to subordinate the freshness of a 20 yr old populist dance tune (or "jock jam" for concision) to what is happening in pretty rarefied cerebral dance circles when in reality the two sound nothing alike and have basically no similarities except that some of the beats aren't a 4X4 house kick.

You could as easily (although as ridiculously) say that Nicolas Jaar makes "Pump Up The Volume" sound fresh.

If you were saying that Blawan and Pearson Sound make The Black Dog sound fresh then, well, yeah, I hear you.

It reminds me of that EMP a couple of years ago where during the Q&A period after Pere Ubu's David Thomas' presentation about pop music Christgau politely reminded him that Britney had recorded more memorable music in the last ten years than Thomas.

haha god damn

Voting "Volume" over "Jam", because there came a point where I grew sick of hearing "Jam", whereas I never reached that point with "Volume".

N.B. Re. "Volume", I suppose most of you take the sample-heavy remix as the definitive version, rather than the sample-light original?

On these "it's impossible to choose" threads involving 20+ year old songs, I usually break the tie by picking whatever 16-year old me would have picked. "Jam" it is.

See, I think Pump Up The Volume gets played more, or at least the same amount as Pump Up The Jam
--Yo wait a minute man, you better think about the world (dog latin)

Aside from a few MTV plays in the 80s, I've literally never heard Pump Up The Volume in any context where I didn't push play on something myself

Same here, although I heard it a lot in Miami in the late eighties. Since it was a bigger hit in England, presumably the Brits heard it more often.

Why was this not an option?
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00004TCPF.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

It gets played as background music/TV filler quite a lot in the UK.

Ah!

I think I like Pump Up The Jam best because of Ya Kid K's delivery. I'm sure I could sing the whole thing with a gun to my head, and yet I'm not sure of the meaning of the words or what they are - just strings of nonsense syllables: "Pwomp op the jem/pwompidup/wardyafeedar stomp it/And the jemis pwomping lookaheadthepwarties jomping"

A fair transcription.

irl lol at that phonetic rendering. My band played a bike rally yesterday, and one of the songs on the house PA was "Pump Up The Jam." Hadn't heard it in years, and it really sounded hella fun. Still think I'd vote "Pump Up The Volume," though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZSih1yJTbc

pump it up yopumpit

Misread this as Pump Up The Yogurt

I smell a jingle!

Aside from a few MTV plays in the 80s, I've literally never heard Pump Up The Volume in any context where I didn't push play on something myself

sports bro

I smell a jingle!

Yeast infection treatments amirite?

xp Haha. Keep in mind you're saying that to a guy who thinks You're into sports! is some kind of insult. Also, parties (although I hear "Jam" more often at them).

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Seminal late 80s house record vs. naff Dutch Europap.

volume partisans does it feel good to know that geir is on your side

lol

Geir would vote in fart vs. shit, just to be on the side of the melodic potential of butt trumpeting

pump up the jam fukkin duh

pump up the jam fukkin duh

― Sophomore subs are the new Smith lesbians. (the table is the table), Wednesday, September 21, 2011 7:37 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

no Euler no

haha yeah I'm being lazy but really Pump Up The Jam is a, er, jam, & I've only rarely heard the other (maybe in the movie?).

also Geir, Technotronic were from Belgium, not the Netherlands. also, they were very much imitating a New York City house sound on Pump up the Jam, but you wouldn't know that, would you?

btw my volume vote isnt about jam being silly, its about the fact that when i heard putv it was something id never heard before - jam was nothing new (to me). hate to be all in my world of oldsters but i think if i hadnt heard both of them right when they came out, but in the context of many years later, im not sure how i would feel

^^^ otm hi-five HSTNGS mind meld etc etc etc

I heard Pump Up The Jam first - it was on the radio when I first discovered the radio. Pump Up The Volume was discovered through an ancient Now! compilation of my Dad's, and yeah, even then I remember thinking "this sounds nothing like the other stuff on this tape - it's futuristic even compared to the music on the radio now" (in about 1991). Still, I'm voting for Jam because while Volume is incredible, Jam is just lots and lots of fun and is one of those tunes (like Buffalo Stance) that's just filled with riffs.

I love Jam but "filled with riffs" is maybe the last phrase I would use to describe it besides maybe "reminiscent of a good madrigal"

as evidence of my timing argument, i just almost started to give an empassioned argument for the mind-blowing aspects of Doctor Calculus - "Full of Love" and then i listened to it for the first time in like 15 years and now i am not so sure

Wdn't mind a demographic breakdown of the votes on this one.

(Though I'm probably old enough to be one of the ones I suspect would lean toward "Volume.")

ok waht doctor calculus was stephen duffy from the lilac time and a dude from pigbag

props to eric h. for sticking up for crystal waters in here, what the hell was that

that was some nonsense, is what that was

I'm old, was already in my 20s when both songs came out, and I'm voting for Pump up the Jam.

Similarly old and liked both songs but Pump up the Volume is dearer to me by far.

Pretty sure I first heard both on Jock Jams, Vol. 1.

That's definitely where I first heard "Volume". I may have heard "Jam" before that.

pretty disheartened to learn that "Pump Up The Volume" moonlights as a jock jam

im going to be really pissed when putj wins this by like 40 votes

Fuck you, Whiney. Being a jock jam is a good thing.

!

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

(I did not expect to have voted for the winner)

smh

:D

faith in this place restored

brothers and sisters!

note that like the loudest Jam supporters are all like 23 year olds

YOURE GONNA GET YOURS

I'd like to note that the gays itt (unless I'm missing somebody) went 7-1 in favor of Jam.

So basically lol at the shitty taste of your average het.

hets like "epochal" art.

gays like to pump

what do gay people like instead of the Beatles?

Crystal Waters.

Disney World

i have some serious thinking to do

gays otm

http://images.quickblogcast.com/39531-36457/gay_days_disneyland_anaheim.jpg

I knew that it takes two partisans were actually PUTJ supporters

ok awesome

medium #rare

A deserved victory for the wise-in-their-silence majority.

lol

much like the irl u.s. 'silent majority' theyre a dominant majority that perceives itself as a persecuted minority

deej otm, it is seriously overwhelming how many times I've heard people who like pump up the jam complaining about their persecution & their outsider status - it's like a constant drone permeating the mediascape

hahaha deej u crazy for that one!

deej otm, it is seriously overwhelming how many times I've heard people who like pump up the jam complaining about their persecution & their outsider status - it's like a constant drone permeating the mediascape

these same people voted for Bush iirc

I'm moving this over to the longest thread in ilx history which spawned some of our most contentious beefs, PEOPLE WHO LIKE 'PUMP UP THE VOLUME': WHY ARE THEY SO BAD AND HATED?

Is the DMB thread really the longest on ILX? I've never tried to read it.

hets like "epochal" art.

I seriously wanna beef about these scarequotes though. because here's the deal. the longstanding (going on 50 years I think) movement within the academy & criticism to interrogate canons* and to remain on guard against received wisdom, generally-accepted Big Cultural Moments, etc., is the long view a healthy tendency I think. But when it filters down to generalized rejection of anything that's heralded as momentous, then it's not only no longer healthy: it's moronic. People don't praise It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back because they feel the urge to conform with the received view of it; it's a masterpiece, and I don't think a healthy suspicion of received wisdom actually disallows masterpieces or really unseats any of them. "Pump Up the Volume" is a watch with many working parts; its potential to be text-productive is pretty readily apparent. You could wring a fair amount of prose from "Pump Up the Jam," but only if you wanted to prove a point. "Liking epochal art" I don't think is in play so much here as "favoring a dense text over a transparent one."

*...CANNONS

the first grocery bag footnote???

that's me, just setting rap trends yet again

epochal moment

I think it's cool that different people have different standards but what really unites us is dance and I feel this community was really fractured by this debate so why don't we start the healing process with some dancing and for that I will put on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EcjWd-O4jI

Good idea.

I trust you know I was having a laugh, aero.

I'm part of a historically aggrieved minority; we know something about praising stuff because it's epochal, you know.

aww man I was ready to throw down about "important" "works" of "art" and stuff :(

but now you're dancing

I was with you aero until you attributed picking PUTJ towards a 'generalized rejection of anything that's momentous' impulse - I think PUTJ fans have made some strong arguments here!

no I agree with you there, I was putting Alfred's remark inside the same box as the 'generalized rejection of anything that's momentous' impulse

I believe 'contrarijam' would have sufficed

lol @ 'contrarijam'

Aerosmith's post is all well and good and correct w/r/t canons in general, but there is a difference between:

a) preferring a piece of art that happens to be epochal over one that happens not to be; and

b) preferring a piece of art because it is epochal.

I don't think anyone in this thread is really deep down doing (b) but it's a pretty common human error when justifying taste to fall back on (b) as an explanation for (a) rather than actually delve into one's specific, actual taste.

Also the "dense text" vs "transparent text" dichotomy is not terribly useful here, because notions of denseness and transparency map onto pop music even less successfully than they map onto literature.

If I like "Pump Up The Jam" because of its weird lyrical ellipses and intriguing vocal accent and brutal beat and menacing synth chords, and I like "Pump Up The Volume" for its echoing guitar chords and unexpected samples and unpredictable iterations around the central rhythm... how is one text dense and one text transparent?

I think that dichotomy springs from your assumption that "Pump Up The Jam" has less uses than "Pump Up The Volume", but almost inevitably assumptions regarding the multiplicity of uses that a piece of music can be put to proceed from (or, at least, alongside and intertwined with) a judgment about its worth. If you don't much like a song you're not going to spend much time perceiving all its multifarious qualities.

If I like "Pump Up The Jam" because of its weird lyrical ellipses and intriguing vocal accent and brutal beat and menacing synth chords, and I like "Pump Up The Volume" for its echoing guitar chords and unexpected samples and unpredictable iterations around the central rhythm... how is one text dense and one text transparent?

I'm just thinking in terms of composition, really - "Pump Up the Jam" is a song in a pretty trad model using (then) new sounds and rhythms. "Pump Up the Volume," as pastiche/collage, without the center that a vocalist provides but instead disembodied sampled voices, asks more of the listener I think. Of course it also doesn't: it's a dance jam, you can work out all that complexity with your body instead of getting professorial about it. But the text itself seems inherently richer to me, even though I know asserting inherent richness to a text is pretty dicey territory.

> I'd like to note that the gays itt (unless I'm missing somebody) went 7-1 in favor of Jam.

Sorry, Rev, but to skew yer stats I voted for Volume (still love both)

so you're bi?

ha
is that what loving both means?

Obv, I was only going by people who had posted their vote, not trying to read minds of lurkers or whatever.

no you're trying to out me

I'm just thinking in terms of composition, really - "Pump Up the Jam" is a song in a pretty trad model using (then) new sounds and rhythms. "Pump Up the Volume," as pastiche/collage, without the center that a vocalist provides but instead disembodied sampled voices, asks more of the listener I think. Of course it also doesn't: it's a dance jam, you can work out all that complexity with your body instead of getting professorial about it. But the text itself seems inherently richer to me, even though I know asserting inherent richness to a text is pretty dicey territory.

okay this makes more sense to me.

I think it's fair to say that PUTV would seem more exciting if you remember being puzzled by it at the time. Its "richness" in this regard is contextual rather than inherent - the 90s so thoroughly explored (and, by exploring, rendered familiar, obvious even) sample-based collages that PUTV itself no longer seemed to ask so much of the listener after that.

In this regard richness of form (vis a vis richness of content) gets "cheapened" over time as the form itself no longer seems particularly noteworthy and the mode of judgment is reduced to "mere" content. Today's listener probably does not say "oh wow this is a sample-based collage, how amazing". But rather, "as sample-based collages go this is pretty cool." On these metrics I think PUTV still does tremendously well, but I think any notion that it is inherently a better or more interesting record falls away.

I suppose some younger listeners try to imagine what it would be like to hear a record in its original context, but this seems to me like a fairly artificial way to decide how much you like something.

I suppose some younger listeners try to imagine what it would be like to hear a record in its original context, but this seems to me like a fairly artificial way to decide how much you like something.

mmm I think there's merit in historical listening but I think we part ways there pretty sharply - your "artificial" is something else for me; for one thing, contemplating context/knowing it/engaging it isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. I can listen to Mahler and consider how radical the changes are that he's ringing contemporaneously & also have gut/subjective/ahistorical reactions: the one actually potentiates the other, but the actual power of the response isn't "artificial" For me, and I understand this isn't true for everybody, being able to engage a piece historically with enough involvement to feel its innovation, to get to a gut level through harder readings - that's just a reading skill, like being able to detect shades of irony in literature. but as I say I think that you & I have some pretty divergent ideologies about present-moment vs. i-don't-know-what-to-call-it-that-isn't-immersed-in-the-same-way listening.

that's just a reading skill, like being able to detect shades of irony in literature. but as I say I think that you & I have some pretty divergent ideologies about present-moment vs. i-don't-know-what-to-call-it-that-isn't-immersed-in-the-same-way listening.

This is a rather deceptive analogy IMO, as "reading skill" refers in one case to an awareness of how a text functions (shades of irony in literature) and in the other to an emotional response to a text's place in history (what would this record have meant in 1987).

It is of course possible to "feel" the way in which PUTV does what it does first, and I apply that kind of historical reading all the time to my enjoyment of records (e.g. "woah this Anthill Mob record from 1997 has such unexpectedly futuristic beats, how were they so ahead of the curve?") - the difference between us is perhaps more precisely that I would consider that this is a second order judgment you arrive at following a response to content, because the shock of form is no longer really a visceral "in the moment" sensation.

It's not irrelevant to judgment by any means, but the idea that it should be a highly determinative factor is what feels false to me, like the listener is consciously privileging the text's place in history over their response to how it functions.

faith in this place restored

― kid ᒓᴥᒔ (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, 23 September 2011 01:02 (8 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

brothers and sisters!

― master musicians of jamiroquai (NickB), Friday, 23 September 2011 01:02 (8 hours ago) Bookmark

tim f otm obv

It's not irrelevant to judgment by any means, but the idea that it should be a highly determinative factor is what feels false to me, like the listener is consciously privileging the text's place in history over their response to how it functions.

Iterations of this argument ("Understand the history first!") took place recently on one of the threads championing "Sun City" – we should applaud the record because it was the only one of the '85 charity singles which employed hip-hop artists. In this sense it's a variant on the argument over praising good intentions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nViWpVc1x_4

PUMP UP THE JAM
PUMP IT UP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIsc6zirBSw