The BBC's starter guide to current British music, for you

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Come. Learn.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 8 September 2003 15:43 (twenty-one years ago)

no "indie"? Ha Ha!

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 8 September 2003 17:21 (twenty-one years ago)

no "indie"?

this will please Tom, I'm sure.

― MarkH (MarkH), Monday, 8 September 2003 17:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Like pop, British rock can be traced back to The Beatles. Since then, the formula for success has remained largely the same although different branches have flourished. Rock went psychedelic with Pink Floyd's trips, glam with flamboyant singers like David Bowie and wild with the guitar solos of Led Zeppelin. Punk sprung out of the cities in the late 1970s, while The Smiths moulded their misery into more sublime forms.

― Kingfish (Kingfish), Monday, 8 September 2003 17:48 (twenty-one years ago)

it's a very simpleton guide - but at last the vague and open to a hundred different interpretations "indie" is wiped from the agenda.

it seems indie according to this simpleton guide has now been superseeded by broad categories "Rock" and "Experimental" - but that wimpy sensitive cardigan wearing twee indie-pop scene needs it's own category - as it fits neither.

this guide though does miss out: Hip Hop/ Rap !

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Monday, 8 September 2003 17:57 (twenty-one years ago)

there may as well be no "experimental".

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 8 September 2003 17:58 (twenty-one years ago)

...but RJG i think they are referring to the culture of "The Wire" magazine? that supports experimental music ...that is distinct from trad songs rock, chart pop and mainstream club culture of radio 1/ibiza.

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Monday, 8 September 2003 18:02 (twenty-one years ago)

OK, there may as well be no "anything".

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 8 September 2003 18:03 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm guessing that the UK's current contribution to hip-hop is not seen as being worthy of comment. Ditto dancehall and reggae. Ditto indie ;)

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 8 September 2003 18:16 (twenty-one years ago)

I think this is written for recent immigrants, who may not be that impressed with the UK's contribution to dancehall.

― teeny (teeny), Monday, 8 September 2003 18:29 (twenty-one years ago)

you don't think it's an attempt to make the UK less attractive to asylum seekers?

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 8 September 2003 18:34 (twenty-one years ago)

ooh, good point.

― teeny (teeny), Monday, 8 September 2003 18:39 (twenty-one years ago)

it's interesting that UK Garage is considered so separate from the Dance multi-verse. I doubt this would've happened with Jungle/Drum n' Bass in the past.

― stevem (blueski), Monday, 8 September 2003 18:41 (twenty-one years ago)

esp. as Audio Bullys are a listenable selection in Dance but a few of their tracks align with perception of 'Uk Garage' quite comfortably

― stevem (blueski), Monday, 8 September 2003 18:42 (twenty-one years ago)

....but ...elsewhere on the BBC website...jungle/ drum n bass .. is treated different from "Dance" on BBC Music Styles, it's in wiv "Urban"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Monday, 8 September 2003 18:50 (twenty-one years ago)

With nothing for hip hop, any kind of reggae or indie, Tim may as well leave the country.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 8 September 2003 18:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually I found the brutal simplicity of this categorisation quite useful. It explained to me why I drift ever closer to the 'experimental' category: because there's a big gap between pop and rock (with pop being for kids and rock for their boring dads) and any kind of creative 'left field'.

So 'experimental' is the only vital left-field option currently available, with indie, loungecore, alt-ironic, art rock, post-rock, avant pop, industrial, goth, punk etc all vanished. 'Experimental', meanwhile, flourishes, with radio shows (Mixing It), magazines (Wire), clubs (Sprawl), newsletters (Hertz-lion), shops (Monorail in Glasgow), radio stations (Resonance)...

Precisely because of the industry's massive conformism and the collapse of the 'decent, half-way creative middle ground' exemplified by crossover 80s indie, the anything-goes experimental fringe is currently flourishing. There is exaggeration and polarisation going on as artists and listeners, unable to find middle ground, head further towards oddity and eccentricity.

― Momus (Momus), Monday, 8 September 2003 18:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Momus is once again perceptively ...right !

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Monday, 8 September 2003 19:02 (twenty-one years ago)

I'd add that the more the mainstream industry obsesses on marketing and demographics ('never mind the quality, feel the width!'), the more the fringe obsesses on texture and sound ('never mind the width, feel the quality!'). They're two aspects of the same process, which is essentially capitalism's simultaneous tendency to both disregard and fetishise what it sells.

(There's a good Brecht song that goes 'Don't ask me what wheat is, don't ask me my advice, I've no idea what wheat is, all I can say is its price'. But we'd have to add, 'But it's unique and amazing, whatever it is.')

― Momus (Momus), Monday, 8 September 2003 19:19 (twenty-one years ago)

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