make predictions about what will be in/win magazines' end of year polls - 2003...

the key is the shock-cut silence between the 'big beat' beats. offends only the virtuous! if that little affront to the Forces of Tasteful Progess gives you a sour-lemonade face then, well, you know which side you're on i guess.

I guess you're talking abt dance music in the 'divorce music from dancing' (though every record creates some kind of psysiological reaction but it may not lead to what we know as dancing): even so, surely its reasonable to make the argument that, as record is released for home consumption (that is one of its functions) (passive listening) then it may not work as that.

The mistake is concretizing "danceability" into a definite property rather than a tendency that is present in varying (and ocasionally indectable) amounts in all music. Even my depiction just then is wrong because it suggests you can somehow quantify the amount of danceability of any given music; styles of music which often seem impossible to dance to from an outsider's perspective (gabba, drum & bass etc.) would suggest that it's actually about a level of compatability between the music and the dancer's body. ie. danceability is not a property, but praxis, something we do. It's like there's a hermeneutic horizon where the technical properties of the music mesh with the dancer's ability to interpret those properties physically.

I heart Tim and Geeta, btw.

Why? It is, after all, the best thing they've done since "OK Computer"

Here's the thing I don't understand....you guys are acting like he just took the beat from Run DMC (re:I forget the name of the original sample..."take me to the mardi gras"?) and used it flat out...but he didn't. He worked it into the music and incredibly forward thinking beats that he'd already created in a clever and creative way. He's not just biting, he's really using it to great effect. When I hear those drums, I immediately think "Peter Piper," and its a really cool affect. A call of nostalgia that fits Missy's vibe perfectly. I mean, look at her videos; her whole steez is that she's a new millenium b-girl, with style from the 80s plus some sort of futuristic shit goin on.....

Ha ha Mitch I was thinking of bringing up Since I Left You too (especially the bit with the bassline from "Holiday") but I pheared that it would be a huge invitation for Chris and Rollie to miss the point again.

Rollie's position wrt to sampling is the very essence of Mark S's reformulation of "rockism" - wherein the problem with such a position is that it ultimately undermines the fundamental elements of the style it seeks to defend. Just as rockist approach wrt rock music impliedly casts rock as inferior to classical/jazz etc, Rollie's demand for new/obscure samples adopts the same line of thinking which considers the act of sampling itself to be inherently uncreative; after all, the act of sampling is fundamentally about using bits of music that already exist, both materially and in the memory of music listeners.

As ddrake points out, Timbaland/Missy's new-found love of sampling is a direct corollary to their emphasis on unusual production approaches. Like the other factors which tend to induce a return to sampling (new genre, new technology, new performance style), their old skoolism is all about recontextualising the old within the context of the new. I don't think it's really feasible to maintain that tracks like "Gossip Folks" or "Play That Beat" or even "Bring The Pain" sound the same as the tracks they're referencing.

Obv. we can boil this whole argument down to whether you choose to care about which samples are being used or what's being done with (and against, and around, and alongside) them. In my opinion, discussing Missy entirely in terms of which samples she uses is the equivalent of pointing at someone in the street and saying "Oh my God, did you realise that underneath your clothes you're entirely naked!?!"

"Still, I see what you say about the purpose of Under Construction. But what's the point of her seemingly taking the same approach with this new album? Or Timbaland with his and Magoo's Under Construction 2 album?"

The tracks I've heard from Under Construction 2 seem to run the gamut of Timbaland's styles - Indian, electro-bass etc. Retro is just another style he can throw into the ring. Meanwhile the tracks I've heard from This is not a Test (which is not many, and then only once) don't seem explicitly old-skool so much as deliberately raw and unpolished: lots of enormous farting bass and really chunky beats, it's actually kinda unplaceable, like EPMD meets Public Enemy meets current crunk (and this is ignoring the obvious example of "Pass That Dutch", which stills more from the Diwali riddim than anything else)*. I'm not sure if the point is really "retro" anymore so much as loud, obnoxious club music. I suspect that Missy wants to downplay the production skillzor side of the equation in order to focus attention on her (increasingly surrealistic/silly) MCing, ie. continuing the process that began with "Work It". Certainly she seems to be moving away from the R&B side of things; whereas before she pitched herself between Lil Kim and Aaliyah now she seems to be pitching herself between Fatman Scoop and Busta Rhymes.

* I have to assume that you guys would absolutely detest Ol' Dirty Bastard's "Welcome Home" - that's like fifth-hand pillaging going on!

So how about, say, Soho's "Hippy Chick" or Credit To The Nation's "Call It What You Want" then? Smacks of lazy bandwagon-jumping tokenism from where I'm sat.

Uh, quite.

I love "Hippy Chick"! Top tune!

Picking up from what Tim was saying, has Missy become a much better MC since 'Miss E', or is it me? The rhymes on 'Work It' and 'Pass That Dutch' are more interesting than 'Get Ur Freak On' by a long shot.

Probably yes - but I agree with Matos that this doesn't necessarily make the records better. Perhaps "Get Ur Freak On" and "Lick Shots" work as great pop records because Missy knew she wasn't a brilliant MC and realised she had to compensate for that in other ways. Like, the problem with "Pass That Dutch" is that Missy evidently thinks she's good enough to get away with releasing a first single without a chorus.

I'll also be really sad if she does abandon R&B, as I possibly prefer her in R&B mode - "Sock It 2 Me", "Sticking Chickens", "We Did It", "One Minute Man", "Play That Beat" etc. etc.

I agree, but the fact that there's no chorus *and* the groove is so tuneless (I don't mean that negatively) mean that it doesn't really stick in the head the way "Work It" or "Get Ur Freak On" did.

I suspect that This Is Not A Test might be the Da Real World to Under Construction's Supa Dupa Fly.

Tim, I thought ODB's 'Welcome Home' track was kind of uninspired. An obvious rush job, nothing really notable about it. I remember being glad that he still had the delivery going, but that's about it.

g--ff, there's a difference between a rock song being loose and unrestricted and a rap song being sloppily produced. This isn't my main argument.

I'm saying, why can't artists evoke previous musics while still utilizing their own outlets? This is why I feel like Under Construction is a boring nod to the past and something like Paul's Boutique winks at it's forefathers while still remaining almost fully forward-thinking and original.

Saying "Bring The Pain" on Under Construction isn't simply a rehash is strange to me. New lyrics, yes, different mood, yes, but how is it such a forward step? What influence is this giving? As long as I have the original artist on the track, it's cool for me to take the frame of a song. Excuse me while I call Sadat X about jumping punks and beatdowns. We have a hit to make.

Your choice of sampling is just a personal preference thing anyway: I prefer El-P freaking "Mexican Radio" by Wall of Voodoo for Cannibal Ox over someone building on top of "Paul Revere", regardless of how funky it is or what nostalgia is promotes. I'm not saying such uncreativity is wholly unenjoyable, I'm saying I like other methods more.

Fine, you like other methods more, but your subjective preference doesn't make El-P objectively creative and Timbaland/Missy objectively uncreative.

needless to say, the Sterling-Tim-Geeta front is OTM throughout this thread.

*sniff*

Radiohead has never been "African" in any way. But they, like all other bands, are best when they create melodies with verse and chorus, not just a phrase or two that are repeated endlessly. Repetition and minimalism always bores the listener.

Geir, this is really, really, really untrue if the listener is me.
Thus, it is untrue.

i'm really stumbling tho with the 'with you in that dress/my thoughts i confess/verge on dirty' bit