"Most dance reviews, when you boil them down, all they're saying is 'this is a funky record'. Or that the guy/gal reviewing it finds it funky which doesn't even tell you whether you'd find it funky. "

I guess I mean "dance" reviews vs. "home listening" reviews

great because it posed something of a challenge and still does - and i like to hear people talk about and describe the music more (it can often be more interesting than the lyrics after all) which dance music tends to suggest/demand of them

I thought "Push Upstairs" was as accessible as Underworld got. I'm willing to admit that I don't know what I'm talking about, tho, because I live in the middle of a cornfield.

Dance music (at least in the sense of underground techno) moves too quickly and is too faceless and samey to really write about in depth. Say you get a record that sounds like jeff mills, you say it is a mills'y banger with a banging tribal b-side that will rip a floor apart.

or do you write a 12 paragraph essay about it is similiar to The Bells but the lead sound is a little different, and the 909 hi-hat pattern is slightly different. Real dance music, of the face moving faceless underground 12" variety cannot really be written about because there is nothing to latch onto. You can only say whether or not this record is a good example of the genre.

Dance cannot be sold like Rock. Rock is sold based on personality, you cannot write about pseudonym X in the same way you can write about Bruce Springsteen. There is no history, no story, no narrative or direct progress that can be traced directly from the records themselves.

They are about as much of a work of art as the hammer that is sitting on the shelf of the corner hardware store. Music in dance culture is consumed differently from rock. The underground dance 12" is not the work of an artist; it is conceived and executed as a functionalist object. It is not meant to be considered or revered, it exists to do its' job until the next record comes along that can do the same job better.

It is not a music that lends itself to literature. You either feel it or you don't. Most of it all works on the same underlying structure, and genre pieces are meant to be very slight variations on the common theme. Callum is right, all DJ oriented dance music sounds the same. It is supposed to, that is why it is DJ oriented. If it doesn’t, it will not sell, because DJ’s do not want it.

Having said all this, please note that I am not some rockist asshole who thinks dance music is not "real" music. I have paid more than my fair share of dues in a particular subsection of that scene. The techno 12" does what it does; you either feel it or you don’t. It either rocks the crowd or it doesn’t, bottom line. It is not meant to have stanza after stanza lavished upon it, it is either good or bad, and that is all there is time for.

How would you define underground? Non commercial? Cult? Not enjoying popular success? What happens if an undeground hit becomes popular. Do we still enjoy it. How does the "rarity" or "general availability" interfere with our tastes?

I am struggling with this question myself, so this is not an ill remark.

Check my page on the subject at http://www.jahsonic.com/Fringe.html .

Jan Geerinck

I don't think this is particularly true, to be honest, especially when you take into account the myriad sub-genres and sounds and approaches and moods that dance music evokes. It's not broken down so cleanly into "this is/isn't funky".

I think, especially recently with all that new garage stuff, this is more applicable to rock music (substitute "this is funky" with "this rocks"), with possibly a few more references to hair.

sounds very defeatist to me.