Taking Sides: Garage vs Garage vs Garage

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Hmmm. Battle Royal or Handicap match? Battle Royal I think. US Garage (ROCK style) vs US Garage (Paradise Garage style) vs UK Garage (US Garage style). ILM has been fucking rockist (not necessarily bad word - just pisses me off because I'm poppist and not afraid to say that I'd class all three types of garage as pop) lately so judge this one on your rockist terms if you like. Why is one better than the others (bundle different flavours of each garage in with each other - don't tell me "You forgot French Garage" or something) and why do you hate that particular type of garage?

If you don't like any dance music at all, this is your thread.

― Greg, Monday, 23 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh, and is Garage the UK equivalent of hip hop, as has been suggested? See also: *NSYNC pissing about with "Two... Step!" on their new album cf. British boybands using hip hop.

― Greg, Monday, 23 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

What if you do like it?

Thanks to things like the Nuggets box and all, I have more US rock garage than anything else, I'm guessing. What I do have of the Paradise Garage and modern UK styles, however, also has its definite appeal, though I can't proclaim myself to be perfectly conversant with sounds or styles. I don't find any genre to be particularly/universally 'better' than another -- as with all things, there's wank and there's way cool stuff, mang. Give me feedback, give me bass pulses, just entertain me or catch my attention! Otherwise don't bother.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 23 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Funny, all are good to dance to. "Garage" = secret party!

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 23 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I love Garage. I don't think I'd recognise Garage if it bit my ass. I don't care much for Garage.

― duane zarakov, Monday, 23 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't understand the question. Or rather, I understand it, but I don't understand any of the other stuff Greg is saying.

― the pineduck, Tuesday, 24 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

what is UK Garage anyway, have i heard it? i still don't know. has it been on the radio here yet?

― duane, Tuesday, 24 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

what is UK Garage, anyway? i still don't even know. have i heard any? what're songs that would've been on the radio that are it?

― duane, Tuesday, 24 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

or to put that another way, Anyway what is UK Garage? have I already heard it? can you give me examples...sorry, the 1st time I did that was by mistake.

― duane, Tuesday, 24 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

PARADISE GARAGE PARADISE GARAGE! Yes this is a great term and should go into common usage ASAP because I fuckin' love the stuff and you can't say you're into 'garage' in London without people thinking you mean that EVIL EVIL shit going by the name UK Garage (Oxide & Neutrino give great interview though! I'm taking advantage of Greg's 'use rockist terms if you like' clause here!) Paradise Garage = if house sounded as good as the creators thought it did. And it's not a bunch of boring goateed hooded faux-estuarian joint-held-one- side-of-mouth arse like techno. Larry Levan is the world's most unsung genius and will be remembered along with Moroder long after the 'Detroit pioneers' are footnotes! Is it clear where I stand yet?

― dave q, Tuesday, 24 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

US garage-rock - cool for being the point of connection between Van Morrison, Alice Cooper, and Mark E Smith, and the most hysterically hyperbolic Stones rips ever

― dave q, Tuesday, 24 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I mean, "Double Yellow Line" is to "Under My Thumb" what 'Cannibal Holocaust' is to "A Modest Proposal"

― dave q, Tuesday, 24 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i've liked garage for quite a long time, esp the seeds

i've been into garage for a while too, but sadly don't have enough of it, but the larry levan and david mancuso comps have some great stuff on (esp willie colon track). would like to get more of this

of course, living in the uk, means you get to hear a lot of garage. i love this stuff. sweet female attitude's flowers is probably still my fave pop/garage crossover, but the last couple years have provided some great singles

― gareth, Tuesday, 24 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If some of you want to hear some UK garage and find out what it is try Uptown records and

Tracer - that's as much down to the simple rule that the spirit of innovative music/scenes cannot usually be captured or preserved by paying homage to their strict musical form. The people who would mash up various contemporary styles like that probably wouldn't consider themselves to be honouring a tradition.

BTW:

Garage - I reckon I'd like it, but I've yet to take the plunge and buy a Nuggets compilation.

Garage - Like the earlier eclectic stuff and the brief creative resurgence from the beginning of the nineties eg. Phuture's work on Strictly Rhythm. Music from the last half-decade or so can be very hit & miss, though Masters At Work = obvious classic.

Garage - duh, love it. Haven't heard as much recently though 'cos Napster's gone, I go out less frequently and it's difficult convincing myself to shell out for more compilations when I already have 12 or so.

Quick recommendation for all the foo's: Todd Edwards' "Tales From The Underground" mix cd from '98 or so nicely captures US Garage morphing into speed garage morphing into 2-step, so if anyone wants to know what the original link between the two forms of the "garage" was, it's a good place to start.

― Tim, Wednesday, 25 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Garage - dunno I have no history of listening to rock music. Don't think it likely I'll ever get into it.

Garage - yuck. Always hated soul singing and divas on House music. Sounded like bland pop music to me.

Garage - I used not to like it because I thought is was just Garage :-) BUT ...

one day in late 1999 I was in a novelty gift ship with a big sound system pumping out tight, bass heavy beats and a soulful woman singing over the top, a rising crechendo of one repeated word : "Joy, joy, joy" etc. And suddenly I got it!

THIS was the uplifting garage sound everyone talked about. And I wanted some. I rushed to the nearest record shop and bought a double mix CD of garage anthems complete with a whole nomenclature of victoriana : Artful Dodger, Doolally, Octahvia etc. Ok, on first listen I was disappointed not to find the track I'd heard in the shop. But I was soon won over, the funkiness of the 2-step rhythm, the sweet melodies, the thin toy trumpets, the unreal pitch shifted vocal science, the little syncopated synth chords that would suddenly turn tracks into a kind of techno-ska. I was a convert.

But then I read Reynolds on the new dark-side of garage. I rushed out to buy Zed Bias and Wookie. Hmmm. I wasn't so sure. All these wah bass sounds. Wasn't this just a return to bad techno?

And then suddenly, two years later, I return to the UK and garage is transformed again into something totally different : a new generation of UK rap. But excitingly, UK's version of the faster, bouncier, dirty south hip-hop of Atlanta, Miami and New Orleans : Outkast, Timbaland, Three6 Mafia. (So Solid are especially like Three6 Mafia.) Proud, clattery, 808 beats. Miniscule synth sounds. And ... my God an obsession with wealth and hataz! "Mega? Down Mile End? Blinging?"

(Fourteen years ago I lived down the road from Mile End! The lunacy of the image is hilarious! But I still love it.)

The Streets, borrowing an attitude from 2 Tone and Ian Dury, brings a conscious ska dimension and cockney (estuary) humour to the new garage rap. This is the freshest UK development on hip-hop since Tricky burst out of the Massive Attack format.

So what the hell is UK Garage? Anything! Next year I expect it to be transformed into soca, or following Basement Jaxx "Where's Your Head At" and "I Want You" into a genuine synthesis with "garage punk" The ska connection will smooth this path too. (I'm already sampling The Slits and trying them over 2-step beats :-)

Bujt I never did discover what the "joy, joy, joy" song was. Anyone know?

― phil, Monday, 27 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)