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OK, so if it's not garage then what the fuck is it?

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Blipment - sounds too much like wanky reynolds esque hack bukkake
Garage Rap - too bland and doesn't do the sounds justice, not all of it has rapping on it
Grime - 'grimy' means good and not all of it is grimy or good
UK Garage - why not? Others have rightly pointed out that when people like dizzee rascal were growing up they listened to redman, busta rhymes, southern bounce.. and the sound is pretty far removed from so solid/wookie/mj cole and the original chicago djs what started it. BUT just like in hip hop there are different sounds; premo funk loop boredom from the likes of j5, quannum and them lot; tinny high hat led bass madness from timbo, mannie fresh and them lot; and the heavier club banger type productions from just blaze, kanye and others. So why can't youngster, wiley and jammer exist under the same banner as wookie and mj cole? Admittedly, most of the crews from the ends (east london)-east connection, rolldeep, nasty, entertainment et al have denied making garage music (though i suspect this is more of a veiled attempt to remove themselves from so solid's ailing reign, thus dissing them in the process) but then every message board i read the kids call it garage, the kids i hear chattin on the number 10 through archway are calling it garage and my cousin and his mates who go to sidewinder and la costra nostra are calling it garage.

So come on learned music critics, what the fuck is it called?

― ssean, Wednesday, 2 July 2003 17:10 (twenty-two years ago)

just accept that there will never be a 100% satisfactory name for ANY dance genre as a whole

why not just divide them by spelling and pronunication? MJ Cole = GA-RARDGE, Rolldeep = GARRIDGE

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 2 July 2003 17:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Too be honest i couldn't care less what it's called, i'll always call it garage, but i've read alot of interesting arguments that talk about its relationship with hip hop, and i'm interested to find out what people think about the east london crews denial of the tag 'garage'. I should have made it more clear that it was a few posts on Freakytrigger, Jess's and other's blogs that provoked the question.

― ssean, Wednesday, 2 July 2003 17:40 (twenty-two years ago)

garage has no more a connection with hip hop than jungle did. although the connection is different in that with jungle it was the samples whereas with recent garage its more about the production methods and lyrical flow/references.

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 2 July 2003 17:51 (twenty-two years ago)

east london crews denial of the tag 'garage'

i dont think Shut Up & Dance were too keen on the 'jungle' tag initially either but that was likely down to the racist connotation thought to have hijacked the definition. i can't understand why the EL crews are that keen to distance themselves from the garage tag unless they're really not fans of the MJ Cole style stuff. certainly it seems for many of them their posture is more in line with contemporary U.S. hiphop tho.

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 2 July 2003 17:54 (twenty-two years ago)

So Solid and them denied being garage as well. Most of the Dizzee album sounds more like hip-hop, if you consider the tempo. Garage-hop?

― JoB (JoB), Thursday, 3 July 2003 07:43 (twenty-two years ago)

i just call it garage. IIRC the tempo of garage was going up so much at one point, that if you compare, say 'R U SLeeping' with, er...say that Pluto track 'Can I get a....' or even 'boo'..thats like, a 3 yr time differnce? maybe 4. anyway, the old stuff has to be pitched up so much to be at the right speed...so the dramatic shift down in tempo that has happened now (and that to me is the only real difference - or the only one worth considering - between roll deep and bump and flex), doesnt seem so dramatic by comparison.
anyway mny point is, that the term garage is elastic enough to encompass the two. also, this debate is like, 3 yrs old already.

remember the hate for oxide and neutrino? the garage 'council'? matt jam lamont moaning?

hearing dilemma on a mix cd alongside monstaboys' 'sorry' seems to cross a bridge that is just as wide as it would be between mj cole and wiley now.

― ambrose (ambrose), Thursday, 3 July 2003 08:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Is "8-bar" a style? Does it refer to this?

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Thursday, 3 July 2003 08:30 (twenty-two years ago)

When I interviewed him, Dizzee said he had been calling it g-r-h-y-m-e garage (except without the punctuation, obv). It's the ugliest word ever, but seems to work on some level.

― Chris Houghton (chrish), Thursday, 3 July 2003 09:13 (twenty-two years ago)

There is some point in changing the name though, cos it's not really dance music anymore, is it?

― Jacob (Jacob), Thursday, 3 July 2003 09:50 (twenty-two years ago)

what happened to "gutter garidge"? that summed it up for me, though I still call it UK Garage.

― phil jones (interstar), Thursday, 3 July 2003 12:13 (twenty-two years ago)

was this in reference to my "white blues" ---> "heavy metal" comment?

8-bar is indeed a style, although not the only one on the scene right now. (it's so named cuz it changes up bass and/or beats every 8-bars.)

― jess (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 3 July 2003 14:41 (twenty-two years ago)

I think one of the issues is that the scene is more split now than at any other stage - DJs like Timmi Magic from The Dreem Teem pretty much shy away from the new grimey stuff and play either speed garage or early 2-step. It's *this* shift rather than the changing style of the younger generation that would seem to encourage coining a term for the newer sound, in much the same way that the emergence of happy hardcore threw the distinction b/w the original hardcore sound and jungle into sharp relief.

Of course it's questionable at the moment whether either the older conservative crowd or the grimey producers are going to be able to find a large enough audience to make the split sustainable or meaningful. Until then I think garage is fine.

At the risk of repeating Jess, I think "8-bar" is meaningful in the same way that "2-step" is - it pinpoints a change in technical approaches to the music that is linked to but not synonymous with the changes in garage as a musical scene.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 4 July 2003 04:27 (twenty-two years ago)

this whole semantic thing is tricky bizness...i have a feeling some variation on grime, gutter, or 8-bar will eventually be regarded as the genres name, even if its after the fact...you had references to "jungle techno" and "hardcore jungle" as early as 91-92...the "semantic struggle" - to get all reynoldsian for a moment - is perhaps what subconsciously drove the scene (the official deciding point of "drum & bass" being perhaps the first sign of death, in the same way that the reversion to "uk garage" away from "2-step" was?)...maybe the music is always at its most exciting when its the most neologistically confused

― jess (dubplatestyle), Friday, 4 July 2003 05:57 (twenty-two years ago)

I think Jess is right, but I it's also important where a genre name stems from, inside or outside the scene. I think this style of garage has come to a point where the scene wants a new name for their style as much as pundits do. The mix of raw ambition and desire to exclude themselves from the old skool - it's our thing - will probably result in a need to rename the scene into something untainted by the past. But it seems that producers like Wiley and Jammer are already saying that what they are doing is not 8bar or grime, which suggests the scene is already heading the way of 'intelligence' and artisanship that led jungle to d&b.

― nebbesh (nebbesh), Friday, 4 July 2003 07:46 (twenty-two years ago)

it doesn't have a name yet.

why don't we all just wait for dizzee's lp to impact, wiley to finish his lp, and see where we are there.

one thing's for certain, if it does grow into a new style, it wont be the Reynolds and co who name it. well it shouldnt be anyway.

― martin (martin), Friday, 4 July 2003 21:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Wiley's working on an LP?

(when trying to describe this stuff to ppl in Auckland - usually "y'know, the new grimey guttah garridge, the MC stuff")

― Ess Kay (esskay), Friday, 4 July 2003 23:19 (twenty-two years ago)


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