Convince Me

(actually i think it does)

Dance music is the best form of music because it is the only kind to strive for a communal fantasy rather than a private one.

Also, you can dance to it.

Plus its clubs just hark back to days of Bacchus, old time pagan god worship, etc.

SO Tracer, why don't I not and say I did?

if you hav broad band let me send you some of the stuff my friends are writing, hopefully that will convince you.

Tracer, it would help if you identified what issues you have with the music beyond the relatively superficial negatives you mentioned - the "scene" (is any musical scene not shiteful in some aspects?), the cd covers etc. I'm assuming these annoyed you before your crisis too, so what is it that is only now failing to make up for these deficiencies?

PS. I hardly think Gonzales and Miss Kitten are the best apologists for current dance music - far worthier names are mentioned on this board on a daily basis.

PPS. I've never heard a satisfactory definition of "mindlessness" from anyone, ever.

i seem to remember you saying you liked Robert Armani. maybe to put that on will work. i'm not really sure how to answer this question, but Tim is most certainly correct regarding Miss Kittin.

I'm currently ALMOST convinced that there's nothing happening outside of 'dance' music (here I assume you mean electronica/techno/bleeps n'beats of whatever kind 'cos that's what *I* mean).

Of course plenty has happened with 'songs' and guitars in the past and I like lots of it. However it seems to be all up now.

How did dance music get to be so monotonous an undanceable? I find myself yawning at dance clubs because that repetitive beat gets so dull. Everyone in the place seems bored, even if they say they aren't: That "dancing" where you hold your arms in and your elbows bent at 90 degrees, fingers curled in, shift weight from one hip to the other... People look at you cross-eyed if you actually get into it. And the velvet ropes and the clipboard - please, that became stupid in 1979 and never recovered.
The music is not bad. The repetition is bad, and the scene is bullshit. A little synchopation every now & then might shake things up a bit.

Dr C's right, it's all over bar the odd broken string to clear up. I don't understand Hand's question, though. What could you want me to convince you of? My opinion of the music, unlike yours, has never changed.

Hm - how about:

My advice = don't listen to dance music.

You don't like that advice - therefore

You do like dance music after all. Hooray.

and what'ss the problem again?

Dance music = broad category, spanning house/2-step/jungle/happy hardcore, etc. Some (for ex. certain house, goa trance) certainly is hedonistic -- some is absolutely not. Tim's writings on techstep & reynolds' on gabba speak elegantly to this. So perhaps you're listening to the wrong kind of dance music? Also, don't got to a club. Stay home and dance w/yerself & some frienz.

Okay, thanks all for your concern.

To clarify my moaning: I'm talking specifically about what Tim calls the "relatively superficial negatives" about dance music. What the club is like. What the mood is like. What it seems like everyone expects to get out of it. These things (for me) are actually central to the music and my enjoyment of it. Dance music more than any other perhaps depends on context. What the KLF said - that 3 different producers could come out with a track that was nothing but an unreverbed Roland bass drum at 120 bpm, and the internecine debates about which was betta would rage for months. Cause each one would come out on a diff label, get played by diff DJs, have diff cover art (!), become associated with diff scenes and hence share diff "values".

I think I am just dispirited by the overwhelming conservativism of my crowd on Wednesday. Everybody wants the hits. "Play When Doves Cry!" - and I imagine that when Purple Rain was a new album they'd be complaining about it and asking for "Funkytown". Maybe it's that damn Simon Reynolds. Just when I'd found what I thort was best klubb in world, Bang the Party, at Frank's Lounge, where no one dresses up and everyone's sweaty, and the DJ sings along (poorly) with the record, and the guys get the conga drums out, and everyone's clapping, and they play D'Angelo inbetween Nervous white labels, Simon has to go write an article in the Voice about the essential conservativism of the actual music involved. That it looks back instead of forward. That what felt like revolutionary aspects of rave (disjointed samples, unnerving sounds, synthetic pleasures) are abandoned or ignored by this scene, which would really rather just live in Paradise Garage-Land forever, before MIDI took over. Hence my interest in Ladomat and the International Deejay Gigolos and Miss Kittin and Matthew Herbert, who seem like they've got a prankish spirit to go along with their dancing, but all of whom feel (to me) to lack some crucial warmth, or friendliness. It's hard to imagine Frank's Lounge jumping, in their tank tops and Converse hi-tops, to Miss Kittin, much less Ken Ishii. Which bums me out cause that's the only place I really like to dance.

Sterl - YES to the front room action. Absolutely. But that is like a warm-up. I want to feel connected to people I don't know. One reason why rock shows are such a chore - everyone is so determined not to make eye contact.

dance music - the activity - seems pulled in two directions - backwards and forwards - and, in another axis (7th Ave?), pulled either glamourous or gritty. Where is forward + gritty? I have no doubt it's there, but I need you to push me in the right direction.

No one has come close yet to mounting an argument in favor of this vast mountain of plastic, this ritual weekly experience. Everyone's saying how great it is but no one's saying why.

I'm not. I'm saying it's bad and you should put it behind you.

"How did dance music get to be so monotonous an undanceable? I find myself yawning at dance clubs because that repetitive beat gets so dull. Everyone in the place seems bored, even if they say they aren't: That "dancing" where you hold your arms in and your elbows bent at 90 degrees, fingers curled in, shift weight from one hip to the other... "

The opposite of this type of electronica you seem to be describing, of course, is the sort of 'pop' dance music described in Tracer Hand's post ("Play When Doves Cry!") ... and the unfortunately limited amount of songs from any genre or decade .. i.e. 80's nights near-inevitably always playing the same tired rehash. Both trends are disappointing, but inevitable.

I'd feel more prepared to accept Tracer Hand's challenge if the subject had been described a bit more clearly. I'm assuming dance music means electronica/techno .. ? I'm in the U.S., and I get sick of the whole raver environment too .. especially since so few kids at clubs I go to these days seem to really know how to dance. It's not the robotic pivot Dave225 described in his post above, it's more freeform but equally annoying. Some kid will jump up, arms all linked together like he's trying to breakdance, and flop around in circles for about a minute or two of a drum-and-bass song, or house -- and then sit back against the wall again. I'm guessing it's a consequence of minds frazzled by any number of drugs, but the attention span/lack of physical fitness is so disappointing. What's the point of going to a club if you're going to twist and turn so hard that you can't keep up a minute later? Silly..

I don't know what kind of clubs you all attend. Supporting experimental nights is very important, I think ... they're hard to find, but you have to search out the IDM nights, the clubs that actually play well-programmed electronica (of the Orbital/Orb/Underworld variety, or the more downtempo Coldcut/Ninja Tune stylings with beats that actually change time signatures! *gasp*) ... find the clubs that play 60's garage rock, or mod music ...

most of all, I'd suggest an industrial night. Industrial often falls under the genre 'electronica,' but is overlooked ... and there's nothing quite like stomping around a club as incredibly loud bass thumps aggressively, cold cybernetic grooves and people thrashing about ... a bit of a change from most people's clubbing environments, but it gives a good kick in the ass to both the endless, repetitive rave crap and the 'top-40-random-play' of pop nights. The only problem is that the industrial scene has been taken over in the last few years by EBM music, which is sort of like watered-down industrial or harder synthpop. Alot of it is total crap, but there are some occasional gems, like VNV Nation, who have made some of the best synthpop I've ever heard, rivaling New Order, Depeche Mode, etc..

Chris.

100% of the fun I've ever had dancing at clubs or parties or whatever involved music other than electronic deejay stuff (actually, part of the problem is at clubs where this stuff is playing, almost no-one ever seems to be dancing -- and the deejays never seem to care much anyway...it seems like a very jaded scene). I hate industrial music for the most part, but I've had fun at industrial clubs. Ditto: "mod", new-wave, hip-hop, rock, glam, punk, worldbeat/bhangra, r&b, pop, etc.

On a tangential note, is the reason "club" based music has never taken off in the US due to the fact that it's not accessible to teenagers (you generally have to be over 21 to get into clubs)? Plus the fact that clubs generally only exist in cities, and that probably 95% of the teenagers in this country live either in the suburbs or in the middle of nowhere.

Tracer, I thought Simon Reynolds liked the club too, just felt guilty for doing so. Anyway, I really think you're focusing too much on negatives that shouldn't be that pressing - of course record covers, DJs and audiences are integral to dance as a culture, but the attendant culture surrounding any musical scene is usually crap at least half the time. Overriding this is the fact that there's too much impossibly great music to even keep track of.

Tracer, have you been keeping track of German tech-house - stuff on Kompakt, Playhouse, Force Tracks, Perlon etc? This stuff is perfectly designed for both home-listening and play, as I realised when I went to see Isolee and Ricardo Villalobos play last week: simultaneously warm and cool, the music sounded both monolithic and glittering as it poured out of the speakers. Isolee especially seemed to find some impossibly beautiful middle ground between acid house and dub that was positively entrancing (and Kompakt's compilations have the best cover-art ever).

And as Sterling pointed out, "dance music" encompasses an astonishingly broad array of styles, so you've got an awful lot ot choose from before you hit the bottom of the well. Drum and bass is always enjoyable, and even though the music's less brilliant these days it still sounds great in clubs. From what I've heard, New York is the best place for 2-step in the world right now - and I certainly share your fondness for backwards-looking house nights. I also don't know about New York but in Melbourne "soundsystem" nights (encompassing reggae, dub, dancehall and bits of jungle and 2-step) are currently taking off, and there's now even a weird techno-r&b hybrid night that started last week that I very much look forward to visiting.

Musically, I can recommend the aforementioned tech-house (especially Luomo, who is as warm and discofied as you could wish for), 2-step (for a taste of this year's batch try Ministry of Sound's Ayia Napa: the Album, 2001 comp. mixed by Masterstepz) and a wealth of IDM (current favourite being Jan Jelinek) for starters, but as I said there's a near-infinite amount of good music to sort through.

P.S. I do sympathise with your "posse" situation - as no-one I know particularly likes dancing, I either go to clubs by myself or feel guilty for putting my boyfriend through it.

ach I've got a posse they're just useless. :) i've actually got it figured out: dance music has sucked ever since they put in the back garden at Frank's, and the sign that says "PLEASE No Drugs Upstairs".

you know, i really really like the d. diggler album.

(If Tracer has it all figured out, then y'all have about one hour to convince me NOT to sell "XTMNTR" and "The Holy Bible")

dance music is strict tempo victor sylvester foxtrot shit or the jackson five who still rule. i dance to slayer and captain beefheart and squarepusher. it's about time someone bombed ibiza and bloody 'napa. maybe osama bin laden will if only cos he realises how corrupt & pointless & evil all that galloping black beauty "trance music" & hard / deep / smooth / shit house uk garage indeed. where does osama bin laden keep his armies??/ up his sleevies ahahahahahahah ahahahahahah

Is Osama Bin Laden the new Hitler of discussion groups?