Is dance music starting to have a heritage as potentially irritating as that of rock music?

always. but then also, what do you mean by dance music? treating it as a 'whole' the idea of crisis is ludicrous (really the fear is 'i've latched onto scene x' and i don't want to have thrown my lot in with the wrong scene - fear that scene y is better)

speaking for sub genres, i think it is a lot easier to to pick highs and declines (jungle 94, speed garage 97, bleep'n'bass 91 etc etc), the decline of one sub-genre matched by the rise of another - or the metamorposis between

but yes, its not so much that dance music has grown itself a heritage (although, of course, it has) but also that its rediscovering the roots and strands, so its extending its heritage backwards (the year zero of 87 theory seems to be on the wane now)

"I thought that the simplest explanation for the success of School Disco was that the clubbing generation have gotten old enough to start getting hits of nostalgia; the exhaustion with the superclubs is not so much an exhaustion with dj culture (though that may well be part of it) but an exhaustion with the new, which doesn't ever match up to the rose-tinted glasses of a) the good ol' days or b) the songs of one's youth. The reason it's a club event and not a pub or a rock concert is that this audience have been clubbing all their lives and are used to it now.

The superclubs are also on the decline because the lines of people's tastes are increasingly demarcated - people go out to jungle nights or garage nights or tech-house nights or hard house nights or all four over a weekend, but there's no longer the unified audience to fill a venue like Cream, and there won't be until another sound garners the same mass culture appeal that the second wave of trance had."

But, there was something about the sight of the hordes of three-wheeled pram pushing 30-something media professionals chowing down on organic vegeburgers and sitting around listening to Plaid that chilled my soul.

Musically, dance is getting better all the time, as Tracer says. Culturally it's in trouble because it just isn't naughty anymore. The Big Chill was enough to confirm for me that i never want to go to a festival again for fear of ending up as the male equivalent of those middle-aged women wearing angel wings when they really shouldn't be. And all the dance writers are similarly convinced somehow that dance music is on the cusp of becoming desperately uncool and they want a get-out clause.

That one paragraph says so many things that are wrong that I had to read it twice to make sure that I wasn't hallucinating it.

so it looks like we're going to see more of the same, dynamic dance music with fx galore that could probably have been made in the 90s but was actually made last week. this is no big deal as the likes of FC Kahuna have made good strong primarily dance albums this year. but listen to the new Underworld album and you feel they're not offering anything new, just more of the same - pleasant as it may be but no longer that sense of newness. thats progress i guess. but just where and how do things progress now? or are we regressing?

The fact is dance music itself is fine, it's this weight of crossover dance "giants" that's causing the constant insecurity and self assessment. Are we ok? Was it better then?

It's ironic how like someone banging pills the whole thing is, am I fucked up now? God I swore I was feeling happier 10 minutes ago? Was I? Shit maybe not, I don't know. Does everyone think I'm an idiot?

And so on and so on. Dance music is fine, it just needs to believe in itself a little more.

Dance music is so over. There is still good stuff coming out, but no new ideas.

But please resist the 1975/we need a new punk comparisons. So rockist ;)

I find that in Fatboy's stuff too - he writes that shit in his sleep. Sounds almost... cynical, to me. And it makes me wonder whether the 250,000 who pitched up on Brighton beach just wanted an excuse to get high in the sun on a slow weekend or whether the Fatboy can draw that many people on his name... And if so, what do they want from him?

I suppose what I'm askin' myself is what do people want from Dance now? All this bullshit in the press about Garage Rock and all is surely because the rockers wanna believe the guitar hasn't expired. It's that inherent belief or faith, maybe, that rock's lovers and indeed detractors would say permeates the rock fan's musical outlook. And it's pushing everybody to hype hype hype anyone who piks up a six stringer and pounds out a few tinny riffs. With dance, I dunno, is it any different? I'm just askin' man...

Just cos you didn't like the last fucking Chems record, or Fatboy Slim isn't as good as he used to be is hardly cause that dance is dying. I mean it's my fault for starting a thread I now feel only about 5 people can talk sensibly about anyway, bands who make albums are nothing to do with the dance music I'm talking about. I'm talking about clubbing, and it clearly isn't dead, by any means, as I say it's about singles and I can name a whole load of great singles, more interesting than the albums anyway.

The problem is that with the lack of a massive crossover band to accompany all the great underground stuff, people just don't get the current scene in the slightest. In the past to some extent the big artists were a reflection of the underground, if not always a vivid one, now however club dance music and commercial album dance music is totally fucking different.

To be honest, I know plenty Fatboy fans, or Underworld fans, or Orbital fans, they're all my friends, but I can't imagine them listening to a recent house mix album and really liking it.

And Roger, people came to see Fatboy DJ, he's never done a live set before in his life, I reckon the reason they went is that he has a reputation as a brilliant DJ and he is the most crowd pleasing all around good guy I play anything jock around nowadays. Bring your girlfriend, bring your wife, bring your fucking kids, Fatboy=universal appeal through the medium of good poppy house music.

Crossover dance might be dead! Oh damn, how awful that's three less albums a year in my stereo.....

I'd love to hear Ronan's thoughts (and everyone's) on this.

Just saw your post Michaelangelo, as I finished this one. I guess I have no nostalgia to work with for rave so I'd say that Weak Become Heroes is just a celebration of rave and shudder ecstacy culture. The way I feel about it (the xpress2 or ashley beadle or whoever remix) is that it is the greatest and most accurate artistic expression of how I love clubbing, and what a night out clubbing involves. Coupled with the video it's like the essential guide.

It worries me that my favourite song of the year is "Lazy", I mean I could have at least picked some techno or something obscure, it's just not trendy at all. Ahem.

eh? when was this not the case exactly?

matos, i think this is nothing new either, nostalgia has always been high up in club culture

and i have no idea what rock bands like underworld and the chemical brothers and fatboy slim have to do with anything anyway

you mean the way fans of those groups ALREADY TALK ABOUT THEM, don't you?

I think there are fans of those groups who might do that, but in general I don't think it's too bad yet. I realise nostalgia has always been around in dance but now it's coupled with this "crisis" it seems ten times worse. Not only was it better in the old days, there now is no future either apparently.

Yes that's right, nostalgia aint as good as it used to be.

If we can, then let me say that in terms of 12"'s, dance music is more vital, in terms of the amount of quality releases, then it ever has been. This seems to actually create a problem, because there is less immediacy when going to the store to shop. I can imagine that when house or d&b or whatever was new, all the tracks, being so fresh and exciting, seemed good, and there was less need to be as selective, and hence objective and distanced, from the music. Part of the nostalgia may be for the excitement felt by those who shopped when, for instance, acid house came to England. They may have had only ten or twenty records to choose from, and no back catalog to pore over.

As for the club scene, clubbing has been commodified, and it is harder to find the personally transcendant and socially trasgressive moments that make the culture meaningful They are still there however, and sometimes the bullshit and beauty coexist.

A good example of this is a trip I made to Boston's Avalon/Axis club last winter. For those many who don't know, Avalon is THE super/stupor club of Boston, and Axis is the smaller club nextdoor that is connected. One of the headliners was Dubfire from Deep Dish, and I assumed that he would be playing in the main room. I walked in and it was a miserable scene. Lame old men trying to hit on cheesy young girls from the suburbs is not my idea of a great night out. After a while, feeling that dance music was over and that I had wasted my money buying turntables, I walked into the other room and found Dubfire spinning dark, dirty, tribal tech-house for a great, sweaty crowd. Almost everyone in the room was dancing, and there was little of the meat-market feel of the other room. It turned out to be one of the best nights out I had ever had.

As for the potential for an irratating heritage, I think that dance heritage will never be as bothersome. Partially this is due to the fact that the music is more important than the lyrics. If one finds Derrick May pretentious, one can still enjoy his music on the dancefloor. If one finds Bob Dylan pretentious, it is much more difficult to listen to his music. And saying "I don't like Bob Dylan" to the average canon-enforcing rockcrit will always be more blasphemous (to him/her) than saying "I don't like Derrick May" to the average canon-enforcing dancecrit.

If you want to alienate the majority of listeners from a genre, declaring yourself "Ronan Fitzgerald, PhD in Danceology" is probably the best way. 'Sorry man, you just don't get it, and I'm not even going to WASTE my BREATH on you because my time is so precious that to discuss it with you would ruin my chances of writing the definitive book on the synth patches in xxx deleted Orbital b-side?'

Maybe the answer to your question is in the answers you decided weren't by those five people whose responses are worthy of your time: because the Chems and Fatboys of the world have released albums that are a) dance oriented; and b) still sounding pretty good several years after their relase. While these album artists might not be your idea of the Clubbing Scene, they certainly came out of it, hence the growing disappointment when The Single Of The Week simply isn't as good as the stack of tapes you've got sitting in your car, something that was less likely to happen when the idea of a 'dance album' that wasn't a compilation would never have been expected to reach a wide audience.

!!!! Ronan, I want to live in your world.

Your point seems to be that those bands are better than the entire scene, based on the fact that they make albums and not just one off singles, or compilations of one off singles.

(It's true though Dan!)

Can you tell me more about that, actually? Terrastock just got moved there. Good ventilation, places to sit, etc.?

(I rarely declare myself Ronan Fitzgerald PHD in anything so I think I can get away with it once)

Regarding places to sit, I imagine that there will be more on a non-dance night. I think Avalon is a little cooler temp. wise than Axis, but this may have something to do with the anecdote above. :-)

I go to school near Boston and am interested in Terrastock, if only because of the hype on ILM. Could you maybe tell me more about the bands on the appropriate thread? Thanks!

That's fine if that's what you really think (and I think you're not giving ILM's dance taste enough credit) but if you're really worried about the possibility of alienating future audiences with a Dance Canon, then you probably shouldn't complain that 'none of you people really know what's going on, only I do.' You specifically said that you dislike Hendrix not for his music, but for what he has come to represent (ie a certain form of snobbery against new music - "nothing new could ever be this good"). But as soon as you start looking down on people who are enthusiastic but don't know as much as you do, you're separating yourself into an elite group. Those other people will rightly be pissed off, as you once were at rock fans, and go off and do their own thing. My point here is not about albumdance vs. clubberdance, it is that canons are based on snobbery, and you were being a colossal snob back there. If people post ill-advisedly on your threads, perhaps you'd be better off ignoring them or gently pointing them in the right direction, instead of pissing and moaning about how you're surrounded by imbeciles.

Your point seems to be that those bands are better than the entire scene, based on the fact that they make albums and not just one off singles, or compilations of one off singles.

What I was trying to say was that to have a music with no 'hierarchy' or 'overbearing accepted opinion', you need a certain degree of disposability. Singles used to be more disposable, not because they weren't as good then but simply because they were produced in smaller quantitites and were allowed to go out of print. Dance mags didn't spend the majority of their time talking about the 12"es of last year or whenever because they became rare and most people either couldn't get them or didn't have them in the first place and couldn't find them any more. When albums by the Chems and Fatboy Slim came out and got huge (funded by record companies that can afford to keep these albums in print long after their release), they were no longer disposable. So, now that a lot of people have the same four or five albums in their collection (as opposed to the relative few who might have kept the same 12"es from back in the day), the mags know that talking about older things that most of their readers know and like will sell more issues than talking about newer things, which are by their very nature somewhat hit or miss.

Anyhow I don't think people reading dance mags are all looking to see stuff about Chems and Fatboy, nor are the magazines talking constantly about them. I think it's more a case of talking about the past with a vague nostalgia unwilling to go into great detail. Also features like Muzik's this month, THE TRACKS THAT SHAPED DANCE MUSIC TODAY, like ten classic tunes, and with each one another 3 classic tunes we'd never have had without the ten classic tunes.

My point about Fatboy et al seems to have muddied the water a little since it's not to do with the magazines so much, I was just speculating that at this rate in a few years we'll actually have a canon. At the moment the nostalgia is for the time before the massive dance bands.

Also I don't think it's true that the 12"es of last year are rare is it? At least the ones this year certainly aren't, hell you can get most of the tunes on CD too.

i think we're hearing dance tracks today that are just as great as ones from 5 or 10 years ago. they'll ALWAYS be great new house/techno/breakbeat/whatever tracks just as there will always be great new rock/guitar based tracks or cheesy pop tracks, whatever you want to call them. but for me one thing that gave dance music an extra edge over rock was it was genuinely newer because the technology used to make it was new. now its not, so dance music loses that edge naturally. i believe this is the reason why some people feel dance music is in stagnation and losing popularity. but this does not really matter.

or would you rather not analyse that so much? what are your favourite dance tracks at the moment Ronan?

i'm going for this lot:

Gerling 'Dust Me Selecta'
Janet Jackson & Beenie Man 'Feel It Boy' (maybe this doesnt count but its the Neptunes again and funky as ever)
Ladytron 'Seventeen'
Royksopp 'Remind Me' (the single mix)
Underworld 'A Hundred Days Off (Album)
Sonic Animation 'I'm A DJ'
FC Kahuna 'Machine Says Yes' (Album - STILL)
Audio Bullies - Hit The Ceiling
Supermen Lovers - Diamonds For Her
Chemical Brothers - Electronic Battle Weapon 6' (not THAT keen on this actually but will drop it in anyway)

fuck, just realised how out of touch i am with the American producers with this list, perhaps someone can update me?

this is fucking ace by the way - did Deadly Avenger actually get that album out yet? he is superb

i guess i love dance albums (!)

ILS-Next Level

Underworld-Two Months Off.

Herbert-Schmoov

Royksopp is wicked, prefer the single mix alot. Also I'm really feeling Adam Beyer's Ignition single, going to see him this weekend.

Oh yeah and Harry Choo Choo Romero Featuring DJ Lace-Keep Your Head Up, major where's your head at influence but it's like a grunge samba party really, HCCR is going to become my new DJ god, I just fucking know it.

What's that Supermen Lovers track go like? I'd heard their new one is kinda harder than that catchy little Starlight number, is there anything distinctive I'd know?

(also liking Kid Kreme-To Get Down)

where do you hear these tracks first? do you DJ and hang out in the shops for a good couple of hours every saturday? are you a regular clubber (unlike me, argh the shame) lunging over the dj booth with a notepad or you just got the right internet/radio stations on? why not collect all 3 badges for true dance guru supremacy?

Except with techno, i confess I'm not very good on techno, even though I enjoy myself alot at Billy Nasty, Dave Angel and their ilk.

I have found that since I started a few years ago, my perspective has totally changed. Being so close to the music because I have to listen to 20 new records a week (at least) and sort, I have, in the past, become nostalgic. Then, however, I realised that the nostalgia was for the shock of the new, and NOT for any particular style of music, or even era. This certainly plays a role. All of the particular sytles/years that people are nostalgic for (1989 acid house 1992 breakbeat hardcore 1994 jungle) happen to be instances where a large number of people were turned on to the music. People mistake their nostalgia for the feeling of wonder for nostalgia for the era itself.

As for the whole 12" versus album debate, those of you who might celebrate the album (especailly those by such groups as Underworld and Orbital, who are, in some ways, as much rock stars as dance artists) as (more) representative of the scene should know that this can be misinterptreted by the techno evangelists as a desire to return to the world of rock which is artists/authenticity/albums/canonical instead of scene/less self conscious/singles/personal pleasant rememberances (yes this is a generalization). Most of the time, however, the techno evangelists need to realize that most people don't know where to go and what to buy after the albums by big artists (I started with the big groups but now I know more). That is why we should all buy more DJ MIXES!

As for canons, I think that the process has already begun (every story about Detroit is pretty similar).

Lastly, best-tracks-evah lists are a way of legitimizing the ahistroical nature of the music. It is (or was) a modernist project, after all.

I'm beginning to think they have redefined prog as something wonderful, really fucking fantastic. That track Morel-The Faggot Is You (Deep Dish remix) is unholy.

(there has but start one anyway)

I think that what makes them great is that they take in more influences then other prog acts... too much prog is anonymous, defined by a lack of that certain "jack" quality that is so important to techno/house. Deep Dish know their house and techno, and seem to be able to add more funk to the prog mix, as well as a sense of humor, which Sasha and Digweed may have personally, but which doesn;t come out in the music I have heard.

I think that what makes them great is that they take in more influences then other prog acts... too much prog is anonymous, defined by a lack of that certain "jack" quality that is so important to techno/house. Deep Dish know their house and techno, and seem to be able to add more funk to the prog mix, as well as a sense of humor, which Sasha and Digweed may have personally, but which doesn;t come out in the music I have heard.

I think that what makes them great is that they take in more influences then other prog acts... too much prog is anonymous, defined by a lack of that certain "jack" quality that is so important to techno/house. Deep Dish know their house and techno, and seem to be able to add more funk to the prog mix, as well as a sense of humor, which Sasha and Digweed may have personally, but which doesn;t come out in the music I have heard.

I love that tune, it is fantastic. You all NEED that Harry Choo Choo Romero thing Keep Your Head Up though, it's fantastic. Siegbran have you heard what they've done to Cosmos? There's a vocal mix now, Lottie played it when I saw her recently and it was kind of good.

I also forgot to mention anyone who likes the sort of subtle coolness of voodoo ray, check out Contemplation by Josh One, either the original or the King Britte funk remix, the two are linked in my head.

Fucking house genius right there.

Like a few years ago the 'key' 70s tracks would all have been stuff like Loose Joints, 'Que tal america', Manu Dibango, Crown Heights Affair etc.

But now all the hype is around Klein and MBO, Moroder, Kraftwerk - more the kind of stuff I guess that would have been referenced back in 95-96 when Detroit techno was all the critical rage.

And, actually, the way that techno is back in from the cold again in terms of people admitting it as an influence...

REPETITIVE BEATS - A SOCIAL HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC

Alerted by a message via Yahoo Group: ElectroDiscoPunks

REPETITIVE BEATS

6 Music, the BBC Digital Channel, is broadcasting a documentary
called 'Repetitive Beats - A Social History Of Electronic Dance
Music' this week. The first part is tonight (Monday 1st December) at
21.00 - 21.30 UK time, followed by three further parts at the same
time on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The series is presented by
Andrew Purcell.

You can check it out live via the internet at: 6 Music

Tonights programme includes Kraftwerk, Frankie Knuckles, Kevin
Saunderson, Marshall Jefferson, Danny Rampling, Norman Jay, A Guy
Called Gerald and the Chemical Brothers. I was also interviewed,
suffering from a severe case of laringytis following a full-on
weekends clubbing in London, including the Electro Empire night, Low
Life and David Mancuso's London Loft,

Also useful music resource: Electrofunkroots

"it were all great threads round here last year ye know"

Nonsense.

I don't notice this problem so much in the (depleted) dance press these days, with the emergence (in some cases re-emergence) of people like DFA, Ewan Pearson, the Rapture, Black Strobe, Lu Cont, etc they have gone back to being excited. I guess the broadsheets got a whack off this crisis talk a year too late or so but it's all but gone now.

I think my number 1 this year is still Speedy J's remix of Ignition Key by Adam Beyer.

top housey tunes of 2003 for starters...

Alan Braxe & Fred Falke 'Rubicon'
Audio Bullys 'The Snow'
Basement Jaxx 'Right Here's The Spot'
Archigram 'Doggystyle'
Legowelt 'Disco Rout'
Adam Beyer 'Ignition Key (Speedy J mix)' - but how well can you dance to it REALLY?!
The Paradise 'In Love With You'
Linus Loves 'The Terrace' or even the vocal version which i likes
Space Cowboy 'Just Put Your Hand In Mine/Crazy Talk'
Saffron Hill 'My Love Is Always There'
DJ Gregory 'Attend I'