Girl Unit - Wut was a shotgun blast to the knee of Dubstep

[dickman69]

cvs mix > original

goes for yo vogue as well

[Soiree]

The dude is a fucking animal DJ monster, one of the sickest sets I've ever seen.
Absolutely flawless mixing! Dirty Bird SF puts it down every time, tad bit more finesse than the LA beat scene.

[wormcode]

I like VonStroke but I didn't really rate his remixes. Not bad just can't touch the original imo.
I like this though:
non-sequiturs > *

[Soiree]

i can rap better than those foolz,

[capo ultra]

I want to hate them cos of the whole hipster thing but I keep watching it

[wormcode]

i can rap better than those foolz,

They are really good rappers actually, seen them spit live. They just make a mockery of rap though and expose it for the joke it's become. Fully respect that. Live on Conan lol: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUxLlXikwZU

[kidshuffle]

i think the fact that hipsters jumped on girl unit was the problem tbh. lots of negative vibes they bring to the scene

[wub]

ellipsis mite not be groundbreaking but i still think its a really good tune.

and i also think glut is a good tune - when tracks like wut, work them and glut came out it gave the dubstep scene a kick up the arse as there was nothing around like it at 140bpm at the time imo. its not really girl unit or ramadanmans fault that everyone started copying that sound.

at the same time i def agree the whole 'bass' scene aping house/techno/whatever and the 808 stuff is starting to get very oversaturated and i think the dubstep/techno crossover stuff from 2007-2009 was better (as shown by allstars 6-7, round black ghost compilations/skull disco soundboy punishment/grave etc.)

did you have this opinion about those tracks at the time wub?

Of course...but this is less about examining a piece of work as an individual, and more at the overall effect it had on the scene around it in terms of shaping & influencing other tracks and producers.

We could call this the 'Footcrab Effect'. Same fucking thing happened about the time that FACT mix came out and suddenly the whole world seemed to collectively shit out an 808 sample pack onto YouTube.

maybe it was too different to what was about at the time, so everyone thought "wow this is mental" and copied it

AND IT'S VOLCANOGEORGE BY TEN LENGTHS! Seriously, this is part of the issue. Chicago House had a similar issue waaaaaaaay back in the dusty past. Compare these two tracks;



Both came out around the same time, both seminal pieces of work. But whereas Your Love is an achingly beautiful piece of electronic music that still stands up against many modern productions, On & On is quite low quality (and IMO more than a little bit shit) in comparison.

So, they both massively influence the scene they were a part of. Your Love sets the bar amazingly high in terms of what can be done, whereas On & On acts as a flood relief channel, showing people that whatever is done, it doesn't have to be all that good.

You've got both sides of a demonstrative argument. The upper echelons of beauty and the bottom end quick job that throws the gates open and announces ANYONE CAN DO THIS if they're so inclined.

It's like a yin yang setup. The scene needs both elements to drive it forward.

wut started this whole trap/bass fusion thing that mightve been fun for a few months when it started, but has just become one of the worst, most obnoxious music trends since brostep. NOT that i dont like wut or girl unit in general, it was a big tune then and its still a big tune - it's just that it's inadvertently started something terrible.

glut/sicko cell started this whole house-y & techno-ish sort of throwback thing, which i dont mind at all tbh, cause it's bringing that sort of shit back with a dubstep way of approaching it - dark, subby, minimal, etc. they're taking elements and recycling them, and putting them in a new context. there's enough fresh sounds coming out of that spectrum imo to not really complain about it

Which brings us nicely to Phigure's comparison, which in itself proves the above yin yang theory. In this example, Sicko Cell/Glut take the place of Your Love and Wut is On & On. Both big tunes in terms of driving things forward, but for entirely different reasons.

But it's not just electronic music... how many grunge bands started after Nirvana. Or how many punk bands after Velvet Underground/Ramones? I think part of it is that everything is so in our faces now with Internet and such. It doesn't take 6 months or a year to find out about a new EP or band or whatever, it takes closer to 6 seconds of opening a browser.

Exactly. Listen to any post 1991 Seattle indie label compilations (obscure sub genre, but trust there are more than you'd believe) and the Nirvana influence is HUGE. The problem is that with the grunge scene (and this is only a snapshot, this applies to all recorded in a recording studio music) is that they were chasing the tail far too late. They all rushed out with their $606.17 to record THE NEXT BIG THING only to find the train not so much having left the station as reaching the next terminal altogether.

Electronic music by it's very nature does not have this. I could less than five metres in front of me right now, turn on the computer and knock out a tune which could be up & onto YouTube within a couple of hours, even with a shitty upload rate.

So we have the issue of that cycle factor again, only this time lets drill down into it and look at actual proper fucking nitty gritty tune level interactions';

Good tune > Inspires poorer tune > poorer tune lowers expectations > 'bedroom' producers collectively think I can make that > glut(HA!) of tunes

You get this almost disposable nature cycle kicking in where everything is being turned around faster and faster and the quality of the 'good' tune in the first stage is gradually watered down over and over again until it's rendered practically worthless and then BANG you have knee jerk reactions like this fucking thread, and the scene as a whole suffers from a paradigm shift and suddenly something else is touted as the next big thing and the emphasis moves to that.

[noam]

its a trend in music... the turn around is just higher now

we live in an age influenced massively by post-modernism

we have abstract concepts which now are applied to tangible objects, instead of just ideas

the idea of 'retro' being 'cool' is the quintessential example of this

the internet exponentially increases the rate at which music can consumed, and disposed of

but as with everything... seek the QUALITY and the rest takes care of itself; thus trends become relevant only regarding the range of what you are able to consume

[Phigure]

its a trend in music... the turn around is just higher now

we live in an age influenced massively by post-modernism

we have abstract concepts which now are applied to tangible objects, instead of just ideas

the idea of 'retro' being 'cool' is the quintessential example of this

the internet exponentially increases the rate at which music can consumed, and disposed of

but as with everything... seek the QUALITY and the rest takes care of itself; thus trends become relevant only regarding the range of what you are able to consume

100%

also fix your avatar, i miss seein that little noam

[djrobyn]

hey, hold on! nowadays they even mix footwork with JUNGLE! i kid you not!

[wormcode]

also fix your avatar, i miss seein that little noam

Could it be a Noam? Could it be a Noam...

[Phigure]

it makes so much more sense now

[skwiggo]

have any of you guys read retromania by simon reynolds as he touches a lot on what wub and noam are saying. i don't agree with everything the man says but its an interesting read anyway

[Naan_Bread]

[Phigure]

^ this is simultaneously the best/worst dsf "meme" we've had in a while. i can't decide

[wormcode]

Oh shit, I was staring at that pic and didn't understand why he posted it.
Now I see it.
Bedtime.

[capo ultra]

hey, hold on! nowadays they even mix footwork with JUNGLE! i kid you not!

why are you so surprised? They are the same BPM and share a lot of characteristics.

[AxeD]

George Fitzgerald xlr8r mix is pretty good.

[garethom]

and ''bass music'' in general. It opened the door for the identikit 'bass music' tracks...boring 808 loops, sub bass, plinky plonky winky wonky wanky synths lines and stuttery/weird vocal samples.

Discuss.

You've pretty much hit the nail on the head, but I think it's either post-Footcrab or post-Sicko Cell when it went too far for me.

With regards to George Fitzgerald, I'm gutted about his recent move to house music. He made some of the best synth-y garage going and now he's yet another one to be pushing the untested 4x4 at roughly 120 bpm sound. Power to the people that are making what they want, but I can't help but wish he'd made a little more like that.