Dubstepforum.com

I found this quote from the Blackacre Records label site interesting (and I'm not really trying to draw any unnecessary attention or criticism towards them despite my quote selection - though maybe that camp themselves could shed light on the philosophies they expose)... and i was really thinking about this as I walked back to work after my lunchbreak (which is when I read the quote/checked their site.. which does look like they have some really decent releases in the wings BTW..) anyways...

"With Dubstep already repelling borders against a horde of bandwagon jumpers and musical chameleons, how does a new label (like us) define itself as one of the good guys?"


I guess my question is... who then, are the bad guys??? or sort of, along those same lines... are new creative contributions or participants then not being sought to sort-of breath fresh life into the scene??? or is there some kind of backlash within and amoungst the who's-who of dubstep vis-a-vis new people trying to become part of 'the scene' who might not have been there on the ground floor?

I guess Blackdown's recent blog 'future of dubstep' also comes to mind...

sorry if this is a topic that I should have posted on Dissensus or something but I'm not registered there and I don't feel like doing so when I can probably get the same feedback from the same heads albeit on a different site.. comprende?

yeah... I guess in a nutshell... who are the "bad" guys then? (besides the obvious but sort of vague 'bandwagon jumpers and musical chameleons')..

well, imo the bad guys are lables that put out CRAP, not opinion based crap but real crap. Stuff that sounds like everything we have heard before and doesnt do anything, (you dont have to do anything new, but at least do you own thing)

and yes i'm a huge critic, and am way to hard

yeah agree with that. no problem with new labels putting out new stuff, as long as its not just rip offs. to be honest new labels will probably be more likely to risk putting out something a bit different than an established label will as these are more likely to have an established sound

i'm a bad guy, i'm going to pollute your scene with shit music.

Don't try and out bass,out wobble,over Jah or out noise anyone else.It's not a competition.Listen to a wide range of music outside of your chosen genre and make sure your lable mates are good musicians not (just) good friends.Don't make tunes for DJ's, as in formulaic easy to mix plates.Don't make tunes just for the dancefloor,remember some people actually like to listen to this music not just rave to it.
Relaese mp3's as well as vinyl.

I honestly don't think there are "bad guys" with the kind of money being made at the moment. There are unoriginal guys, there are bandwagon jumpers sure... but nothing like corruption or ill-intention. It's all love here.

In fact, the people who are quick to label fellow music makers as unwelcome are the bad guys if anyone is.

The public knows what sounds good, anything else is just politics.

im sure a lot of the people i think are the bad guys others think are the good guys, and vice versa.

and yeh i agree with the guy above, dont think anyone actually a bad person, just unorignal and willing to put out the same ploddy shite over and over again.

word... ok.. these all seem like sensible replies...


and again to reiterate... I do not mean to draw any unnecessary attention/criticism to Blackacre with this post... I just find their philosophy interesting.. in a 'quality control' sense

I was mainly wondering if this sort of "good guys/bad guys" dichotomy was a sentiment being expressed by the move-makers within the scene... like if there were particular "latchers-on" that certain folks (the-powers-that-be) did not want to see associated with the scene

of course no one wants to see the shit become watered down by kids claiming to produce dubstep but who are just building recycled dub-by-numbers pap... but new kids coming up producing are also likely to be the potential heirs to keeping the sound moving forward... its a double edge - .. and if anything this sort of self-checking might be a correct attitude to adopt if the music is to stay on the excitingly upward trajectory that it has been enjoying for the last few years IMO

Genres by definition are restricted, the more forward thinking dj's and producers might be affilliated but not necessarily categorize themselves as dubstep. It's all tribal bullshit at the end of the day innit

Oddly to me, it seems the more so-so stuff coming out now seems to coincide with an increase in popularity

the criminals r the artists with no imagination

Shonky wrote:
Oddly to me, it seems the more so-so stuff coming out now seems to coincide with an increase in popularity

has pretty much been like that for 2 years now which is pretty annoying, out to my unoriginal massive.

*Grand* wrote:

Shonky wrote:
Oddly to me, it seems the more so-so stuff coming out now seems to coincide with an increase in popularity

has pretty much been like that for 2 years now which is pretty annoying, out to my unoriginal massive.

Not a rule though, it just takes a while for music to be picked up by some of the people, who in the future will be really feeling it.

Thomas wrote:

*Grand* wrote:

Shonky wrote:
Oddly to me, it seems the more so-so stuff coming out now seems to coincide with an increase in popularity

has pretty much been like that for 2 years now which is pretty annoying, out to my unoriginal massive.

Not a rule though, it just takes a while for music to be picked up by some of the people, who in the future will be really feeling it.

I think Grand meant the unoriginal tunes, not the newcomers, who are of course welcome as long as they tidy up after themselves.

personally, i would like to know what is meant by "musical chameleons".

by the strictest definition, i suppose that means people who "change their colors to blend in". but who gets to set the boundaries for those colors (if i may take the analogy one step further)?

i always find it interesting that there is a (sometimes not-so) subtle railing against the "n00bs" (for lack of a better word). this i have seen in many different scenes/genres and it gets...well...tiresome.

what do you have to do before your validity is acknowledged? is there a rating system? does interest in another genre preclude you from being a part of another? does a lack of knowledge of the history of a genre mean you have no right to be a part of it? or do you earn points by learning that history? is there a quiz?

i got into turntables which led me to the history of djing afterward. was i any less valid as a dj? or did the understanding of where djing come from make me more so? i got into techno before i got into dubstep before i learned about garage. same question applies.

i love techno, and punk rock, and folk and jazz and hip hop and dubstep and many other sounds. am i diluting my love of one by digging another?

i have no answers to any of these questions, although i do have my opinions. at the end of the day, that's all any of us have: opinions. and at the end of the day, as someone once said to me, it's all just soundwaves bouncing off of another person's ears. there is no objective quantification to measure quality or "good". there is also no objective method of quantifying "validity" either.

so yeah...there's my three cents. analyze and expound if you will. i am interested to hear thoughts on the matter.

This whole future of dubstep debate is boring. If dubstep turns shitty then ill just listen to something else. done.

sapphic_beats wrote:personally, i would like to know what is meant by "musical chameleons".

by the strictest definition, i suppose that means people who "change their colors to blend in". but who gets to set the boundaries for those colors (if i may take the analogy one step further)?

i always find it interesting that there is a (sometimes not-so) subtle railing against the "n00bs" (for lack of a better word). this i have seen in many different scenes/genres and it gets...well...tiresome.

what do you have to do before your validity is acknowledged? is there a rating system? does interest in another genre preclude you from being a part of another? does a lack of knowledge of the history of a genre mean you have no right to be a part of it? or do you earn points by learning that history? is there a quiz?

i got into turntables which led me to the history of djing afterward. was i any less valid as a dj? or did the understanding of where djing come from make me more so? i got into techno before i got into dubstep before i learned about garage. same question applies.

i love techno, and punk rock, and folk and jazz and hip hop and dubstep and many other sounds. am i diluting my love of one by digging another?

i have no answers to any of these questions, although i do have my opinions. at the end of the day, that's all any of us have: opinions. and at the end of the day, as someone once said to me, it's all just soundwaves bouncing off of another person's ears. there is no objective quantification to measure quality or "good". there is also no objective method of quantifying "validity" either.

so yeah...there's my three cents. analyze and expound if you will. i am interested to hear thoughts on the matter.

Word up to you Sapphic. A lot of truth spoken right there.

I think people who threaten the diversity and depth of this music we love are the bad boys. That can happen at both ends of the spectrum.

Other than that, it seems to be all good. People need to just keep doing what they believe in with Dubstep - to do what comes from the heart.

It's a cliche but it's oh so true.