too many new labels. dec 2007 edition.

seckle · Post by **seckle** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 2:29 am

i rarely start moany threads, but this is something i have to get off my chest.

this is plea # 251 from me in regards to the lack of quality control re-surfacing in a big way in the last 6 months or so. far too many labels out at the moment, with really really poor first releases.

when i say poor i'm speaking about being realistic to the current vinyl market before you and presenting something new, fresh , unheard of, etc.
of course, one man's shit is another man's treasure and all that but if you've got a tune that 4 or more established labels have passed on, don't you think you'd need to consider that it might not be a good tune; rather than bang it out on some brand new venture of your own?

this is the primary reason DNB went straight into the toilet. it got musically stupid. regurgitated formulas.
too many people thinking they had something new to present when in reality they were just pushing cloned, repackaged ideas.

every underground scene has to progress, and expand, but please ( and i'm looking straight at the distro's too here) consider your artistic / musical statement to the world, before pressing up rubbish.

picasso would paint up to 20 or more versions of a painting, before deciding on which one to present to the public. it's impossible to think that everyone's a picasso, but why settle for anything less than your best possible output? if 10 people don't like your tunes, why would 5000 people like them?

consider the notion that people do remember your worst tunes as much as they remember your best ones.

djshiva · Post by **djshiva** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 2:39 am

all that and all i can see is your zaxxon icon. i miss that game.

but yeah...seconded. one thing i think all producers/label owners should ask themselves is: is this disposable? will this be the hot tune for a week and then forgotten just as quickly?

i won't say everything i write is classic material, but i tend to hold it up to that mentality, and if it's not the absolute best i can do, with a quality that brings something new to the table...then i try harder.

we aren't all gonna write/put out classics, but the more we attempt to think in those terms, the better things will be. the nature of djing tends toward the hot tune of the moment, but we need to step up our level of pickiness as djs, as producers, as label heads, and ask ourselves if we are hitting on a higher level or if we are just contributing to the bad side of the signal-to-noise ratio.

seckle · Post by **seckle** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 3:04 am

sapphic_beats wrote:we need to step up our level of pickiness as djs, as producers, as label heads, and ask ourselves if we are hitting on a higher level or if we are just contributing to the bad side of the signal-to-noise ratio.

300%

there are over 120 hours of dubstep streaming weekly from the radio shows. how many of those hours are musically interesting and pushing the boundaries?

what happened to taking musical risks, rather than poorly trying to copy loefah or burial just to get your name out there?

saba · Post by **saba** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 3:05 am

seckle wrote: this is the primary reason DNB went straight into the toilet. it got musically stupid. regurgitated formulas.
too many people thinking they had something new to present when in reality they were just pushing cloned, repackaged ideas.

I firmly agree with this. And to be honest i was thinking the same thing the other day.

west · Post by **west** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 3:27 am

Absolutely... you hear the same stuff out there over and over again... it'd be sick to hear some unorthodox tracks going around...

mushug · Post by **mushug** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 3:28 am

even some of the big names are making shit music... and people will keep playing it and opening threads here like "jah knows how to rock a lfo VIP is huge!!" or "big ups for dat schubert bootleg that was played at fwd, that wobbler was immense!! it needs to come out!"..
most people wants to hear the same shit, so why bother.

intoccabile · Post by **intoccabile** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 3:37 am

even some of the big names are making shit music

The painful truth.

incyde · Post by **incyde** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 3:55 am

obviously seconded..

i hate to say it but i am afraid this phenomenon is nearly unavoidable. something starts off great and then more and more people get into it, and it inevitably gets imitated and copied, starts to develop a formula, and then gets marketed. distributors see it more as a profit making venture than respecting quality control. if the rubbish will sell then they cant really be bothered much further than that.

of course there are some exceptions but this is generally i think how its going. which is too bad.

what can be done? i do what i can... support the quality in what i play and what i represent and what i put my money towards.

djshiva · Post by **djshiva** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 3:56 am

truthfully tho, i think there is a LOT of really interesting music coming out in the dubstep world. yes, it takes a little searching to find sometimes, but it's worth it to find something that steps away from the formula.

are djs hammering the same ole wobblers? sure, some are. but really, what control do we have over that? the big names in every genre are always gonna hammer what makes the dancefloor kiddies scream, and there's no getting around it. i accepted that years ago.

so really, all there is to do is to find the challenging material, put it together in a challenging way as a dj, make it as a producer, or release it as a label, and probably struggle in the process of all 3. it takes a lot of guts to be an iconoclast, because what you do will probably not be as popular as the partypartyparty type wobbler stuff.

but i still maintain that while the "mainstream" (and i say that with a good deal of "wink" in my voice) may cater to the big wobbler tunes, there is a HELL of a lot of good music out there. i, for one, can't really complain.

misk · Post by **misk** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 4:21 am

i've felt this way for a while now. Its nice to see this being discussed maturely.
Producers: TAKE RISKS. take dynamics risks, take melodic risks, take arrangement risks. DJs, you're called selectors for a reason

human? · Post by **human?** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 4:49 am

lol @ dnb in the toilet & being musically stupid.

sorry seckle, but thats ridiculous...

Jungle/D&B is on fire right now, 16 years later...

seckle · Post by **seckle** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 5:05 am

human? wrote:lol @ dnb in the toilet & being musically stupid.

sorry seckle, but thats ridiculous...

Jungle/D&B is on fire right now, 16 years later...

when i say it's in the toilet, i mean that in the best way bro. i was real depressed when it started getting stale about 5 years ago. i felt like i was being cheated by someof my favorite dnb labels. the labels that pioneered the genre had a hand in completely watering it down.

it's on fire globally but completely devoid of direction or originality any more. just take a look at the redeye dnb page. you listen to 10 tunes on there, and 7 of them are identical. intro, build up, first drop, build up, drop out, drop, outro. it's like the mcdonalds of the underground right now. the same burger the same way, everytime.

human? · Post by **human?** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 5:11 am

seckle wrote:
human? wrote:lol @ dnb in the toilet & being musically stupid.

sorry seckle, but thats ridiculous...

Jungle/D&B is on fire right now, 16 years later...
when i say it's in the toilet, i mean that in the best way bro. i was real depressed when it started getting stale about 5 years ago. i felt like i was being cheated by someof my favorite dnb labels. the labels that pioneered the genre had a hand in completely watering it down.

it's on fire globally, but just take a look at the redeye dnb page. you listen to 10 tunes on the dnb page, and 7 of them are identical. intro, build up, first drop, build up, drop out, drop, outro.

i agree taht there is a bunch of crap...

i honestly thought it was a good thing when a bunch of distros collapsed a couple years back...

such is the nature tho... jumpons and all that...

but still nonetheless... after you get through those 7 wank tunes, you find the 3 gems that are like, OKAY, thats wtf im talkin about

inevitably as the sound grows its gonna get a bit stale in some respects, but i dont see it as a problem...

kinda like growing pains... when you get taller, you tend to be a bit clumsy, but in the end, you are taller ...

but yeah, id say things are lookin good musically all around, in every "genre" tbh... 2008 is gonna be fucking huge

fushimi · Post by **fushimi** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 5:26 am

It's seems to be a common misconception that the problem with the overabundance of labels is because outside people are swooping into dubstep without knowing what it's all about and the history behind it, and are cashing in on the latest trend. In fact, most of these labels are from people who have been in the scene and making tunes for a while and thus feel entitled to a release cos they've been repping for years, even if their tunes are a bit poo.

human? · Post by **human?** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 5:37 am

but with 1500$ and a few phone calls, everyone IS entitled to put out they own vinyl no?

meh, the more the merrier, the market works on a level...

imho, its all about good DJs finding good musics.

fushimi · Post by **fushimi** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 5:42 am

human? wrote:but with 1500$ and a few phone calls, everyone IS entitled to put out they own vinyl no?

Absolutely...personally I think market saturation is inevitable and people are stressing about something that cannot be stopped.

human? · Post by **human?** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 5:45 am

word.... a FUTURE complaint i may have tho....

since nowadays you dont even need the $$ to press up to have a "release", please please please, all labels, dont slack on your mixing/mastering if you are gonna release digital.

THAT type of quality control i can see becoming a problem...

seckle · Post by **seckle** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 5:49 am

human? wrote:but with 1500$ and a few phone calls, everyone IS entitled to put out they own vinyl no?

of course, but let's say out of the first 500 that get pressed, 5 to 35 sell, and the rest just sit at the distro or store. then eventually those 465 non selling records go to the redeye sale page at £2.50 per 12".

now that's just one label. add that to the 10-15 other first release non selling labels that are deadstock and you can see the longterm effect.

have you seen the sale section at redeye? there's 14 pages of things on sale. what does that tell you about the state of the underground?

http://www.redeyerecords.co.uk/asp/prod ... order=DATE

i'd rather support 25 labels and buy every single release that i could afford from them than cringe at the 200 other ones loading up the warehouses with deadstock.

human? · Post by **human?** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 5:54 am

welp, it tells me that redeye needs to move some stock to make room for all the fresh new bits

after page 2 they are all out of stock... seems like the sale thing is effective

seckle · Post by **seckle** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 5:55 am

human? wrote: after page 2 they are all out of stock...

whoops! good point, but you know what i'm getting at. thats just one store we're looking at too. chemical's deadstock is deep as well.

too many new labels. dec 2007 edition.

too many new labels. dec 2007 edition.

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