(Untitled)

[holy13nation]

Reading through the newspapers early this evening at the local I noticed there was some fuss about Madonna making some reference to MDMA at a gig. Calling out "So, who has seen Molly?" (Molly apparently being slang for MDMA

Comments

[fingertrouble]

'Then DeadMau5 (a dj type person) called her on it as being a bad example to, you know, the kids.'

This made me LOL. After destroying dubstep with Skrillex and turning house music to shit, he can talk. More drugs and less shitty ripped off jockstep and borrowed electro-riffs that are over 10 years old would probably be a good thing in his case. Classic 'americans not getting it'. Well actually more getting it, seeing $$$ signs in their eyes and watering it down for the MidWest. Which is not getting it in my book...funny thing reading Stephin Merritt saying that it's good in the UK keepiung soul/motown etc alive - could we export it back please? America is an odd place that forgets it's own history - or ignores if it is from the wrong side of the tracks or the wrong colour. Mass revisionism, which is why regularly people re-export musical styles back that can't see a sniff of interest from the originators. Odd.

And then they have the temerity to say that 'brostep' - the sort of music Skrillex is making - is better than UK dubstep, where it came from and is a tiny wee bit more subtle. *sigh*

Oops sorry turned into a rant about US music. I would apologise, but I think it needs to be said and I'm in a really pissed off ranty mode atm. Some wrongs need to be righted...grr.

But yeah, Madonna is totally overdoing it.

[delko]

Uh, wtf, with the MidWest crack. And it's midwest, btw.

[fingertrouble]

Brostep - the music I was talking about - is big in those areas, loads of jock-type kids moshing to this very monotonic music, based on dubstep but turned up to 11...

[holy13nation]

I'n afraid the squabbles between different musical factions pass me by these days. The US is such a huge land mass that it doesn't surprise me that things get watered down. However, surely all music steals? Certainly from rock n roll to the present day. No one is innocent of that. Or at least, very rarely.
I don't understand the colour thing now as music is dominated by black artists (not before time) and so some semblance of balance is being redressed.

I am blissfully at an age where I couldn't care less about most of it anymore.

[fingertrouble]

Not many black heavy metal acts though are there?

There might be a few exceptions, but it's very segragated that those black artists you'd have seen would be rappers, soul acts etc - dubstep is a real mixture of cutlures, black/white, genres etc - it's a South London thing,multicultural like trip hop was, a truly new creation/new genre of music with a heavy jamaican dub influence but it's own thing...but if you watched MTV you'd think it was some pasty white American bloke that used to be in a bad screamo band jumping around with a silly haircut.

I know it was ever thus - Elvis Presley - but doesn't make it right...

[holy13nation]

How many heavy metal acts chart?
How many white sound systems are there?
Surely the proportions are as much, or more, to do with what people grow up listening to, peer pressure and community cultural influences, rather than inherent racism in an industry based solely on money.

[fingertrouble]

And yes everyone steals....but big difference between stealing something and making it your own - say as the Sex Pistols and early punks did - and just lifting it wholesale and not even changing the name, destroying the very scene it came from so people either go with the 'MTV' version because 'that's dubstep, right?' or leave and do something else....

Although I suppose in this case they did change it, they took all of the subtle bits out to make it more like mosh-friendly rock. But that's not making it your own. changing it to something new, that's just aping an existing form with the PR-friendly shell of another. It's Cuckoo Music.

[holy13nation]

But there is always a scene for someone somewhere. And there will always be those who think their scene is the most authentic and others that do steal from another scene to make their own. Unfortunately, unlike in the punk days, there seem to be a myriad of different scenes...and those that are likely to appeal to the most punters are the ones that will receive the greater backing and be exploited that much more.
And, still, somewhere some kids will be doing something else.

If dubstep is as good and pure and original as you say it is I don't see why you worry about it all. You have seen enough in your life to know that, if so. and I have no reason to doubt you, then it will survive or morph in its' own way.
Bboying did.

The idea of their being some kind of correct racial profile for everyones' listening is exactly what Merritt is against. Those that have pulled him up for being rascist seem to believe there will at some point a world in which we all listen to all things equally.
Dull and stifling.

That said, I do understand what you mean...in that I loathed the night I was at in Brighton where only bluebeat and reggae was played by two white djs on their ipods to a crowd that was %99.9 black. I was with one of the three black men there. He djs and makes his won music (jungle?). He thought it was shit.

So, yeah, authenticity does mean something. Very much.

But at my age, and perhaps yours, you notice the wider picture...the carousel of exploitation that at the same time gives those coming up from under...a reason to be underground.