Where Da Boogie?
Regardless of your opinion, it would take a pretty closed mind or a rather short-term memory to see the fate that has befallen dance music as anything but unfair. While rock managed to resurge from its doldrums via, of all things, The Strokes, dance has yet to find a permanent slingshot back into favour. The derision with which the cool set now look on most dance music is quite a harsh judgement considering the boundless pioneering of the genre as a whole.
I mean, when I say dance, of course, I mean HMV Dance, the rapidly diminishing shelf in HMV that puts DJ Tiesto and Cream Classics next to Fabric 07 and Massive Attack next to Aphex Twin and Talvin Singh. I mean, beats and basslines, the odd vocal-as-instrument and one bloke in the middle with two turn tables and a sampler. The genre that ties Kraftwerk to Masters Of Ceremony (do they really like it? is it is it wicked?) to Squarepusher to Fatboy Slim. Sure, it's got its crap moments and no, I'm not a huge fan of tribal hard house but to be honest, there's just as much at work in (I Don't Want To Be) Everybody as there is in anything by Boy Kill Boy.
The backlash against dance by the indie set and pretty much everyone else was harsh and at least partially unjustified. It was unjustified because it was so far reaching, so all encompassing. The lack of guitars and popularity of some songs pretty much equalled Fake Music in the eyes of so many that it was all but banished. A friend of mine even now is palpably reluctant to like anything by anyone with the word DJ in their name. Except the same type of people will happily buy Stereophonics songs and have no shame in admitting they quite like the latest song from The Vines. Even if the latest song from The Vines was any good - which it probably isn't - The Vines are hardly doing any more for music than anyone on the last Ministry album.
So this unilateral dismissal of Dance music does nothing but taint the good acts. People like The Chemical Brothers whose art - music far more deserving of the title than a dozen Stellastarr records - is now maligned as being cheap or commercial. Daft Punk may have been making pop all their life but what you don't so much credit them for is making music that by its sheer presence and class became instantly popular. Unlike The Bravery they weren't simply writing songs that would appeal to the most people in the shortest space of time, they were making the music they loved, loved with all their red LCD hearts, and making it so well that everyone else just had to love it too. Doing exactly the same thing as would make you forgive a crap band their inadequacies now, except without a fraction the failing of those guitar wielding flybynights and a whole world more invention.
Dance music is a positive, vibrant thing. It's legacy is a rich and deep one. The dubby, tripped out techno of Underworld, the laconic acid of DK7, the rainbow bubbles of Jolly Music, the swaggering, thuggish strut of Audio Bullys. These aren't crap, chart artists. They come from the same stock as everyone you love and, more to the point, everyone you love that you love more because you can dance to their last single. Their music does more than just swipe at the surface of a well-trodden sound, it explores and challenges. It's gritty and determined, ethereal and elegant, barbed and angular. It just doesn't have a quiet looking guy in glasses on drums and a lithe girl in a mini-skirt hiding behind a bass three times her size.
The people who make dance music are doing things your favourite artists will start to look into three albums in, once they've plumbed the depths of their trademark sound. The synths and beats, the glitches and effects. Most of the best artists in Indie, Rock and Hip Hop all find influence in Dance (with Hip Hop essentially being born there). The disco filters, the amniotic pulses, the shrills and bleeps. They call it Electronica in the States and, increasingly, everywhere else but I think that's too cold a name for a genre whose gestation included rave, techno and all those Haçienda classics. Do you ever feel like throwing your hands up in the air? Who's got the love you need to see you through? Exactly.
So, next time you hear something sing-a-long with an anonymous black woman on lead vocals and video featuring an inexplicable number of unnecessarily underdressed girls just think, who are you to judge. More to the point just think this is just a commercial version of a genre that has never failed to offer the most innovative, progressive artist of any genre. This is just a cheap, watered down version of a seam of music that has probably done more than any other to push forward all the others. It's the dance equivalent of The Darkness. Obvious, populist, fun in small doses but essentially just the surface of an iceberg that really embraces everything good about music.
I mean, when I say dance, of course, I mean HMV Dance, the rapidly diminishing shelf in HMV that puts DJ Tiesto and Cream Classics next to Fabric 07 and Massive Attack next to Aphex Twin and Talvin Singh. I mean, beats and basslines, the odd vocal-as-instrument and one bloke in the middle with two turn tables and a sampler. The genre that ties Kraftwerk to Masters Of Ceremony (do they really like it? is it is it wicked?) to Squarepusher to Fatboy Slim. Sure, it's got its crap moments and no, I'm not a huge fan of tribal hard house but to be honest, there's just as much at work in (I Don't Want To Be) Everybody as there is in anything by Boy Kill Boy.
The backlash against dance by the indie set and pretty much everyone else was harsh and at least partially unjustified. It was unjustified because it was so far reaching, so all encompassing. The lack of guitars and popularity of some songs pretty much equalled Fake Music in the eyes of so many that it was all but banished. A friend of mine even now is palpably reluctant to like anything by anyone with the word DJ in their name. Except the same type of people will happily buy Stereophonics songs and have no shame in admitting they quite like the latest song from The Vines. Even if the latest song from The Vines was any good - which it probably isn't - The Vines are hardly doing any more for music than anyone on the last Ministry album.
So this unilateral dismissal of Dance music does nothing but taint the good acts. People like The Chemical Brothers whose art - music far more deserving of the title than a dozen Stellastarr records - is now maligned as being cheap or commercial. Daft Punk may have been making pop all their life but what you don't so much credit them for is making music that by its sheer presence and class became instantly popular. Unlike The Bravery they weren't simply writing songs that would appeal to the most people in the shortest space of time, they were making the music they loved, loved with all their red LCD hearts, and making it so well that everyone else just had to love it too. Doing exactly the same thing as would make you forgive a crap band their inadequacies now, except without a fraction the failing of those guitar wielding flybynights and a whole world more invention.
Dance music is a positive, vibrant thing. It's legacy is a rich and deep one. The dubby, tripped out techno of Underworld, the laconic acid of DK7, the rainbow bubbles of Jolly Music, the swaggering, thuggish strut of Audio Bullys. These aren't crap, chart artists. They come from the same stock as everyone you love and, more to the point, everyone you love that you love more because you can dance to their last single. Their music does more than just swipe at the surface of a well-trodden sound, it explores and challenges. It's gritty and determined, ethereal and elegant, barbed and angular. It just doesn't have a quiet looking guy in glasses on drums and a lithe girl in a mini-skirt hiding behind a bass three times her size.
The people who make dance music are doing things your favourite artists will start to look into three albums in, once they've plumbed the depths of their trademark sound. The synths and beats, the glitches and effects. Most of the best artists in Indie, Rock and Hip Hop all find influence in Dance (with Hip Hop essentially being born there). The disco filters, the amniotic pulses, the shrills and bleeps. They call it Electronica in the States and, increasingly, everywhere else but I think that's too cold a name for a genre whose gestation included rave, techno and all those Haçienda classics. Do you ever feel like throwing your hands up in the air? Who's got the love you need to see you through? Exactly.
So, next time you hear something sing-a-long with an anonymous black woman on lead vocals and video featuring an inexplicable number of unnecessarily underdressed girls just think, who are you to judge. More to the point just think this is just a commercial version of a genre that has never failed to offer the most innovative, progressive artist of any genre. This is just a cheap, watered down version of a seam of music that has probably done more than any other to push forward all the others. It's the dance equivalent of The Darkness. Obvious, populist, fun in small doses but essentially just the surface of an iceberg that really embraces everything good about music.