Pounding System: “but I was buying Audio Active records for fuck’s sake.”
They were ACE live. Weed specialist is still an ace tune too.
It’s that name thing again
I Feel Love: Grimestoppers: “I have to endorse Matt’s comments about ‘grime’ being a rubbish name for a genre.”
Been meaning to write about this again (did it at length last year, d’accord).
I think you’ll find it’s called Rap.
The market size curve for dance music has been “flattening” (read: flatlining) for a couple of years now, with a noticeable reduction in young punters coming through the doors. It’s principally a demographic thing, not a piracy thing. (Can’t quote numbers — wasn’t able to nick the market reports!)
With a smaller overall market to play with, Matt’s right to suggest that the scope for further segmentation and “genre-level” product differentiation isn’t really there any more (not sure Kotler would recognise my languaga but we’ll let that pass). Instead, producers try to make records that attract a variety of different segments. Hence the slow down in the speed of garage to near hip hop speed, and the focus on hip-hop-style MCing — and also hence the cross-over of dancehall. It’s all about risk reduction.
Grime’s failure to translate its popularity into proper product — i.e. tracks with rapping on them — is a classic “CHasm” issue. The early market — DJs — want instrumentals. The late market — fans — want MC cuts. But the risk associated with deviating from the instrumentals-for-DJs market, given the small scale of the overall garage market, means that few producers risk doing MC tracks.
I would presume that post-Dizzee there will be a flood of MC tracks — Wiley has his album in the can for example. But the lack of airplay and availability of dubplates is a concern. If the market is real, they’ll be picking up on the early product samples. It doesn’t look to me like they are.
It’s possible the grime scene is about to fizzle out and that the albums will arrive six months too late. We need crossover MC tracks now — but who they’ll actually crossover to is a moot point. Personally I see no reason why the teen garage crowd won’t go for it, but they need a channel…
But if it’s any consolation I’m definitely last years flavour
Shit! I’m gonna have to find another set of coat-tails!!
x
Hutton delivers Kelly verdict
Well… so what? I’m not impugning Hutton’s character. But this inquiry is a sideshow and a distraction and always has been. There should have been an inquiry into why we went to war (IMO, to protect the Bush family’s interests and their battle with the house of Saud for control of the world’s oil).
And Hutton is dressed up to look like it does do that… but it doesn’t. So Blair can be cleared of a minor charge, absolved of a side issue, without even being questioned about the central issue. It’s a masterful display of spin and was from the get go. Nobody even gets to debate why we really went to war — not in a political context.
Similarly the manufactured crisis of university tuition fees, which isn’t a crisis at all. Yes, fees will dissuade working class people from going to university.
But that doesn’t matter.
Because the real class issue in equality of access to education isn’t about three grand here and there for tuition fees (which BTW in a world without fair taxation of the rich is pretty easy to justify). No, equality of access goes much further back in the education cycle. I’ve heard and can well believe that the funding argument should be about nursery places for poor kids (especially black kids) and better teacher-student ratios in primary schools in poor areas.
In other words, the reducation in equality of access to education that is created by university tuition fees makes fuck all difference to poor people getting education because there’s fuck all poor people going to college anyway.
But to frame the discussion in that way would bring out into the open the crushing inequality of our society — and that, like why we went to war, or why we tax payers fund people like British Sugar or the Duke of Westminster to impoverish black people in poor countries, would be just a bit too uncomfortable for the ruling classes.
What a bunch of cunts.
I hang my head in shame and admit to STILL liking the Neptunes
At first, I was like “cool new Jay-Z!”. Soon after, I was like “COOL new Neptunes!” Then I bought the album and I was like “ehh..” Then I was like “woo boy it’s Jay-Z again”. For an ever so brief while I was “oh just SHUT UP and retire” (even though my problem isn’t with Jay & his self-proclaimed unimpeachable stature, but with Pharell & Co.).
You know, I hear this track on the radio, and think, cor, that’s a funky bit of hip-pop! I wondered whether it was the Neptunes but wasn’t sure — I’m not a hipster about this stuff. I’m not a BIG Jay-Z fan — his flow is good, but the backing usually leaves me a bit bored — but this record rocks. Well, it’s good pop anyway.
So I don’t understand all the slag offs of the Neptunes I see around the place. Obviously it’s their production that makes the record. Same as with the “Diddy” track — first time I heard that I thought, good god, how can fucking Puff Daddy make a record that good? And then I found out how.
I think you’ve all been listening to too much music and not taking enough notice of your children…
title test
body text test
I mean… tech-STEP roller!
What would a tech-stop roller sound like?
Basic Channel? Darqwan?
Oh alright, one last one, then I’m off for a few months
I also picked up the Dizzee vs … oh fuck, who was it? Can’t remember… battle off the roll deep site. Firin! Like I said before, better as an accapella.
Now I’m gonna turn it into a tech-stop roller. You’re gonna HATE it!
Oh, a bit more news about a bunch of other new tracks I have up at the bassnation site soon — when I rescue my post off UKD. It’s some ragga techno, some electro-ragga, and some ragga jungle. Some of them are good!
** Put “Eskimo Dance” into Google. Hey presto. Woebot!
Uh, no mate, you get dance steps! Kinda appropriate really.
I can’t see anyone dancing to Eskimo, not without help…