A wise friend that’s responsible for a large part of a certain three letter Dubstep label once told me not to get too attached to any particular scene built on a of genre of music.
Real speak. Shit fluctuates. It’s just the way things are. Starting out small, tight knit and bursting with creativity. Then a massive growth in numbers and popularity enevitibly establish some sort of blueprint for carbon copying ending with a creative plateau and subsequent decline. During this time, some people bored and end up branching off into splinters often reinterpreting the rules and standards, creativity comes back.
The catalyst to this little rant is the closure of dubstepforum.com yesterday. Without a doubt, the de-facto net discussion board for the genre did a lot for it’s staggering rise in popularity over the last few years. In contrast, some would also argue that it helped fuel a bit of a nasty habit of music by numbers, anthem bashing and close mindedness towards the end of it’s life.
Today, 20,000 plus active users are now without a central source to:
Pro:
Exchange ideas, opinions and experiences
Con:
Exchange ideas, opinions and experiences
Time will tell what the closure does for Dubstep in 2009. My hope is that the change is for the best and producers will stop caring about what next producer A, B & C are thinking and produce some unique, blindingly groundbreaking shit again.
On that note, we’ve included Rusko’s new remix of Kid Sister’s Pro Nails below. Groundbreaking? Stale? The epitome of Dubstep’s cross-over mega genre status?
Who gives a shit.. really. It’s bound to shatter the hardwoods of dancefloor near you and at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about is it not?.
Kid Sister - Pro Nails (Rusko Remix)
Speaking of cycles, Grime seams to be forging new ground (or mutating rather) as of late. I’m not familiar enough with Grime to make any claims like it died, is dead or is undead like so many before have claimed (rightfully, I doubt it). I can speak from observation though and think it’s pretty safe to say that for the most part, 2008 was a down year for the genre as a whole.
Like with all things cyclical, death in-turn creates something fresh and new with time. Recent experimental mixes on pirate radio station Rinse FM from Spyro and Maximum break down the walls of Grime and mind meld with fragments of emerging music’s to create some sort of lurching nameless beast. Energetic, aggressive and dirty this grime/ungrime/funky sound is the big swinging next shit. Watch for it.
Also included is JME’s new bit Juju Riddim. Meant to post this last week but got tied up and since then it’s been my most played iTunes song by a long shot. Who writes a song about something like this? I’m completely floored by how utterly bizarre and mental these vocals are (in a good way!).
JME - Juju Riddim
