''I calculate in ten years time dance music is going to be totally dead''

[Jiglo]

I've just been reading an interview with A Guy Called Gerald by Soundwall Magazine on his blog here A Guy Called Gerald and it's quite interesting. He made that prediction about the death of dance music being on the horizon and he might well have a point.

 

[siman91]

Good news then!

I have not bought a new record since Oribital Blue Album circa 2000. I buy my music for me and my love of the old original Chicago house sound through to early progressive although picking up hardcore, techno and new beat on the way. I think the excitement went out of house circa 1993 with jungle being the most interesting movement post 93 although left me behind.

I'm quite happy to be like the old punks of yesteryear, loving a strange out of date type of music.

S

 

[BOD]

Died a long time ago for me too. I seem to be going further back rather than forward for my fix these days. Cant remember a new song that got my juices flowing unless its a rework or nod towards an old sounding one

 

[djperkins]

Dance music will NEVER die...lol...what are you lot like...god...hahahaha...it's just gets shitter and shitter is all, untill it becomes Turd Step...or Floatage, but people will deffo always want to dance to a beat, think there is some kinda scientific explaination why 120bpm is the kiddy..tribal, running out of Africa thing going on.

 

[Jiglo]

Died a long time ago for me too. I seem to be going further back rather than forward for my fix these days. Cant remember a new song that got my juices flowing unless its a rework or nod towards an old sounding one

That is my outlook too Chris. I seem to be just digging for old funk, soul and cool shizzle from the past, while also trying to get my jollies from nu funk, but I have to dig through tons of tunes of nu funk to find each one that I like because it's basically some kid playing exactly the same samples that i've heard a million times before. It reminds of early DMC when every DJ used Run DMC, LL Cool J and a couple of other Def Jam tunes as the basis of their sets.... It soon got old.

 

[Jiglo]

Dance music will NEVER die...lol...what are you lot like...god...hahahaha...it's just gets shitter and shitter is all, untill it becomes Turd Step...or Floatage, but people will deffo always want to dance to a beat, think there is some kinda scientific explaination why 120bpm is the kiddy..tribal, running out of Africa thing going on.

I think the gist of what he was getting at Dave was lack of creativity with everybody using sample packs and the same sounds cloning each other rather that creating something genuinely fresh. The music scene is going to disappear up it's own arse and a quick listen to Soundcloud will tell you why as it's just pure plagiarism rather than learning and developing an ear for good music. It's the beat sync and ready made samplepack generation and mentality. It takes a lot of work to find the people that are actually worth listening to there as most of the guys and galls making the good music aren't getting their music heard.

I was always independent or wanted to be seen as independent. Even when I was with Sony/CBS I signed on the condition that I could have my own imprint called Subscape. So from the beginning I was encouraging independence with artists because I thought that it would also encourage an independence in creativity. I didn’t realize that the bedroom producer scene would become so developed. We were more like musical geeks. Then technology made it easier for anyone to produce loops and soon loops were being defined as finished tracks. So without any kind of thought towards the musical process, people are just jigsawing samples and loops together and releasing them. It seems like the most creative part of what they do is trying to find a new name for a new genre for the marketing. Because they figured out is that there is so many of them doing the same thing, if they call it a different name then they are hoping that people will go for it. So the whole process has very little to do with music. It’s basically an industrial process with their end result as marketing. Where my end result is the mix of the track, their end result is the marketing of the product. There seems to be no passion for the music whatsoever – you are getting a product. They know there is a very short shelf life and attention span and so there is not much energy actually put into the musical process. I calculate in ten years time dance music is going to be totally dead. It is already starved of melody. I could guarantee you if I was to ask someone to go to a club today to listen or dance to music, it would sound completely weird. I’m from a ghetto and this was all we had. The clubs were where you could go and the music was our soundtrack. We knew every tune inside out that came out that year. Basically what has happened is that some djs are rhythmically challenged – because they need a rail. The djs are making dj tools – they are not tracks – they are just dj tools for each other – monotonous, boring beatmatch material. In fact, in the last week I have been going through 2,000+ tracks and most of them are very similar so I guess most of the producers are using Ableton Live or Logic and somehow going for the sounds that are the most popular sounds – maybe the tracks that the popular djs at the moment are playing. For me this feels frustrating as we came out with so many different sounds a couple of decades ago using analogue machines – it seems there were so many different types of music using the same instruments. But now, you can download so many different synths. It’s ironic, it’s seems that the more machinery available to produce music, the less original it become

 

[Monty]

There is amazing producers out there right now (always has been always will be) i love what Noisia have done here:

Forward to 06:42

 

[Sam]

yeah Monty that is fucking awsome and i love it, but it's NOT dance music for me. It's artistic intelligent listen to journey music. (how's that for a genre). I think these styles, that one quite dark in sound and imagery will be around forever and morph/change through the generations.

Dance music, club style house music is getting stale, somebody tagged 'minimal' a few years back and that signalled a shift towards the uninspiring sounds he mentions in his article. i'm not involved with the scene so am not always listening to the latest cuts but the last time i was at Basics nothing moved me until the DJ randomly played 'move your body' by Marshall Jefferson and the roof came off.

 

[Jiglo]

There is amazing producers out there right now (always has been always will be) i love what Noisia have done here:

Forward to 06:42

Quality AV!

 

[djperkins]

There's always a skint chav who knows an even skinter student and they're lashing up some kinda new twist to the scene with crappy equipment using valve tv's or something, whether you like it or not is another matter of course and whether they have the application to take it a step further is also another thing, the fire of youth is a funny thing, most would prob trip out to it with a joint and do nothing but enjoy the moment keeping it underground untill, if at all, it's noticed by someone, maybe a promoter, who has the idea that it might make a few quid, and gets a booking in to the Uni Bar... so the cycle starts again. There are no limits to musical creation if you know how to really use your sampler properly and an awful lot of great music has been born out of poverty and strife, that's what will drive it forwards and keep it alive, it'll just change shape a bit. I doubt if people will have had enough of dancing in 10 years from now...but without a doubt, and it's been said quite a few times...gotta take the music underground, and out of the hands of the industry cash calculaters who would manipulate the sound into a commercial package that fits the sound of "NOW" then when it re-emerges it's fresh. The home producer has the power to deliver the full package nowadays where as in the past you had to go through a studio/engineer, at least, to get something that could be played in any club. Ironically it's become so achievable to make, release and promote your own music that the "independant artist" is also his/her own "independant label" and with no Quality Control, it's anyone game and standards will drop.

 

[tilt]

Gerald has some valid points there. i also feel that nowadays music gets more and more boring and repetitive. I am missing the inspiration and diversity. It is really true: the more options you have to produce the less different sounds are used.

Maybe it is also a matter of age; at some point of your life you weight the new music Vs. the music you listened in your youth. And here the new music has no chance, because for everyone the music listening to in his/her youth will always be the favorites.

... and no, dance music will never ever die.

 

[adamz]

Don't understand the topic. More explanation please.
The urge of dancing will never ever die if that's what is all about but term itself 'dance music' is too diverse to sum it up into two words if you ask me...
Saying that dance music is going to be totally dead is like saying in ten years people completely stop drinking mineral water.
If the definition means something like 'music designed for people's good time ; mainly dancing' then oh man! We got not only house and all the subgenres but also funk, disco, jazz, rock, metal, pop, frkn waltz, tango, can-can haha
And please stop saying the quality of production is getting worse too because every now and then everybody can find tuna, totally different from old skool in every way, yet so powerful and hypnotizing you just want to get up and dance. Probabilty of finding one tho is getting weaker and weaker i agree.. but itll never go down to zero. Dope tracks are being made this min as we type and that makes me danm happy, dunno bout yer..
Defqon 1 21 june people \o/\o/\o/

 

[Howy]

Seriously dont think A Guy Called Gerald really meant this. Probably just a throw away comment or deliberate headline grabbing line for the interview. But possibly, dance music as he knows it died a long time ago, voodoo ray etc. sounds so tired now, even though its an amazing tune. And whats his comment about 'black people are being written out of dance music' nonsense about? Infact, the tone of the whole interview was pretty bleak. Maybe he was having a bad day. Dance music die? . . . Impossible!

 

[djperkins]

That Noisia/Lehman? collaboration is wicked...I reckon a lot of peeps like FSOL bloke/klf types, had the same idea years ago but the technology wasn't there to achieve the end product.

 

[brown29]

Not sure on this one. Have friends in the industry that pack out 2000 capacity venues in a breath. Another has just sold 10,000 tickets for a festival. Also I think more people are involved now than there ever has been.

This is just my humble opinion

 

[U31]

Right yer dinosaur motherfuckers, dya remember when you first became musically aware, id say '84 for me, there was some fucking horrendous horrendous shite being played on radio 1 and in youthclubs etc.
You had to dig to find the good stuff, the icehouse, the japan, jean michelle jarre, the electro albums coming out the States, it never fell in your lap back then and it sure as shit wont fall in your lap now.
As Monts and others have pointed out, there is some fucking AMAZING stuff being produced right now if only you get off your arse and find it!

I remember being blown away by this when this broke for the first time last august...

 

[U31]

^^^^^when i first heard that out, i was completely off me fucking nappa, mind, but i play this a fair bit and still sounds amazing!

 

[pauly p]

Brilliant stuff coming out everyday that still blows my mind.

looks like alot of people have stopped trying to find it :S

 

[Sam]

looks like alot of people have stopped trying to find it

gave me a kick up the arse this off routing

 

[U31]

Look on Paulys mixcloud fer a starter...