Lucas Jensen

I'd say Todd would be delighted if that happened. But I bet you the entirety of my pathetic dance critic's bank account that it never ever does.

That music is made to ensure it's never popular, it undercuts itself at every juncture to ensure anything that's getting popular is shedded like old skin.

HIAF

CarsmileSteve

it strikes me as arbitrary that certain artists and subgenres come out of the underground and get popular. it's not a big stretch to imagine germanic bleeps and blorps getting getting over -- there's lots of elements to easily grab on to: obvious beats, diatonic melodic elements, fun sounds. won't todd burns be fuxored when that happens.

Notecrusher

Mike Barthel

Every time this is discussed somebody makes it sound like the average underground house fan sits in a cold bath reading Proust listening to clicks and pops for hours on end, whereas those crazy Justice kids are neon hooded and wild and free.

This is actually complete bullshit (especially if you live outside America) "Fun" music doesn't always mean "fun" listening/consumption, and of course "serious" music doesn't mean serious listening/reception.

I majorly disagree that people don't dance to Justice or that it's not dance music (and long ago ceased to care about those sort of divides, probably after a massive Justice argument on ILM made me realise that actually I don't particularly care if people like them and it's my problem if I don't)

I do think you can see the roots of Todd's frustration in these very comments though.

The problem is I think the piece fuels a false distinction between serious house and techno and Justice etc. It makes one seem detached and intellectual and the other seem visceral and fun.

And I don't really buy that split.

HIAF

It's like some kind of cross-over freak-hybrid mutation!

(Hmmm, I don't like the looks of this..)

Help!
It's comming!!
KILL IT!!
IT IS EVIL!!!!

NotPop

prolixrush

Dick Laurent is dead.

rainmkr

Murk

rogerniner

Whatever happened to liking what you like how you like it because you like it and not just because someone else tells you how?

It's not some sign of outward maturity and growth as a music listener to intellectualize every whiff of music that piques one's interest. People who listen to total crap and don't know any better seem like they're better off than people whose identities revolve around the music they listen to.

loudersoft

First, I use the term 'hip-populist' 'cause I don't think blog-house really encompasses everything here. Simply saying 'populist' I feel is that separate, megaclubmix crowd, who are certainly the bottom rung of this debate. I hope this term to encompass the French scene discussed so at-length, as well as the neo-disco and nu-Balaeric scenes that are growing quite popular, so far as I can tell, as well as numerous other splinter groups that really go on to prove that the year-end factions, as stated above, really aren't that dismissive of "all but one" segment of dance music.

Between the 'serious' (minimal-accepting) and this, then, it's not too hard to see why the beef. These camps are both comprised of fans who consider themselves somewhat savvy of their selections. Many (if not most) 'hip-populist' fans, in my experience, will freely admit that they find the 'serious' stuff(minimal, extended, or most of the UK garage diaspora e.g. dubstep, for that matter) quite boring. They cherry pick "what sounds good to them", and yes, they have more than enough right to enjoy 3 minute hook-laden "pop" stuff.

But woe be to the 'serious' fan, the one who craves a new Philip Sherburne or Martin Clark article or has payed way to many international fees to Boomkat, who is certainly put on the defensive when the debate rages up. Can Deepchord's great 2007 album really be so easily dismissed as "wallpaper" by so many critics? Granted, usually it is not a specific artist, but the entire genre. I remember reading an interview with Diplo where he had some scalding remarks on how Berlin basically made him want to kill himself, or some such. Well! Sorry for dancing here.

So maybe a frontal attack on hooks isn't the best way to go about this, and maybe it is really just a matter of preference, immediate rush and apocalyptic release vs a patience and willingness to explore detail over repeated listens or immersion in repetition, etc. But still I can understand his defensiveness. There's a lot of the genre that feels under-represented, and the desire to shed some attention-giving light on the 'nuum may have lead him to produce a bit more bile than was good for the article. Perhaps that's an understatement, but what can I say... I know which side of the divide I twitch, ever-so-slightly, on (in spite of my maximalist word count here, for which I apologize and accept my deserved punishment...)

quincyhoist

rogerniner

[blogs.suntimes.com]

markp

I'll go along with him on the Field in that one of the funnier things I saw last year was people TRYING to dance to the Field at Baltimore's Ottobar. As for Justice, well people go crazy over that and its only in the hermetically-sealed world of music dorks that Justice wouldn't be considered fairly weird, out-there, aggressive, whatever...what Justice and the Field did that most dance groups- authentic or false- is make a wholly listenable, filler-free album.

brandonsoderberg

loudersoft

natepatrin

Dickdogfood

Personally, I'm in that category of people who only know about the crossover stuff. Every time I try to get into anything else, especially if I'm not just trying to dance to it, a little switch flips in my brain and says "This is bullshit. You still haven't made a good effort to get into Led Zeppelin, Biggie, or whoever those guys are from Austin who keep getting really good notices on the blogs. Turn this crap off!" Not that I necessarily think that dance music is bullshit, but that the little voice who is piloting things doesn't really have an arguement against him yet.

SuperUnison

sparkletone

dippinkind

dippinkind

Dead Air ummm Dead Air

Lucas Jensen

loudersoft

falsefridays

Dead Air ummm Dead Air