big shout out...

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

... to jauntyalan  for banging on about the Justice album. I live a sheltered life as a mild-mannered academic and would not otherwise have been exposed to this young person's banging 'house' music. I couldn't be bothered to read the ILX thread so I have no idea if this is a popular position or not. It sounds like Daft Punk put through a blender.

Also: a warning to freakytigger  Not only have I 'obtained' a copy of Operation Mindcrime, I have even worked out how to get the heavy metal umlauts onto Queensrÿche!!

Comments

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

there is a lot of hate from the dance specialists for this album specifically, and this 'movement' in general. i'm not 100% sure where it comes from. With thelex it is because it is because it is rock music dressed up as dance music. this appears to be the default line about justice (that and 'big beat 2'). and it's not a line i ENTIRELY buy. i sort of FEEL what they are saying here, but it's too easy, and misses the big picture i think.

it has more in common with the dance music i like than the indie ('rock') that i like, and i love the glitchiness and buzzing electro sounds.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

What is 'the big picture' then??

It shouldn't surprise anyone that people who are into minimal techno will hate this (other than as a one off) (ie an ENTIRE ALBUM does my head in) b/c the aesthetics are so opposed.

The types of dance music I hate most = dance music for people who don't like to dance (Groove Armada, X-press 2 et al) and dance music which encourages people to dance like indie kids, ie badly, or in a 'mosh' style, ie antisocial. You can't dance properly to this!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Is making people dance its primary intention?

The whole "dancing properly" argument seems foolish to me unless made by a very good dancer, and very good dancers are unlikely to be in the kind of contexts where Justice gets played, no?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

& you could argue that a REALLY good dancer would be reactive and flexible enough to find a way to dance well to it!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Is making people dance its primary intention?

If it isn't it should be! Given that it purports to be DANCE music.

I mean...it sounds clumsy and beery and heavy-handed in ways which I think leech energy from the music, and make me want to dance less, and it's the very fact that this is deliberate which irks me so much. They've basically only got one sonic idea and that idea is really unfun for more than 5 minutes at a time.

It's funny, though, all of the acts of this ilk that I hate on have at least one track I love! I just don't like seeing it become a big, popular, crossover thing b/c there is BETTER out there.

"beery"

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

better than genrification by silly claims -- does it "purport to be dance music" or has some dimwit merely assumed this at some point? -- we would do better to label all music by its alco-analog

ok gets hilarious do-you-see gag out of way first viz "THIS INDIE IS WHITE and WINEY" zzzz

this salsa is like a fine malt whiskey
this j-pop is like a bloody bacardi breezer
this jazz fusion is like warnink's avocaat only the egg has been POACHED ect etc

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

It shouldn't surprise anyone that people who are into minimal techno will hate this

Lex, this doesn't make sense to me. If I can like both minimal techno and this, why would I assume that other people who like m. t. wouldn't like it? I can see that if they were exclusively into m. t. they wouldn't like it, but then the argument is tautologous since they wouldn't like anything that wasn't m. t....

I can understand it might do your head in though -- I think that's what I like about it, it's so OTT.

Also 'whether you can dance 'properly' to it' is surely a rubbish criterion! A poptimist viewpoint would be that the only definition of dancing properly = dancing improperly from a purist perspective!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I am a dancing purist :D

(Actually I feel this way whenever I see people sing the praises of doing things craply, whether dancing or singing or whatever - I think doing things properly is a VIRTUE especially if it makes one look cool.)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

fsvo "properly" = the generational kink at issue here

(viz "academic" painting vs ___________*)

*insert anti-academic movement to taste

there is a fubsy and timid version of lex's position obv; there is also the william morris arts-and-crafts avant-garde version, and "we" (by which i mean us when we're bein "reynoldsian nu-rockists for dylanesque dancing") get muddled tryin to fite both battles at once cz you CAN'T

[dalek-made-of-light briefly trolls across back of room]

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

we must be at cross purposes. by improperly I don't mean 'badly', but 'in ways which aren't sanctioned by social codification'. I guess I see quality as a technical judgement (i.e. I can judge someone's dancing good or bad IF they are trying to dance 'well' but obviously neither of us would want to use that criterion in relation to children dancing at a party) whereas 'propriety' is a judgement relating to social mores. i.e. properly meaning something more like in the right context, in the right spirit etc.

Lex is the reason I don't dance

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

(And I hope you feel guilty about it!)

Lately I've been thinking that minimal is more for dancing in your head.

Re: Lex is the reason I don't dance

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I am going to dance to minimal in a TENT all night tomorrow :)

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

dr t totally OTM there

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I haven't heard the alBUM but I found "DANCE" way too busy, in the way that (ironically!) people accuse your faves Basement Jaxx of being.

I agree the "oh its rock" thing is a bit of a red herring.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Yes it's totally busy. It reminds me of the bastard pop / cut-up Kid 606 / Jason Forrest style more than anything else.

[infov0re.livejournal.com]

I think DANCE is actually one of the weaker album tracks, to be fair. The first time I listened to the album, I found it a bit "7/110", but it's now really, really growing on me. There's a storming couple of tracks at the end - DVNO, Stress, Waters of Nazareth - that just lead into one another and really get me going.

I really like how relentless it is as album, how full on. And it's totally danceable - I bob around at my desk quite a lot to it.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

i don't rly like Waters of N all that much, but it has grown on me because it's sandwiched into that storming end section (post "Party")

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

'waters of nazareth' is the one I love!

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

i've seen it described it as ADD disco but intended as a -ve criticism :-D

i love me some hyperactivity

Tough on big beat, tough on the descendents of big beat

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

I listened to DANCE last night and thought it was totally meh: messy and busy to no apparent end. Not enough groove or momentum to actually make me want to dance.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I really like Justice, I'm going to buy the album come payday (or, err, on Saturday if I am in Oxford and the WH Smiths has it, since I has tokens) and I'm glad to hear it's good.

Things that are good about music which sounds like this:
-intensely melodic, the chopping and splicing adding emphasis to the melody rather than obscuring it and I really like this as an aesthetic, since I do think that strong, dramatic melody has become rather unfashionable in music and that its return is No Bad Thing
-as jauntyalan said, ADD disco and I agree that this is GOOD
-as alexmacpherson said, beery and lairy and this is also a good thing, to me; it's all very well having "proper" dancing in "proper" clubs or whatever but they just don't exist in a lot of places so for me, being a 6x £1.50 cider and black and subsequent dancefloor massacre style reveller, this is actually really good. As dubdobdee pointed out, the poptimist dance would presumably be one anyone can do and if I can move around to something (bearing in mind how phenomenolly self-conscious I am even under the influence of alcohol) then this is surely some kind of glorious inclusive umbrella of pure glee. I do understand the idea of proper dancing, I used to be a ballet dancer of reasonable caliber and I think you could do beautiful contemporary art style ballet to a lot of the electronica that's around at the minute (I am disappointed that Darcey Bussell never really did this since she was always into the envelope-pushing stuff but oh well) especially minimal techno, which I enjoy a lot but I wouldn't want to hear it in a pub. Although I know the "proper" dancing that Mr Macpherson is talking about is the more traditional/smooth club sort of thing (or at least I assume it is) I would feel v. uncomfortable anywhere where that was the approved mode of dance, I think; it seems very intimidating to me, presumably in similar ways that people regard the sort of mad arm-and-leg-waving that goes on in my preferred dancing haunts.
-makes me grin like a maniac and fills my gothy heart with joy in a way it is not moved otherwise except by *NSync and certain Dance Anthems moments (THERE WAS A BIT ABOUT *NSYNC IN THE NEW EPISODE OF SCRUBS!!!* BUT I DIGRESS)

I am aware that everything I think is good about it is probably what everyone who hates it thinks is bad about it. I think this is probably another good thing about it, although I can't quite specify why.

*It wasn't as good as it should have been but basically Turk made everyone dance to 'Bye Bye Bye' AS THEY SHOULD

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

God I do write like a dick when I go off on one -sorry.