A kung fu fighter in a disco

no, it's an entirely new genre which owes more to soca and broken beat than to the old "funky house" (though it's got roots in straight-up 90s house too, and now that all the disillusioned grime dudes have jumped in, it's pretty recognisable as part of the UK garage lineage too). basically it's a bit like the new 2-step. oh god i bet you all hated 2-step too? too "classy" and "smooth" and, like, good. but fine, get hung up over the name and ignore the music!!!

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For some reason I thought you might be happy that a funky track had got into the poll Lex but obviously not, carry on shouting eh?

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Sorry, I had a shitty and tiring morning and coming home to these comments was a bit deflating.

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lockedintheatti.livejournal.com

Really? All the evidence I've heard to date makes it sound quite conservative in house-terms, and again most doesn't sound all that UK-garagey either.

(and I love 2-step, BTW)

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I think this article (http://idolator.com/391655/peering-through-the-front-door-of-funky-house) explains the hows and whys of funky innovation quite succinctly (it acknowledges the conservative roots of the genre, and argues that that's why its producers can get away with a lot more). Key sentence -

increasingly abandoning the basic 4X4 house template, funky house producers have been able to concoct a sound entirely distinct from its forebears, neither monolithically pummeling, nor nervous and fidgety, but somehow both and neither of these at the same time, all combined with a loose-limbed, well, funkiness that's entirely its own

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i think the word "entirely" is ill-considered, BOTH times, in that quote

i'm stlll torn whether i prefer some of the noize-heightened mixes of this, or the one in the youtube -- probably a matter of mood (mine i mean)

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The problem is, though, does it sound innovative to someone who isn't familiar with the ins and outs of existing house traditions and productions? (Something Tim F also acknowledges in this piece!). There's no reason it NEEDS to, of course - but if it doesn't it's not likely to cross over to a community like this one, most of whose members don't have an in-depth knowledge of this particular strand of pop development.

I think this is part of why you're getting frustrated. Because you're familiar with the patterns it's breaking and the new ones it's making it seems intuitively exciting to you: very few of your posts on Funky here have had much critical or explanatory content, they've been more "OMG listen to this" with the assumption that anyone hearing must be able to hear why it's special. But if the innovations aren't immediately apparent to people not steeped in it that won't happen, and arguments like Tim's will read like hair-splitting. (FWIW I can understand what he's getting at but can't quite hear it - "Do You Mind" sounds lovely and smooth and melancholy to me, but it's not registering as 'innovative'). I'm reminded of the discussions I see on the Pitchfork staff board where people get terribly excited about a band like No Age who are putting some particular kink or other in the (other) "hardcore continuum" of small-bore punk music. I can appreciate that No Age make catchy punk tunes but I can't hear the distinction that's making those who follow the scene go mental.

Beyond all this it does strike me that every 10-12 years British clubland has an infatuation with vaguely latin sounds, and these always cause great excitement among the cognoscenti and much wailing and gnashing of teeth when Blue Rondo A La Turk (or whoever) fail to appeal to anyone else.

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I'm nowhere near as steeped in some of these traditions as Tim (which is why I linked to his article) but the reasons it rung as innovative to me don't, I think, need all that much knowledge -

- the UK garage lineage has been quite "dark" and "harsh" for a while, 2-step seems a long while ago now. I love grime, dubstep and bassline 4eva but in that context these sunny, pretty, feminine sounds are acting on some sort of manna-from-heaven level, esp with the effect they're having on the other three subgenres. (I'm pretty sure most poptimists are familiar with the basics of 2-step/grime/dubstep/bassline.)
- it's tying together two listening strands of mine which had hitherto been a bit "never the twain shall meet" - 4x4-centred tracky house and the "urban" end of things, r&b choruses and UK garage production. One of the most incredible moments for me this year was going to a funky night and discovering that Claude VonStroke's 'Who's Afraid Of Detroit?' (huge in mnml techno nights in 06/07) was a huge anthem on that scene too.

Plus even apart from the "innovation"/"new development" angle, I really think the biggest anthems' feeling of "good vibes" is unparalleled right now. It's just...really joyous and relaxed.

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Right, innovative as in a return of some much needed sweetness and light to the scene! I can get behind that certainly. But I think that's also why a lot of poptimists responded to bassline so much - it didn't code as dark or harsh in the way dubstep does (because bassline's aggression was more like the aggression of scouse house or clubland-live stuff - the harshness is in the melody rush and speed).

So I can see why it's frustrating that pop people don't like it more - it's feminised, it's good vibey, these are pop things right? So there must be something else acting as a stronger counterblock, probably the very trackiness you cite in point two, possibly the long-term resistance British pop audiences seem to have to latin-ish music, and possibly what you're characterising (here and on the Badu and Ne-Yo discussions elsewhere) as a resistance to polish, sophistication, classiness.

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Yes this is exactly it - I'm not in the habit of putting dubstep youtubes on poptimists because...it's dubstep. But I genuinely thought that the vocal hooks, catchiness, good vibes etc would make poptimists fall as hard for UK funky as...well, everyone else I know who knows what it is! It seems tailor-made for pop audiences.

Trackiness - don't think this is a problem, it's more apparent at actual club nights - most of the big anthems have pretty obvious choruses and so on
Resistance to Latin music - didn't realise this was a long-term British problem? I thought it was reasonably popular here!
Resistance to "smooth" "classiness" - yes, I'm beginning to be aware that poptimists don't go for this at all, but...why? I can't think why these are bad things. And it seems to be more the FT old-skool poptimists who are anti-smoothness too.

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my observation over the years has been that a) it ALWAYS has a certain constutiuecy, and b) it NEVER crosses over (or "goes clear" as my old ninjatune pal matt used to say; at some point there's a weird resistance

what's strange is that ts aplies to ANY form of music you could reasonably call latin (inc.the stuff that gets danced to in "come dancing" back in the day and celebrity TV dance-competitions now

"smoothness" maybe has a similar -- though distinct -- uk arc of success/resistance? (relating to a white idea of what black music should be?) (as if the words "adult"and "pop" were intrinsically opposed?)

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I think "the Latin" is one of the more enduring 'others' for British culture - we never had an Empire in South America, we were never conquered by Spain or Portugal, there's never been a big wave of Hispanic immigrants to the UK. The image of sophistication mixed with a certain untrustworthiness has remained the same for 200-300 years. So I wonder if Latin is too rootedly exotic to assimilate in a way that other musics haven't been - a combination of "such sophistication is not for the likes of us" and "such sophistication is inherently to be suspected".

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I'm sure there's always been a vague Latinate presence in the charts, though - even Daddy Yankee had a top 5 hit a few years ago, and that was entirely in Spanish. Though maybe there's a disproportion of novelty holiday records that I'm thinking of. And er every small town seems to have a salsa dance class?

White people seem to want black music to have a certain level of vulgarity (but not too much) - the criticism levelled at a lot of consciously classy/classily conscious neo-soul artists is that they're not as "fun" as commercial r&b and hip-hop (though when the commercial stuff gets too vulgar, suddenly r&b and hip-hop are just too sleazy and Bad Examples and so on!).

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yes the salsa thing is omnipresent -- when i as home at dad's one of the carers was talkin to my sister about a salsa class she was goin to in some TINY ULTRA-RURAL SHROPSHIRE TOWN, i nearly blurted out my ubersobbish metropolitan scorn for the quality of the lessons, but luckily bit my tongue in time

for some reason the latin thing is wide in brit pop culture but not "deep" -- it seems utterly to pervade a layer of leisure-time and leisure-type functional music without ever reaching "up" or "down", as it were, into neighbouring layers (i sourly think some of this is a general brit ineptness with rhythm that isn't in foursquare marchtime; that's to say, plenty of brits have an ear for this, but the ear has never been allowed cultural expression of sustenance in brit culture)

(i'm not really explaining this very well)

Re: latin

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alexmacpherson.livejournal.com - Date: 2009-01-05 05:28 pm (UTC) - Expand

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koganbot - Date: 2009-01-05 06:01 pm (UTC) - Expand

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I think the classiness issue needs unpicking in its own thread really! But as starters - the reflex against classiness might be rooted in one or more of the following reactions:

- "This is a put-on"
- "This is NOT ENOUGH of a put-on" (i.e. something like Roxy Music gets a pass, classiness-wise)
- "This is cultural cringe (Brits trying to be American sophisticates)"
- "I am a scruffy unclassy dude what has this to do with me?"
- General discomfort with things Mick Hucknall might be imagined liking. (the key to 'classiness'' is CLASS!)

I dunno if it's a particular tic of the old-skool FT crowd though.

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Hmm yes I think its own thread would be a good idea (will leave you to start it as and when). There also seems to be a bit of kneejerk reaction against music which takes itself seriously (and making a bit of an ill-advised jump to "this is po-faced and humourless"), or which places a premium on some form of emotional honesty (which yes a thousand indie students "meaning it, man", but this can be a good thing). Fearing Hucknallisms seems a bit ass-backwards though.

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mostlyconnect.livejournal.com

Actually thinking abt it I think there are really strong class dimensions to my own poptimist distaste for that kind of 'classiness' in pop music; I associate it v.strongly with gucci bags & designer jeans etc etc - being honest I think it is that I am v.uncomfortable with the way it sets up an alternate class system that I am not near the top of!

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chezghost.livejournal.com

I'd welcome such a thread with open arms (never mind that at the ends of those arms are some massive GUNS).

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koganbot

I'm pretty sure most poptimists are familiar with the basics of 2-step/grime/dubstep/bassline.

Hah! Actually, I'm not in position to evaluate the word "most" in that sentence, but I'd guess that at least some of the Americans who post here may live somewhere where there are no clubs that have ever played any of this and no radio station that has played anything remotely like it - leaving it up to the Internets to give us the music and its context.

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Yeah I guess "UK poptimists" would've worked better, there. If you ever feel like having a primer to any of these let me know!

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koganbot

Well, I'm trying to keep up with what you post/send, but some of it surely got lost in the year-end onslaught, and, owing to such onslaught, none of it got the attention it deserved from me. But I'll definitely keep my ear attuned and may make requests if I ever catch up.

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katstevens.livejournal.com

I missed most of this thread, whoops!

I don't think that Funky House and I gel together very well - I have given it plenty of chances to impress and I trust Lex's cherry-picking enough that I'm fairly sure I'm hearing the best bits of the genre.

Possible explanations: Most of my listening time is spent on techno and minimal house - I've never liked breaks AT ALL and have only recently come to appreciate the odd bit of Balearic/vocal house (alas, an average vocal can spoil a really good beat sometimes). The latin/soca element also jarrs with me on some level too as I prefer more dubby/ska stuff usually. It can cause me a lot of conflict! Take that Matias Aguayo track off Total 9 - it's latin house with tons of vocal and it's great, but also I can't actually listen to it ever as the dude's voice puts me off :( I'm not explaining this very well, sorry.

Bad metaphor to summarize: I hate trifle (yuck) but I like custard, and I like cream, and I like sponge fingers - surely I must like them all put together? NO, but I can understand why other people *do* like it.

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katstevens.livejournal.com

I have just realised that my love of ska is almost certainly directly related to my liking of Kompakt-style schaffel-bosh! (The dub --> jungle link is a bit more obvious).

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