murkage

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I was gonna post this on my own LJ but it's a welcome counterpoint to that k-spunk article from yesterday, I think. The other week, I went to a symposium on the hardcore cuntinuum at the University of East London, which is WAY WAY WAY OUT EAST, Cyprus is so far out but I love the DLR so it was all good. I missed k-spunk's talk because I was interviewing Tori Amos (and tbh her academic babble is so much more preferable) but that didn't matter - I was there to support Dan Hancox and Joe Muggs and they were both excellent, v funny and incisive in debunking the cuntinuum. I don't think either has put their speech online but I was particularly pleased that Dan brought up the issue of dancing, which ~for some reason~ is rarely discussed despite the cuntinuum consisting of dance genres. ANYWAY, my friend Melissa Bradshaw (who is the kind of smart, knowledgeable writer who should be linked up all over the place, rather than fauxthorities like k-spunk and SR) was in the audience with me, murked k-spunk at one point and has now written about it, as well as comparing the symposium to the soca aerobics class she left early to go to, and a vg read it is too.

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

You'd only have to look at the charts, or go to clubs, or read interviews with the artists and producers...except I wouldn't assume that people did any of these things at the time, and certainly not now! I mean, that's the point of documenting these scenes, so that people who don't have the time/inclination/ability to go to the primary sources can still have an idea of what was going on. And this is where the idea of the HC falls down - as you say, it's more like several continua overlapping and influencing each other concurrently. But the ones which aren't "convenient" have been excluded.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

The exclusion of certain styles is understandable. I think of it as to identify the production trends and subsequent scenes in 90s dance which best represented the following things in roughly equal measures:

1) underground
2) innovation (relative to technology and dancing/rhythmic form, but also culturally i.e. attempts to develop dance genres unique/native to the UK)
3) ruffness in production terms - interpret this as rude energy, the appeal of someone creating so much with so little (ghetto/bedroom producer culture), amateurishness (punk ethos) probably

but chiefly (tho it's difficult to describe and obv a generalisation)

4) latest soundtrack by/for/of (many) black urban youths (fetishised by those who aren't all of those things)

The fourth condition is mainly what excludes IDM, Big Beat, Breaks, (Northern) Hard House and remaining dance genres seen as both British and white. And combined with the other three it also excludes the "tasteful" UK soul, jazz and funk movements of the 90s (which I think of as being as mixed race-wise as DnB), these probably owing too much to their original US counterparts (same goes for UK rap, ragga and dancehall to an extent, but these genres are always seen as separate from the Dance Music umbrella anyway).

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

yes I know that's what it's meant to be - the point I've been making, and which Joe made far more eloquently and expertly at the symposium, is that 4) contains within it the opposites of 1) to 3) as well, and excluding the tastefulness and the smoothness and the aspiration is a dishonest misrepresentation of 4). Hopefully Joe will put his paper online at some point, and when he does I'll link to it.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

OK to put it better we're talking about 4 ONLY as it relates to 1-3. This is NOT a dishonest mispresentation, it is merely a selective preference or focus point and one that's been made by both producers and listeners alike.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Well, then it's incomplete and exclusionary, and there's no reason to privilege or pedestalise this particular preference as the HC has been. Though it's worth asking a) why those preferences - what does it say that aggressive, masculine traits are deemed OK and smooth, feminine ones not? that's worth unpacking; and b) for a phrase which has been in use for a decade plus, how come it hasn't trickled down to being used by fans and producers? Surely if its validity was so obvious this would have happened? Maybe it's because for your average fan, it's not something which matches up with your quotidian experience of the music at all...

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

If people are taking it as something that encapsulates a comprehensive representation of UK dance then they are obviously missing the point. I don't who is doing this or why. It's clear from the 'hardcore' qualifier that exclusivity is evident (and necessary).

I don't really like this "masculine/feminine" thing at all but it's fine to say you prefer rough to smooth and vice versa. Are we all supposed to appreciate both qualities equally? Anyone who does think HC material is so great BECAUSE it's anti-smoothness or somehow anti-feminine is stupid. It's great for what it is pro.

"for a phrase which has been in use for a decade plus, how come it hasn't trickled down to being used by fans and producers?"
- might you not ask the same about 'hauntology' or whatever other terms are applied by critics? there is no real need for fans or producers to use these terms - what would they gain from it? this is not a problem as far as i can see.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

'Hauntology' is an even more rubbish term than 'hardcore continuum'!

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

both infinitely superior to 'electrodribble' as a term