| rss2email.ru |
 Записки seo-нерда  |  Afrostore.ru - материалы для наращивания  |  Блог о здоровье и долголетии  |  Спец и промо акции в Таиланде  |
 |  Music: Music blog | guardian.co.ukArticles published by guardian.co.uk Music about: Music blog http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog рекомендовать друзьям >> |
- What does DJ Mag's top 100 poll tell us about UK dance music? Not much
The annual rundown of global beatmakers is out, and dubstep is conspicuous by its absence
There's no denying that DJ Mag's top 100 poll is dance music's most recognised indicator of public taste. That position has only advanced in the last year after the magazine took steps to assure voters that it was impossible to rig the poll. This follows the controversy over Chinese DJ Tiesmi's admission last year that he paid a software engineer to circumvent DJ Mag's system, handing over 4,000 Yuan (£260) for 100,000 votes. Unfortunately for him, it became pretty obvious something funny was going on when he raced to the No 1 spot within hours of the poll opening.
Dutch trance icon Armin van Buuren ended up taking the top spot in 2009, and it's no surprise to see him back in the hotseat once again – for the fourth year in a row – after the results of the 2010 poll were announced this week at a gala evening at London's Ministry of Sound. Trance, even in a year in which DJs such as fellow Dutchman Tiesto (No 3 this year) have turned their back on the sound, remains spectacularly big business, especially in Russia, whose influence on the poll has expanded dramatically in recent years as the country's club scene has grown.
The US has also seen something of a revival of interest in electronic dance music, with a large part of that upsweep brought about by the success of Frenchman David Guetta, who has worked with the likes of the Black Eyed Peas, Rihanna , Kelis, Akon, Kid Cudi, Madonna and Flo Rida. This year, he won a Grammy, sold a spectacular 20m records and became the first ever DJ to appear on the front page of Billboard magazine, so it's no surprise that he's up one spot to No 2 in the poll.
Canadian electro house main man Deadmau5 is at No 4, up two spots, despite the ebbing popularity of the sub-genre. The enigmatic DJ has had a mixed year, embarking on a gruelling tour schedule and being named best house artist at the MTV Video Music awards, but also suffering the effects of the aforementioned gig marathon when he collapsed on stage in Washington in July. The No 5 spot goes to trance trio Above & Beyond, not a name that will be spectacularly well known to the casual dance music listener, but certainly an indicator of the style's burgeoning popularity.
What's surprising, at least to those of us who don't enjoy the more mainstream genres, is the paucity of artists from outside the house and trance scenes in the top 100. This has pretty much always been the case, with the odd drum'n'bass or breakbeat act occasionally making it into the lower reaches in years gone by, but this year's situation is particularly extreme. There is just one artist whose music is not based on the standard four-to-the-floor beat pattern adopted by mainstream dance music in the top 100 - and he has been around for more than a decade and a half.
Drum'n'bass icon Andy C, up a spectacular 39 places at No 61, certainly deserves his position after a career which has seen him stamp his innovative individuality firmly on the genre and scene while refusing to flirt with other styles (as many other former d'n'b icons have done in recent years). But there is no place for anyone from the dubstep scene, which in the last few years has grown from minor diversion to genuine phenomenon. At least in the UK, where its popularity has skyrocketed spectacularly, it is now the style of choice for most people of a certain (younger) generation. Yet there is no place in the top 100 for the likes of Skream, Benga or Rusko. Perhaps in future years the music's popularity with the kids will slowly see it coming through as older fans stop voting, but I doubt we'll ever see any of these DJs in the top 10.
The DJ poll's strength has been its ability to harness votes from across the globe, in ever-increasing numbers. But the larger the pot grows, the less room it seems there is for the weird and the wonderful to poke their heads above the parapet. Not that dubstep fans will be all that bothered. If – say – Skream were to get to No 1, it would indicate one of two things: either that the style had become so formulaic and commercial that it might as well be subsumed into the bulging, prosaic mass of mainstream dance music ... or that someone in Croydon is very very good indeed with computers.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Readers recommend: songs set at dawn
Last time was all about incertitude. Now here's a topic for all you early birds out there ...
It must say something about my own insecurities that I take such great satisfaction from watching RR tick over 1000 comments, as it did this past week. I mean, it's got very little to do with me, and the X Factor live blog can generate similar numbers in just three hours, but still. Each time it happens I feel a warm sensation pass through my bowels.
So let's party!
And now stop partying ...
... because here's an A-list to read (there's a column, too, explaining the choices): Can't Be Sure – The Sundays; Seriocity – The Chameleons; Flood – Tool; Hanging on a String – Loose Ends; I Know But I Don't Know – Blondie; The Weakness in Me - Joan Armatrading; Who Will the Next Fool Be? – Charlie Rich; For Today I Am a Boy – Antony and the Johnsons; It's Too Soon to Know – The Orioles; What's Happening?!?! – The Byrds.
You may also find the following helpful. Another 10 songs about uncertainty (by and large), colloquially known as the B-list:
Soundgarden – Superunknown
You know how much I love metal right? I love it so much that I know this is not metal. It's still pretty heavy, though, and a combination of a powerful guitar hook and a series of passive, confusing couplets ("If you don't want to be seen/You don't have to hide") got this song on the list.
Paul Revere and the Raiders – Him or Me
I didn't get the remark about the Prefab Five (Shiv, what does it mean?), but I did get this tune. It sounds very modern, in the sense that any number of current indie boys are currently aping this sound.
Graham Parker and the Rumour - Don't Ask Me Questions
A protest song that questions its own effectiveness, lyrically this is rather powerful. Musically, it pulls off the rock/reggae rollup half-decently without ever quite matching the Clash
Jonathan Richman – I'm So Confused
A minor Richman – to my ears anyway – but this still sparkles with wit and tiny touches of invention. What's the difference between confusion and uncertainty? I guess you can be uncertain as a result of confusion, but being uncertain does not necessarily imply confusion. Maybe.
Leonard Bernstein – Symphony No 2 (aka "The Age of Anxiety")
Why not an instrumental? But "classical" at the same time – you must be kidding! No, I'm not. Slow in tempo and often sweet, odd moments of discord in this piece seem to suggest the anxiety beneath.
Bill Withers – Who Is He (And What Is He to You)
Classic soul which is already zedded for Questions but I wanted to bring back just so people could listen again.
Louis Jordan and the Tympany Five – Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby
After the Orioles, some more 40s music. This is more familiar, big flaring horns and some swinging lyrics, with a memorable bit of jive talk (?!?) as the chorus.
New Order – Confusion
Probably not quite on topic lyrically, but what a hook. In fact it's such a good hook that in return producer Arthur Baker obviously demanded that he not only be allowed in the video but also got to sit in a car looking menacing in the video. He got his wish.
Lives in the Balance – Jackson Browne
A great protest song from the man with the most indefatigably enduring looks in pop. Again I don't think there's much uncertainty involved, he knows who's to blame, but it's powerful enough to demand inclusion.
Who Do You Love? – Bo Diddley
Nothing at all whatsoever about uncertainty, just an absence of clarity. Don't care though. It's mean.
This week's topic is songs set at dawn. That's the point in the day when the sun comes up and you have to put a pillow over your head to pretend it's still night and that you don't have to get up in a minute. We've had morning songs, back in the day, but this is a tighter brief. Dawn is not only what comes up at the end of a good party, it's also suggestive of new beginnings, and the victory of hope over fear. OK, I may be stretching it a bit, but let's see what songwriters have to say about it.
The toolbox: Archive, the Marconium, the Spill and the Collabo (it's back!).
The rulebook:
DO post your nominations before midday on Monday if you wish them to be considered.
DO post justifications of your choices wherever possible.
DO NOT post more than one third of the lyrics of any song.
DO NOT dump lists of nominations – if you must post more than two or three at once, please attempt to justify your choices.
Finally, no biting, spitting, buking, puking or hair-pulling.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Inky Fingers: Maggoty Lamb's guide for critical Young guns
Veteran music critic David Hepworth slated Neil Young's new album then seemed to change his mind. Plus, the popularity of 'bad gay art'
Attentive readers of Alexis Petridis's well-informed and reliably waspish record reviews will have noticed that he often defines his own views in opposition to a shadowy, specialist rock-press other. These critical Aunt Sallies used to be given a clearly coded institutional introduction – "a heritage rock magazine" meant Mojo or Uncut; "a glossy music mag" was Q – but are now more often alluded to on an individual basis (such as the "one critic" sceptically cited in Petridis's review of Arcade Fire's The Suburbs, clearly recognisable to friends and family as respected Mojo heavyweight Keith Cameron).
Whichever form of generic signifier he opts for, this is still a provocative ruse on Mr Petridis's part. It allows him to simultaneously project Olympian broadsheet detachment in the face of the overheated indulgences of the old-school weekly and monthly music titles and cock a surreptitious snook at his journalistic peers. His most recent application of the technique – suggesting in a review of Neil Young's Le Noise that the fact that this record had already been dubbed "unlistenable" by one "august rock critic" might actually be a good sign – had a series of intriguing ramifications that reached beyond the cut and thrust of everyday pop debate.
The least compelling of these involved a quest for the identity of the venerable authority concerned. A mischievous contributor to the Word's bewilderingly active messageboard soon outed him as David Hepworth. The former Old Grey Whistle Test presenter responded with the following robust contextualisation of his damning initial verdict on Young's latest: "Simon Mayo and I were having a Twitter conversation about what a chore it was to listen to." If future cultural historians are ever looking for a sentence that encapsulates the way supposedly democratising trends in electronic communication have magnified the bogus sense of entitlement of pre-existing UK media elites, this one will do nicely.
Readers barely had time to text Pope Benedict their own jaundiced responses to Daniel Lanois's at-home recording techniques before the Word's presses rolled with Hepworth's actual review of the album in question. A slight shift in his position had been registered. "This isn't as annoying as I thought it was on first hearing," he now averred, magisterially, "but I can't imagine listening to it much." Roll over Lester Bangs and tell the Algonquin Table the news.
As an antidote to the cynicism and despondency that the poverty of David Hepworth's aesthetic aspirations might all too easily foster, Petridis's notion of the bad review that bodes well points the way to a positive application of such journalistic ennui. But it's not just a question of thinking: "This album's got on Hepworth's nerves, so it must be good." While much of Neil Young's finest work – On the Beach and Tonight's the Night being textbook examples – excited adverse responses on release, the same could also be said of several records (Everybody's Rockin', Landing On Water … let's leave Trans out of this) whose fulsome reappraisal is awaited by no one. So it might be more a matter of identifying the particular kinds of unfavourable adjective that are most prone to subsequent reconsideration – "unlistenable" certainly springs to mind, perhaps because the gauntlet it throws down is so easy to pick up – and learning to keep an eye out for them.
If there are certain kinds of negative critical response that signal a favourable ultimate outcome, might the reverse also be the case? As end-of-year poll season bears down on us, it would certainly be useful to be aware of a style of consensual approbation that actually sets alarm bells ringing. For example, on reading the almost uniformly ecstatic responses to one of 2010's leading album-of-the-year contenders, John Grant's Queen of Denmark, someone who had not actually experienced this emotionally elaborate soft-rock wedding cake of an album might be tempted to consign it to the vexatious aesthetic realm of "Bad Gay Art".
This is not (much as those of the Daily Mail columnist persuasion might wish it to be) art whose badness is contingent upon its gayness, but rather art whose inflated reputation seems predicated more on the determination of – largely, if not uniformly – heterosexual critics to proclaim themselves at ease with how gay it is, than any inherent aesthetic virtue in the work itself. It's a multi-disciplinary category into which I would put the film Precious, Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty and pretty much the complete recorded works of Rufus Wainwright.
The equivalent – if not precisely equal and opposite – category, "Bad Straight Art", is an alternately Gucci and gingham-clad arena, wherein the cultural artefact is venerated more for its loyalty to an antediluvian conception of gender difference than any intrinsic merit. If offered the use of the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square as a venue for an educational display-case on this topic, it would be tempting to put in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (if it was that good, would they really have given it an Oscar?), the second Joanna Newsom album (somehow the more people told us how great it was, the harder that was to believe) and Cormac McCarthy's The Road.
I should own up at this point to not actually having read the latter book yet. The Road's theoretical inclusion is a purely vindictive response to the self-satisfied tone of voice invariably adopted by the kind of men who consider it a masterpiece, and might easily prove as misguided as those notional misgivings about Queen of Denmark (which turns out to be a classic of the AOR revenge genre – four parts Karen Carpenter to one part John Carpenter). Perhaps the most useful conclusion the critical community could draw from the whole David Hepworth/Le Noise farrago is that if you don't want to look like an idiot, don't write off a cultural artefact to which you have not yet given your full attention. And any readers with suggestions of their own for the Bad Straight Art and Bad Gay Art halls of shame will find a receptive audience in the comments section below.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Robert Plant's Band of Joy perform Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down
Part four of our week-long series sees the Led Zeppelin legend offer his take on a classic American folk song
We're almost at the end of our five-part series of videos taken from Robert Plant's Band of Joy gig in London earlier this year. Today, he performs the American folk classic Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down. Enjoy.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - New music: N*E*R*D – Nothing
Listen to five tracks from the genre-hopping trio's new album
It's been two years since N*E*R*D's last LP, but now they're back with new album Nothing. It includes the Daft Punk-produced Hypnotize U and Hot and Fun, which features Nelly Furtado, and will be released on Monday (2 November).
Let us know your thoughts below.guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Unsound of the underground – the festival that feels like a séance
The likes of Lustmord and James Blake delighted and unsettled audiences at Unsound, Poland's horror-themed music gathering
As the thousands of Saw fans currently paying to see people being tortured with buzzsaws will tell you, terror and pleasure are closely intertwined. That was the relationship explored by the Unsound music festival – subtitled "Horror: the pleasure and fear of unease" – in Krakow, Poland, last weekend. Bilious dread vied with adrenal joy throughout, sometimes within the space of a single performance.
At the fear end of the unease spectrum was Lustmord – perhaps unsurprisingly given that the only other time he has performed live in 29 years was on 6/6/06 at a Church of Satan mass. As furls of smoke spread out on a screen above him, a voice intoned "This is the night of the demon" over thunderous bass. The effect was like that of a séance, and the sinister edge was only augmented by Lustmord's appearance in a cosy fleece and avuncular spectacles – the outward ordinariness of the truly evil. Ben Frost and Daniel Bjarnson's new score for Solaris was less disturbing than many expected but had its moments, not least when a Bruegel painting (via Brian Eno and some software) queasily dismantled itself as the orchestra trembled underneath.
And at the other end of the spectrum, there wasn't just pleasure in unease, but actual ease. Shackleton's time in Berlin has clearly influenced his production: apocalyptic dub cityscapes have been replaced with taut techno. His set was finely crafted and recklessly enjoyable. James Blake opened with tender romance (to Shea Stadium screams from swooning girls in the audience) and then built his pace, taking in sped-up versions of Goapele and fellow performers Mount Kimbie before a euphoric juke finale.
Perhaps most successful, at least in terms of the festival's remit, were those that blended the two. Placing Tim Hecker in a huge, barely lit church was inspired. His drones had the air of a choir robbed of words and faith, and in the half-light ornate frescoes became toothy monsters, the organ a snarling baleen. Alan Howarth, who co-wrote many of John Carpenter's horror scores, played live to Jade Boyd's manipulations of the films. Their collaboration was by turns nostalgic, comic and unsettling, and showed the (perhaps unwitting) sonic affinity Howarth and Carpenter had with nascent electronic music in the US at the time. Resident Advisor has a non-live version of the set as a podcast here.
Actress, meanwhile, with a live visual accompaniment, showed why he's the most vital and nuanced voice in techno today. Goofy upbeat tones rubbed against distortion as the screens showed low-res digital nightmares.
It was a brilliant festival that raised interesting questions: what is it that makes music disturbing? Instrumentation? Setting? A fleece-based wardrobe? Lustmord and Frost's poker faces just about worked, but a change of a couple of degrees could have turned the seriousness into silliness and misplaced grandiosity. For a sign of just how silly "scary" music can get, Goblin's set – full of double-kick drums and one-handed keyboard solos – was a long, boring way from the flickering shadows and lurid violence of their Suspiria score. As Actress showed, it seems that the best way to really freak everyone out is to take a dancefloor and then fold the fear of music into the pleasure of hedonism. But what do you think? Does anyone have any terrifying music stories to recount?
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - RIP Walkman: the soundtrack of your years
The demise of the Walkman prompted tributes from readers, so we curated a playlist that best captures your memories
Read the full tracklist hereOn Monday we brought you the sad news of the demise of the Sony Walkman. The portable cassette player was a revelation, freeing us from having to turn down Mel & Kim or Do the Bartman because mum wanted to watch TV. We've had the funeral and now it's time for the wake, featuring a playlist that captures your Walkman-related memories, from Jive Bunny to Nirvana.
My first (and only) Walkman was so huge it was liable to break a toe if dropped (see above picture). I'm not sure whether it was bought brand new or handed down to me by an older relative, but I became surgically attached to it during Christmas in 1991 after Santa brought me Michael Jackson's Dangerous. To avoid all the boring adult conversations about the collapse of the Soviet Union (or, more likely, the EastEnders Christmas special), I was able to put on my headphones and spend hours listening to a slightly slower version of Black or White without worrying about annoying anyone. It's brilliance was to allow you to drift into your own world.
This sense of escapism and nostalgia came out strongly in your comments. Datsuncog, for example, is reminded of "family holidays in France" listening to Let Loose, while tobyd remembers many hours "in a coach listening to Use Your Illusion 2 by Guns N' Roses" on a school trip. To people of a certain age, the Walkman is tied up with memories of adolescence. As Zethes puts it when referring to his (I'm assuming he's male) penchant for Bon Jovi and Whitesnake: "I'd just discovered hair gel (the really cheap stuff you got in a pot with a screw top lid), I had my hair totally slicked back, and I would skateboard up and down the cul-de-sac. Singing out the power lyrics, such as 'makin love in the back seat' to show everyone (well, various passing cats) how grown up I was." While Pillowhead remembers sitting around during lunch break, "sharing an earphone each with friends or, if you were lucky, a girl".
We loved your comments, so guardian.co.uk/music put together a playlist that best chronicles readers' Walkman years. Click here for tracklist, along with readers' reasons for suggesting songs.
Of course, we can't salute the Walkman without doffing our caps to the video that somehow manages to encapsulate all that was cool about this rectangular box of joy. As StrokerAce says: "[I] urge any walkman fans to get themselves onto YouTube post haste and watch the video for Wired for Sound by Cliff Richard." Thanks for the memories.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Robert Plant's Band of Joy perform Angel Dance
In the third instalment of our exclusive videos series, Robert Plant performs Los Lobos' Angel Dance
Today's instalment in our five-part video series shows Robert Plant's Band of Joy perform their version of Los Lobos' Angel Dance at the London Forum. You can find all the videos of Plant's performances here.guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Scene and heard: Visual kei
Japan's opulent take on glam metal combines rococo riffs with corsets and frills. And it's coming to a town near you ...
"People can't help but love beautiful things," said Kamijo, singer of Versailles, when asked to explain his band's popularity. This summer, the Japanese quintet drew more than 700 fans to their London concert and sold out venues in France and Holland. Versailles' international success is yet another indication that the flamboyant "visual kei" genre has now gone global.
Visual kei, a mix of glam rock, metal and punk, has been popular in Japan since the late 80s. Its rallying call is "psychedelic violence crime of visual shock", created by the band X Japan, has been adhered to by many other ostentatiously attired acts. Visual kei bands admit that a good deal of time goes into pre-performance preening; a guitar is merely a last-minute accessory to ornate brocade jackets, frilly sleeves and, most importantly, fountains of hair carefully cascading over heavily made up faces.
This effeminate look is one of the reasons visual kei has recently captivated overseas audiences, as band members closely resemble the swooning stars of Japanese pop culture. "Because of the success of anime and manga, the bands that resemble those characters, including visual kei artists, gradually become more popular," says Versailles manager, Mayumi Kojima.
A visual kei fan, who has adopted the moniker Kairi Chan, explains the appeal: "It's escapism for people like me, I enjoy being so visually expressive." The 22-year-old, who lives in Wrexham, north Wales, often goes to visual kei gigs. "I went to see Dir en Grey twice (on the same tour) and I'm hoping to catch An Cafe and Miyavi on their next international tour."
Veteran visual kei artists are capitalising on the increased interest: X Japan are currently touring the States for the first time and Luna Sea, one of the first successful visual kei bands, will begin their world tour this December.
Meanwhile, eastern Europe is also about to get a heady whiff of extra-hold hairspray courtesy of Guild: four pretty lads with cheekbones as sharp as samurai blades and eyebrows that appear to have been tweezed almost to the point of extinction. Promoter Roxanna Ravenor, explains her motivation for organising the October tour: "Western Europeans fans have had their fill with Japanese visual kei, while Eastern European fans only dream about it."
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать
| rss2email.ru | отписаться: http://www.rss2email.ru/unsubscribe.asp?c=90855&u=756462&r=477547156 управление подпиской: http://www.rss2email.ru/manage.asp |
