I have been thinking for a while that I should challenge an idea that is often
underlying music discussion in general and especially dance music.
The idea that music (like technology) that is not groundbreaking is
lacking something. I touched on this when I was discussing the whole chavdance thing, but this goes further into a whole spectrum.

In general it’s a concept I have a
lot of sympathy with, but I can also see some holes that make me
wonder if it’s quite the absolute that it is regarded. ‘LCD
dance music’ (that’s lowest common denominator rather than the
band who thought Daft Punk were playing in their house) is a case in
point. Whether it’s a Tidy Weekender, a Hardcore reunion or a night
at Time/Envy there is a certain blissful (even innocent) joy in
embracing the clichés to their fullest extent. Once upon a
time the idea of dropping a pill, dancing all night to a repetitive
beat and living in a moment of dancefloor joy was cool and now it’s
not. But that doesn’t take anything away from the people who are
experiencing it right now does it?

The jaded might sneer at the whole idea
because they have done it and see no more value in it (it’s pretty
much a given in the classic pill muncher timescale). That alone does
not make it culturally dead. The whole idea of dance music is that it
is a moment outside of such worries as whether you are up to date, or
cool or seen in the right place. That got lost when superclubs and
trendy bars purloined the sound for themselves, but it never got lost
on Sharon and Tracey, even if they didn’t realise it.

The Devils Advocate in me goes on to
argue that this breed of dance (a breed that is as old as Acid Teds)
is a sanitised and souless music. It doesn’t ring as true as the
stuff the boys from Detroit were making, or the new boys (and girls)
from South London make now. It’s mass marketed pop for poeple who
think they are being different when they are just borrowing someone
else’s culture. They don’t have any of their own so they
charicature what has gone before. But is this any different to
Glastonbury with it’s corporate organisation and super fence
keeping out the scum? For me, that’s just as souless and it doesn’t
even have the honesty to admit it.

Then there is the stuff that falls
between the ends of the spectrum. Dance music that has stayed
underground and borrowed, creating hybrids which in themselves are
not new but still make innovate listening. Despite the fact they
cover old ground they are a massively fertile area until the Next Big
Thing™ comes along. The biggest of these right now is the breaks
scene, that can veer between generic big room anthemic trance
knock-offs to rave and electro influenced works of eclectic
cleverness. The former is a contender for for Glasto style snobbery
where the music has nothing new to bring, but has enough of a fan
base to be considered a bit cool, underground and subversive. It
isn’t. The latter is can’t be considered a meme either but at
least it’s a distraction into some fresh fusions.

Similar stuff can be found in the
rock/dance crossover bands of late and the whole post-electroclash
world. None of it is in the league of early Kraftwerk of course, but
at least the creativity goes hand in hand with the pretention (and
there is plenty of that).

All this categorisation is a pointless
exercise really. Everything will have shifted again in a few months
and I probably didn’t put my finger on it in the first place.
Where we are going with all this doesn’t really matter. It’s how
we get there that counts. As long as we all have a giggle on the way
I’ll be joining in with gusto.

There is nothing new in using
technology to dance. The whole of acid house was built on recycling old machines, so much so that the revolutionary sounds have now
become as clichéd as a power chord. As we move deeper into the
century, the technological pace is upping and with it the face of
clubbing is changing. CDs have replaced vinyl for DJs from bars to
superclubs. That fact took over 10 years to change, but the next move
into live sequencing and computer mixing is already growing apace,
even in the technophobic world of DJing.

To fully break through the digital
revolution needs hands-on hardware like the Pioneer CDJ1000. There
are some promising ideas around but nothing that is being taken too
seriously yet. Without new ways of doing things dance is stuck in as
outdated a musical genre as rock has become. When dance music does
the same thing it feels wrong and that includes hanging on to the 12”
(part of the reason I have never really been amazed by the whole
grime/dubstep thing is that vinyl is still king where there is so
much potential for other ways). I can’t see the guitar
soundtrack the next youth culture revolution just as much as I can’t
see the deck do it. It will be something entirely new and it will be
driven by technology.