So Beats week is over, next week we go back to our regularly scheduled program of writing about effete Brits and anonymous Swedish chillwave producers. It's been a wild ride; writing about Dipset, getting twitter-beefed (erm LA weekly, we're a website, not a blog, and we don't appreciate you miscategorizing our work like that).»
Of all the musical game changers of the last decade, the internet has quite clearly been the biggest one. In fact, it might just be the biggest bombshell dropped on the music industry since Elvis started shaking hips and breaking rules. The existence of this very site is testament to the unique power it has: breaking down borders and barbed wire fences between fan and artist, critic and aficionado. Yet not everyone has greeted it with open arms: record company execs and artists spend sleepless nights worrying about the scourge of freely available music for guilt-free, cost-free download eating into their livelihoods. First it giveth, then it taketh away, indeed.»
As part of our 10-week “DiS is 10!” celebration, we’ve asked 50 of our favourite people to tell us about one of their favourite albums of the past 10 years. This is not a best or "top" list, simply records individuals wished to highlight. Here, as part of "Beats week, DiS contributor Robert Ferguson shares his choice...»
This is our attempt as hip-hop aficionados to take a step back and point out the few times when things got too ridiculous even for us. Many of them involve Cam’ron and Kanye West. Go figure.»
Some time around the start of last year I found myself scanning through my music library, and coming to the realisation that something was slowing eating it’s way into my tastes. A slew of tracks and albums praising the skills of the hustler, the dope dealer, the ostentatious pimp and the blunted beatmaker were making inroads into my hard drive and CD racks. Converge found themselves sharing an album shelf with Clipse, Madlib made himself a bed next to Mogwai and the Melvins, all whilst the Wu Tang in their various guises swarmed all over like so many killer bees. For a young teenager who had renounced hip hop and it’s slinkier brother R’n’B as Trojan horses for the saccharinisation of pop music the first time he heard a Fugazi record, this was a significant turnaround. »
Baths is the latest electronic music project of Will Wiesenfeld, an LA musician who this month released his debut album Cerulean. The record’s eclectic mix of styles and ideas saw it garner a good deal of critical acclaim upon release, including the 8/10 review on this very website.»
Robert Fedderson looks back at The Diplomats.»
For anyone who thinks commerce diminishes music, I present a counter-argument: Crunk'n'b. Since the beginning of time, rap and Rn'B have been cross-pollinating in a for-the-most-part nakedly commercial arrangement: Rn'B singers get rappers to guest on their songs, increasing their potential sales base beyond the female/loverboy marketplace and toughening things up for "the streets" (i.e. the suburbs)....»
The world of electronic music is so littered with sub-genres now that it is far too difficult for many to keep track. More than anything, the awareness that terms for certain minutiae of change in a sonic spectrum is journalistic. But sometimes such defining words can feel appropriate – encapsulation will be impossible forever,»
DiS contributor Adam Johns has compiled a special week dedicated to "Beats", we'll let him explain what it's all about...»
Over the past decade, genres have become increasingly divided. Imagine an immense, ever-growing pyramid, where every brick is a genre. Each brick supporting the two genres above it represents a merging of those genres. That pyramid is where the 2000s ha»
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