Justice - † Pretentious symbol = french dance?

I almost agree with Ronan's analogy except I might replace Coldplay with Muse

more interesting != better/more fun/whatever

how do you know what I meant?

x-post I meant more, inferior nicotine patch for gasping smokers left by absence of 20 a day megaband

I means seriously even the people who like this record must admit it's just a lame stopgap

hey ronan, over here in america, we're not waiting for the next revolution in dance, we're just living our lives one day at a time maaaaaaaaaan

not rly.

(xpost)

Ronan, can you guess my favorite Hystereo track?

It better be "Corporate Crimewave"!

NO!

It's "Gly" and my point is that I will always lean toward stuff like it!

gonna love you? xpost

hey ronan, over here in america, we're not waiting for the next revolution in dance, we're just living our lives one day at a time maaaaaaaaaan

-- moonship journey to baja, Tuesday, May 29, 2007 11:58 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

fair enough, but I was just thinking about this, and like, it's TWO THOUSAND AND SEVEN. is it not pretty fucking bleak for crossover dance music that people are still talking about Discovery or that acts are still pillaging that sound?

x-post which one is it then? I like Hystereo more than their music these days, which is a shame cos they are two of the best people I've met in my entire time going to clubs and stuff over here. They live in Paris now.

I like stuff like GLY better than Justice. Justice is not like GLY.

But I would say it's "french" sounding.

Also, Ronan, in America, we still need crossover dance music.

i would have said i'd go along with ronan's a:b::c:d analogy, but now i see it was a badly veiled "poor man's x" dig. srsly, buzz harsheners, all.

I don't mean to be a buzz harshener, I just sometimes feel Daft Punk corpse fucking has got to end. I also like the more Braxe style of Daft Punk imitation.

i understand your point if you are talking about kavinsky or something (yeah even down to the anime obsession, right?) but does justice REALLY REALLY sound like much else from the last three or four years?

it's the dance version of ratatat, not the indie version of daft punk, i think that's why all of us who like their battles and gang gang dance like it so much

this constant reffing back to DP is inevitable, but also pointless. like there's this big landmark and everyone uses it, but then some ppl are tired of everything being in relation to it, and other ppl can't see anything but the landmark, and meanwhile you're miles away and there's so much stuff around it and the landmark is still visible but here you are and there it is still on the horizon...

it's late, man

Ronan, I've just listened to the french artists you named upthread. I have to say that it's basically "techno" and if I dropped any of those tracks at a random hipster party here, then people would be immediately bummed out. I of course like all kinds of house myself, but I also know that it just won't work here. Luckily, I will happily listen to music inspired by Daft Punk (especially when it's mixed in with bmore, hip hop, rock whatever).

I also think that the acts you mentioned, taken out of context, do not sound like their pushing any kind of boundaries. They were good, but they're definitely working within certain audience expectations.

Maybe just think of Justice as rock/pop music (although I think it's much more than that, and it's more than just 'crossover' as well).

their should be they're in second paragraph

i understand your point if you are talking about kavinsky or something (yeah even down to the anime obsession, right?) but does justice REALLY REALLY sound like much else from the last three or four years?

it's not even that it's the indie version of Daft Punk that bothers me (even though it is!), more that it's just a crappy rehash of the last big dance crossover act in the absence of any new ones.

why does popular dance music have to sound this way? it's so unappealing to me at the moment, I honestly think it's about the last thing I'd ever want to listen these days but everyone seems to fucking love it.

yep it sure is late :)

x-post I consider those guys house music, very much house music.

Ronan, I've just listened to the french artists you named upthread. I have to say that it's basically "techno" and if I dropped any of those tracks at a random hipster party here, then people would be immediately bummed out. I of course like all kinds of house myself, but I also know that it just won't work here.

that's fine, I know this. I just don't think random hipster parties are a good barometer for what is good music, here or there.

at the moment music like Justice/CSS/Boys Noize/Simian just all sounds the same to me. it's so kind of...what you see is what you get and in your face that it just makes me feel completely miserable. I just think: what is the point of this, I can't switch off and enjoy it.

lately I like music that seems to make the world stop turning for a while.

those artists are not my absolute favourites but since French was mentioned I'd have to say I like them a lot more than Justice and think they're fresher sounding too.

noze.

hell even Vitalic!

Ronan, I'm sure you've at some point smarted from hearing someone say that all house music sounds the same!

I'm now thinking of this stuff as crossover in the other direction. Maybe it's pop/rock that is crossing over to me as a "proper dance music" person.

It appeals to me *much* more than disco-punk DFA style stuff, largely because it's more "track-y".

i loved this stuff in the fall of 2005 but the recent output leaves me cold (except for "D.A.N.C.E.", which is one of this year's great singles so far imo). the in-your-face super-compressed production aesthetics feels so damn one-dimensional and drab after a while--which makes sense as there's no dynamics to grab your attention long-term.

Ronan, I'm sure you've at some point smarted from hearing someone say that all house music sounds the same!

THIS VERY DAY I said to someone else "it all sounds the same is pretty much bottom of the food chain when it comes to criticising dance music".

It's purely me that finds that. But I think I made my personal problems with Justice etc pretty clear!

Jeb nails it a lot more succinctly above.

is anyone criticising justice because "it all sounds the same"?! it all sounds rubbish and amateur, maybe.

ronan otm throughout

me, I did.

Justice is meaningless vacuous music with underwhelming lyrical content.

ok this is self parody now, right? you two seem to be trying to belittle the music (or the people who like it?), but it comes across sounding so granddadish.

amateur. underwhelming lyrical content. we've all heard this before about music before - usually about an erupting or more radical new genre, which i'll grant this isn't. but still. even if ppl agreed partially with these, these have never been a barrier to liking music - and in some cases are seen as a +ve quality.

(before before)

mine was self parody

phew!

alan you're one step away from "IT'S ALL JUST A BIT OF FUN LEAVE IT OUT LADS"

= vile

see you are smuggling in a moral stance there. "it's all a bit of fun" IS indeed vile when it's used to defend something that can truly be said to be immoral - usually something political that has effects on people. if you really think that music extends into that sphere of influence, that's your look out. but you are then one step away from saying that this music is dangerous - which is too regressive for me to seriously consider.

that would explain why you spend so much time trying to run stuff down you dislike tho.

just to correct any apprehension - i like this music, quite a lot as it happens, but i don't think it's going to change my life or anything. it is FUN to listen to. i wouldn't listen to it if i didn't enjoy it.

i am only really active on here because i'm a bit bemused by the active dislike. it reminds me of the arctic monkeys thread back in the day - the major difference being that i don't like the AM all that much.

MISapprehension obv LOL

why bother to even talk about music then, if we can't express like or dislike of it?

i'm not suggesting that.

i've decided to pretend that this thread is about Cascada. i spend far more time reading about Justice than actually listening to them sob.

the active dislike of a large number of posters on this thread really shouldn't be any surprise - all those posters are fans of dance music, this is an offshoot of dance music which doesn't work in the ways that dance music usually works, and which in fact in both sound and audience is more similar to rock music, which none of us have a particular affinity for.

and i don't think that rock music pretending to be dance music, or dance music which works like rock music, is a particularly laudable thing to try to do

large number of posters? 4-5 people? just as many seem to like it or even love it

that's quite a good summary of it i think - pretty much what i've concluded from what ppl were saying elliptically.

why don't you think it's laudable though? that's interesting.

a bigger annoyance for me is veterans like Joey Negro, Armand Van Helden and Tim Deluxe who keep churning out formulaic "funky" house (+80s sample) tracks and having minor hits with them. i'll take Justice and whatnot over that at least. Michael Gray is OK tho. but yeah, commercial dance crisis film at 11.

after all, "doesn't work in the ways that X music usually works" is usually a sign of something interesting happening, even if you don't personally like the result, right?

(xpost agane)

why don't you think it's laudable though? that's interesting.

well as i'm sure you're aware, i don't actually like rock music! also, it smacks of "dance music for people who don't actually like dance music", a bit.

also, the ways in which justice are 'rock' are based on the bits of rock which i like the least - the roughness, choppiness, jerkiness. i'm not saying that ALL attempts to mix rock and dance are automatically doomed to failure; i've heard and loved 'standing in the way of control' dropped into electro sets too often for that.

has anyone else actually heard 'saturn returns' by jojo de freq? this might be the point of union, it's definitely in the vein of simian md et al but manages to not be so lifeless and drab.