Justice - † Pretentious symbol = french dance?

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.

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?

not at all! unwelcome thoughts of fusion cooking etc. i'm a purist, i like things to be what they are, and not try to mesh awkwardly with completely different things.

i feel that's got me somewhere. a rarity on ILM (rarer than ILE!). so ta!

'lifeless' and 'drab' are really bizarre descriptive terms for this. i don't think they describe the problem (which is there) accurately. how do you measure 'life' in a piece of music?

I don't think there's anything 'awkward' about a lot of this stuff either. a lot of it is perfectly danceable for the way most people actually dance (i.e. not as good as they might think they do). i guess they're trying to make things more unpredictable in the tracks event-wise. the only real problem for me is the relentlessness, abrasiveness and flattened compression of so much of it - need a wider palette of sounds more pleasant. it's purely a sonic issue.

i think a good chunk of the album works as "a palette of sounds" - i was thinking exactly that phrase. have we got an 'exemplar' album here?

Lex this is why I mocked you for choosing to go and see Justice over Alan Braxe and Kris Menace last year!

don't care about justice but there's a fischerspooner thread i came across up last week that is very, very similar in themes and arguements to this one. except 5 years ago.

If ILM had existed 10 years ago there'd have been a Prodigy thread that was very, very similar in themes and arguments to this one. Or maybe a Fatboy Slim thread.

FISCHERSPOONER on Top of the Pops?

a '97 ILM would be awesome ha ha. i guess i could just read the old alt.music.alternative on google groups tho. in fact, i think i will.

i'm a purist, i like things to be what they are, and not try to mesh awkwardly with completely different things.

http://www.isop.ucla.edu/africa/mgpp/images/mg75a.jpg
http://us.altermedia.info/images/dukepislogan400.jpg

lol found a Ned post already

(since the lex will invariably ask, that's the frontman for lords of the underground and the guitarist for starsailor.)

like i won't ask who either of those are?

This is irrelevant Lex since you are not a purist.

this new dance music ... so choppy, rough, amateurish ... so unlike old rave music ... hmmm ... perhaps we shall call it "new rave" to distinguish it from the works of the old masters .... hmmm ...

I never liked rave anyway.

tho I like the indie affection for it even less

basically I despise all fun

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.

-- lex pretend, Wednesday, 30 May 2007 10:01 (3 hours ago) Link

notorious rock-loving dance-haters like me and jess and vahid and

i love fun, it's just that i have better fun than the people who like justice (given that two of them are notorious sourpusses vahid and jess this is perhaps not a surprise)

Ronan i was gonna say, tho afraid of it coming off as some sort of criticism tho it really isn't, wasn't 'Homework' kinda your starting point for being into dance music too? maybe not but if so, funny how there's been camps dividing from that. it was an eclectic record tho and as you say there was the Bangalter/Braxish sound at the same time which many preferred, even now.

i wanna hear Daft Punk's pre-'New Wave' actual daft punk tracks to see if it sounds a bit like Justice.

I can't really remember what my starting point for dance was, mostly whatever my brother liked. But I wasn't in America so it's not really like you have a "starting point" over here is it, I can remember liking the Prodigy and stuff when I was probably around 10 years old.

so you did like some rave then? altho i guess Prodigy were something else at that point.

i don't suppose Justice or many of their fans necessarily have a specific 'starting point' either then.

so me and jess and vahid like this fun dance music because we're.... sourpusses? and you loudly hate it because you.... love fun?

btw lex i listen to BIG BEAT!!

i'm not being loud, i haven't made a sound in about an hour. though if you toddle off to eg the minimal thread you'll see both ronan and myself loudly loving a load of fun dance music

btw i also liked big beat, back in the day

i have almost as hard a time equating 'minimal' with fun as Lex does haircut electro with fun. or at least, the fun potential is not evidently greater with one MORE than the other.

Wait, so after all of this, can we talk about how Le Dust Sucker's first album should finally get it's due now (to borrow a page or blurb from shrbrn)...

I was wondering when the M word was going to be dragged kicking and screaming into this.

these threads are just............there are some people here who just play out the same narrative on every single music thread regardless of what anyone says.

oh?

the first time is tragedy, the second farce

it's all self parody duh

what about the 167th time karl?

all of the arguments made against Justice here were made six months ago on MSTRKRFT thread and elsewhere tho right?

i mean if there is ANY dance kid who should kneejerk loathe any aspect of disgusting indie or rock creeping into the genre it's me. and i don't loathe justice => justice is not rock qed.

-- The Lex (The Lex), Saturday, June 24, 2006 2:25 PM (11 months ago) Bookmark Link

i dont get it. did jess and the lex just trade opinions?

all of the arguments made against Justice here were made six months ago on MSTRKRFT thread and elsewhere tho right?

-- blueski, Wednesday, May 30, 2007 3:01 PM

see, now there's a group that DOES warrant the daft punk comparison

ppl tell me, what genre is dextro?

i'm losing my patience, i just came here to bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce

jsl