SIMON REYNOLDS DISCUSSES CURRENT DANCE MUSIC IN TODAY'S NY TIMES

I'll think I miss Garbage but then I remember that "Androgyny" song.

but matthew's right about the top-down thing - this wasn't a groundswell and I'm sort of amazed that people expected U.S. listeners with no previous connection to electronic dance music or dance culture to even relate the success of these particular 97-98 artists to rave culture in general, let alone seek it out.

like bill alluded to earlier, I had said in that prodigy review that these tracks did have an effect on shifting modern rock radio, but it was toward nu-metal/rap-rock/etc. -- firestarter, breathe, block rockin beats, setting son, battle flag (an inexplicably big song on U.S. rock radio), born slippy (nuxx), rockafeller skank, bodyrock: these tracks are more rock/hip-hop meets dance than track-y dance music. They're electronic music with vocal hooks and choruses and, in some cases, frontmen - and this is the direction electronic productions went in the U.S., in modern rock but also pop and, perhaps above all, hip-hop.

For a country with not much of a history in rave/dance culture, this seems almost like a logical direction -- the sounds and textures of electronic music took over the U.S. charts but not via DJ culture: they were snapped up by timbaland, rodney jerkins, lil jon, etc., and combined with the ego-centrism, marketable star-quality frontmen, verses and choruses, song structures that listeners were already comfortable with and other typical elements of pop music.*

From an outsider's perspective, this also seems to be happening in the UK - U.S. hip-hop seems to be increasingly cutting into dance music's audience, no?

* as an aside, what was the last instrumental top 40 hit in the U.S. anyway? We don't even have the odd Mike Post/Vangelis/Jan Hammer hit single anymore let alone the dancefloor friendly crossovers we had from soul. disco, etc.

xpost can we all agree that rednex "cotton eyed joe" was a big hit and makes perfect sense?

Probably Robert Miles' "Children," no?

especially not at the moment--modern rock's probably the least conservative right now than it's been since '96/'97.

maybe post, vangelis and hammer could team up a la G3 (Vai, Satriani and Malmsteen) or the 3 Tenors.

The last big instrumental pop-trance hit I think was Darude's "Sandstorm," and even that song, ubiquitous as it was, only went to #83.

x-post I thought they cracked it for a week! usher had to take a shit or something.

I certainly bemoan this. There's really no reason why "The Reason" (no pun intended) shouldn't have gone to #1 except that it happened to co-incide with Usher's monster Spring of 2004. It depresses me beyond belief to know that Nickelback could possibly have the last rock #1 in history.

Linkin Park, U2, Green Day, most of the usual suspects.

1) Evanescence "Fallen"
2) Sheryl Crow "The Very Best Of..."
3) Maroon 5 "Songs About Jane"
4) No Doubt "The Singles"
5) Blink 182 "s/t"
6) Hoobastank "The Reason"
7) Nickelback "The Long Road"
8) Linkin Park "Meteora"
9) Sarah McLachlan "Afterglow"
10) Switchfoot "The Beautiful Letdown"

That's anything that could reasonably be qualified as rock music, not counting Prince, country music, and Norah Jones.

This is a good point. I can think of a couple exceptions ("Busy Child," "Battleflag," "The Rockaeflla Skank") but for the most part this is very true--a good deal of The Prodigy's appeal was "OMG LOOK AT HOW SCARY THE DUDE IS IN THE VIDEO," and "Praise You" and "Weapon of Choice" would most likely have gone nowhere without those great Jonze videos.

#7, I think. The only crunk #1s have been crunk-n-bs like "Goodies" and "Yeah".

haha, nope but maybe Tim McGraw or Gretchen Wilson counts on Chuck time.

Faint didn't even crack the pop charts. "In The End" went to #2, I don't know what held it off.

otherwise "hey ya"'s probably the last rock #1, unless that nickelback bill's talking about it more recent

If you count "Hey Ya," then yeah. I can't bring myself to do that.

Didn't "Get Low" make it in the top ten?

#2. Heartbreaker.

Nah, rock bands will still fluke into having #1 hits from time to time. If Clay Aiken can score a fluke #1, then so can bands like Hoobastank or Maroon 5.

x-post.

It's possible, obviously, but the fact that it hasn't happened in three years is pretty discouraging. When songs as ubiquitous as "The Reason" (so ubiquitous that everyone automatically assumes it went to #1) can't even make it, what can?

Although Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" is looking somewhat promsiing--it'd be a bizarre #1, but it's really shooting up the charts at the moment. Jumped three to #8 this week.

hahaha full circle!