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

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!

Wasn't that one of the most often celebrated things in 'dance' music of the kind SR refers to? The importance of the abstract 'instrumental' aspect.

The fact that without the language constraints the music could potentially connect with, and unite people so much more easily? Of course the drugs played a significant role, but I still think it's an important point rarely mentioned enough.

That so much of dance music is re-discovering black 'street' beats is just as much a product of the fact that so many producers are excelling in this area these days (why not steal when it's so good) as it is of recognising that there's something of a racial separation opening up in dance music that needs to be bridged to restore that utopian, inclusive balance.

'Urban'? why not just call it Race music and have done with it? What a hideous genre label and so incredibly incorrect in trying to assign some kind of 'Realness' (another loaded term) to everyone from teenage millionaires like Ashanti to poor white kids from Detroit like Eminem.

I'm not going to add anything else because I really wouldn't be able to argue coherently on here as an obviously alienated hip-hop-ophobe most of the time. But I do feel it's worth touching on.

I wonder what the last non-ballad rock song was to crack the top ten.

Jet didn't get near the top ten, DJDee.

"Jump, Jive an' Wail" went to #94. The rest didn't do shit.

I'd count that, yeah, but that's still three years ago. Has there been nothing since?

It must be pretty low, since those two Bright Eyes singles didn't even crack the Top 100.

dee white stripes by far most successful rockisback act

Lou Bega HAD to get past #94. Had to!

I don't traditionally think of this as swing, but if it is, then yeah, I think it went top five.

"Zoot Suit Riot" only charted Modern Rock.

I guess I'm saying that having no instrumental music in the states in some way IS a bad thing. Partly because I have to try and not listen to the depressing, cynical, egocentric, predictable and uncreative lyrics for way too many party hip-hop/rnb/crunk tunes to even try and begin to enjoy them.

xp

"Out of left field came German-born, Italian/Ugandan Lou Bega, scoring an international chart-topping single with his infectious "Mambo No. 5" -- the only thing that kept it from reaching the top of the U.S. charts was the fact that no American commercial single was ever issued."

Hey, it's called Mambo No. 5 for a reason.

I certainly don't think it's easily lumped in with CPD, Setzer, etc.--they had totally different demographics, weren't played on the same stations, etc.

Hell, on I Love the 90s, VH1 had totally different entries for Lou and the Swing revival, where they could have been easily grouped to save time.

yes, their albums tanked, or are about to tank, in america. but they arent going to shift mega-units here in the UK either? time has moved on, and they are too tied in to 'the 90s', is there anything less fashionable than chemical brothers, prodigy et al right now (and lets not even get into leftfield and the littler ones of crossover-electronica)

i think the semantics about what is and isnt dance music are a distraction. yes, everything ever is dance music, we know that. but we also know what is being talked about specifically on this thread, and as long as we know what is being discussed specifaclly, i think we can put the semantics to one side, perhaps for some rainy day laterin the year

it is entirely logical that dance music has plummeted in profile and popularity, it is the sound of the 90s, what is less popular than the immediate past? plus the grassroots were never there, only ever inroads. (yes, yes i know the grassroots were there in certain cities, but not nationwide and thats what keeps things afloat). here the grassroots are there, but the downturn is here too.

does this mean dance is dead? well, it depends if you take a uk/us centric view? i think perhaps people in israel dont consider it dead!

black people make the last uptempo rock and jazz chart smashes but nooo everybody's gotta be all Barkenaked Ladies and Brian Setzer and shit.

same wavelength, different movement.

Simon Reynolds has incredibly unique perspectives on dance music in the broadest sense, but the more I read his articles, the more I'm convinced he's become far more jaded and is working with a smaller and smaller domain of actual input when he writes these articles.

Baz Luhrman?

another thing to note, is that european musics track record in america, as far as popularity goes, has been iffy at best, with a few short periods of large success, with vast deserts of indifference between.

im not sure that simon has really got to grips with hip hop at all, i feel sometimes he is looking at hip hop through dance (or house, if you object to the usage of the word dance in this context) glasses, and im not sure where that really gets us