Forgive my heretic thoughs but turntablism can get boring. It becomes a showcase of technique and skill to the point where the music is lost and it’s almost like watching a shooting competition. Nothing wrong with technique, skills, or shooting competitions but I generally like music to be musical …
But every once in a while you see someone use turntables as a musical instrument, expressively (as opposed to using them as video-game controllers to score points on combos). If you’ve never watched turntablism—or if you’re looking for musicality—this is a prime example of a master at work.
• GrandWizzard Theodore – 2008 DMC U.S. Finals Showcase
Despite a reflex developed during the 90’s (i.e. thinking “This song again?, They’ve played it a million times this week”), the actual song is undeniable.
Say whatever you want but this is a good sample, and this is better than 99% of “Rap” in this day and age. At least he rhymes instead of just slurring about drugs …
• Queen and David Bowie – Under Pressure • Vanilla Ice – Ice Ice Baby
Take heed ’cause I’m a lyrical poet! Miami’s on the scene, just in case you didn’t know it …
I don’t mean to make this about identity politics, more like a House music lover thinking out-loud …
This is the first time in a long time that I’ve seen talented black women have an opportunity to do their thing.
I don’t mean some token “celebration” in the sense of “I like you, let’s talk for an hour (minus commercial breaks) about how you’re a woman and how your skin is dark and how you’re ‘uplifting'”.
I mean a real opportunity in the sense of “OK, show the world what you can do. Show the world that you have a musical heritage, that you’ve been here, that you’ve been putting in work, and that you had an impact on music, show that Black women were doing music earlier than last week—when Ms. Popstar put out a single in between taking her clothes off on instagram.” [At least for this six minute performance, I haven’t watched the rest of the unfortunately titled affair.]
Robin S. just needed five words to get it started “THIS IS HOW I DO!”
• Robin S. – Show Me Love • Crystal Waters – Gypsy Woman (She’s Homeless) • CeCe Peniston – Finally
• Chilly – For Your Love • Those Guys – I Walk Alone • Dimitri From Paris Re-edit • I Walk Alone (For Your Love) [Seamus Haji x Those Guys] • Trilogic Remix from Hungary (Belocca, Soneec, Danny L)
“[When Daft Punk played Coachella] Everybody in the music business, including all the Rock people who had for years and years and years been like ‘What’s the big deal? I don’t get it. Why isn’t that guy on stage doing anything? Where are the guitars?’ … THEY GET IT FOR THE FIRST TIME.”— Michaelangelo Matos
Daft Punk – Burnin’ / Too Long (Alive 2007)
I choose to look at this not as “the birth of EDM”—which was a cultural tragedy—and more as a technical culmination of about 30 years of electronic dance music. Forget about the lights and props for a minute, just the way that Daft Punk took live remixing/performing to another level is a thing of beauty.
I think this might be the only song on Future Thursday that I can’t see as being from the future. Why is it in this category, then?
Nostalgia.
At the time this came out, NOTHING in Latin America sounded or looked like this: the concept of joking while still making serious music was brand new for Latin America, save for very limited exceptions. I’m too tired to expand on this right now but let’s just say that, in Latin America, due to class-relations and a culture strongly entrenched in Spanish colonialism it’s very difficult for bands to be truly rebellious. (Rebellion sometimes just means being free to have fun and make silly music and videos.)
But make no mistake, these are serious musicians. There was something about this where, behind a really strange, fake, over-produced (camp) form there was an undeniably funky substance. There was no synth game like this in Latin America (of course there’s the old Latin Jazz masters such as the ones in Irakere but, for all intents and purposes, that’s a different “Latin America”). And this also the most noticeable usage of drum machines, sequences and samplers in the mainstream (might as well have been the first time); it didn’t feel like a Rock band who tried to sound modern in between practising with “real instruments”. This WAS modern, this WAS new.
[Sorry for using the term “Latin America” so many times, too tired to write more elegantly …]
“Manchester, from the Sex Pistols’ gig at the Lesser Free Trade Hall, right to whenever Oasis took too many drugs to make sense, for nearly 20 years, Manchester was THE music city in the world.” — Tony Wilson
How amazing this is and, in fact, what it is can’t be explained with words. This “song is great” doesn’t begin to cover it, in fact this “song” might not even be “good” …
In every great album/mix/performance, there is a point when go to a different level: it’s about rhythm not “beat”, sonics not “recordings”, mood—what is mood, really?. It’s about a higher state of consciousness reached through what our verbal language calls “music”. That is what this is. And that is likely not clear from this—indeed it is not possible to do that—but that’s why this was created to be listened to and not talked about; listen to it and you may say “that makes sense”.
I was lucky enough to see it live, dropped at the right time, in the right way, and it was one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had. Funny thing is that I don’t even remember it that well, it’s a hazy drug-filled memory—and I didn’t take any drugs. But, barely remembering it probably makes me understand it more as the words of the song ring evermore true: just remember to fall in love, there’s nothing else.
Massive Tunes 