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Has the Internet killed the possibility of "underground" music?

Stevesto posted this in another thread:

quote:

Originally posted by stev�sto i kind of dont want to talk about dubstep on this forum though, i fear the same fate that happened to minimal house/techno will happen to dubstep: a flood of newcomers that will saturate the genre with crap. but theres really nothing you can do, people are going to discover a genre no matter what in this internet age, and especially faster because of the internet. underground music doesnt exist anymore and never will again! because as soon as a scene evolves it gets exploited via youtube and within weeks its on radio1 !! its mankind's constant hunger for new sounds. in fact i think its already too late for dubstep, its already been cheesified, loads of cheesy girly UK garage-esque style vocals and bubble gum pop sound type dubstep tunes all over the place now.

What do you think?

Did the Internet kill the musical underground?

Will the only "underground" music be stuff like noise music that's simply too "out there" for more than a small group of people to ever like?

Also, what does "underground music" mean to you? Is it just something that isn't very popular? Or something that caters only to a small group of people? Or what?

here we go again...no offense man but you ask the same questions over and over with different wording.

stop thinking and fucking enjoy.

quote:

Originally posted by elFreak here we go again...no offense man but you ask the same questions over and over with different wording. stop thinking and fucking enjoy.

What a compliant way of living.

To an extent yes.

Just look at the Tracklist forum for proof. Almost every DJ, even the slightly more underground ones, has been assigned an archive in which trance crackers identify every track in every single set ever.

Its even got down to Net Label level. Put down the drones and glitchy hi-hats please.

Isn't labelling something as 'Underground' is a bit weak nowadays?

Like every genre of music - its just a matter of filtering through all of the shit to get to the music that means something to YOU. It's always been that way - musical tastes are a question of opinion.

there will always be underground music.


you just have to accept that most new house/techno/trance/etc are no longer that underground anymore for these reasons


i am working on a fairly reactionary project for my architectural thesis actually that deals with this -

basically i am designing a cooperative living/producing/performing center for cutting edge art and music. (it's in friedrichshain - I probably should have chosen a lesser known site like somewhere in denmark or chile, but I chose friedrichshain for the public support it would receive)

it's meant to be isolated from popular culture and the musical zeitgeist

the idea is that these artists (a lot of experimental musicians) create in a cooperative yet eremitic environment, and their creations are only experienced within the building in specific 'ritual' spaces (event spaces which can be used for public assembly, parties, exhibitions etc). The only way their productions can be shared with the external world is either in this live performance 'ritual' or through a store where analog recordings can be purchased. These two spaces are the only bridges between the interior productive world and the external consumptive world. Nothing else will be known about this center except its mysterious and subdued presence and the underground current that runs through it.

The idea is to create a unique scene and creative center of gravity within the urban fabric of friedrichshain that is completely unique and limited to this one building.


One way to think about what I want to do is, imagine that record labels like Perlon and Basic Channel were tribes or monastic orders.

anyways this is my proposal to save the underground slash thesis haha


ps i am writing music for this thesis and making a sound installation so I will share these when they are done in December.

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec One way to think about what I want to do is, imagine that record labels like Perlon and Basic Channel were tribes or monastic orders.

LOL!

That would be interesting.

I think underground scenes can still exist with the Internet. Looking at the dubstep example, I didn't see anyone on this forum talking about dubstep before it started getting features in Mixmag and the like. It didn't become widespread on the Internet any faster than in the paper press.

The first time I heard of dubstep was on the Internet, actually, although it was directly from someone living in London and part of the scene who'd posted some pirate radio sets. This wasn't even on a music forum and must have been early 2005. Although it was online it was still coming from someone directly in the scene and I didn't hear anything on any non-local music forums or in the paper press for about another year. Even then, the roots of dubstep go back earlier than that- it was an established scene in 2005. Some people take dubstep back to 2004 or even 2002. It was there as an underground scene years before the Internet found it, and even when it did get online it took years more before it became hyped.

If people are complaining that dubstep has become commercial and sold-out: it's a five/six year old scene! It didn't take jungle six years to go from inception to the mainstream when the Internet was nascent. Trance is no older than 1988 and if you call We Came In Peace the first trance record it only took three years before Jam & Spoon were in the pop charts. The only genres that stay underground are the anti-social and outright shit ones. It's naive to expect dubstep to remain underground forever, and the Internet has nothing to do with it becoming more mainstream.

In short: I don't think so at all.

Dig a little, and you'll be amazed at what you'll find.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Some people take dubstep back to 2004 or even 2002.

The scene started with the FWD>> night in 2001, and for a long time that's all it was: A small sweaty room with producers, DJs, label- and media-people enjoying the darker side of garage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre...ass_distinction

not only does the internet (youtube specifically) expose things quicker AND REACHES MORE PEOPLE with greater range than a print magazine or a corporate terrestial radio station, it also dilutes the diversity of local music scenes. before the internet, local areas developed their own sound. but now that everyone can see and hear what everyone else is doing, people end up playing the same shit. im 32 i was around when the internet was not relevant to dance music, THAT was underground: prog, breaks, ANY form of ravey shit, was underground back then. in san fran you heard san fran funky disco sounding house, in florida the breaks ruled, in chicago there was hard house (bad boy bill style). today ... in any area you will hear IN THE CLUBS either electro/vocal house, or minimal/tech. its almost like how governments try very hard to make sure certain species of plants/animals/insects do not propogate to non native regions, because it fucks shit up man, ex: the honeybees in the US are disappearing probably because the african killer bees first showed up in texas and are kicking all the other bee's asses. im worried.

Of course "underground" stuff can still exist.

I have plenty of tracks released in the past two years which can't be found on google, beatport, discogs or pretty much anywhere, some of them by pretty big artists too.

in my opinion,

'underground' isn't a thing you can tag to a track, an album, or an artist


it is a mentality, a scene, a vibe, a phenonmenon.

the very word implies place, subduction, subversion. I think 'underground' is a mental or social 'place', a subsersive mentality.


When you have this mentality and you connect with others and make music and spread this mentality then you start to have an underground.

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec in my opinion, 'underground' isn't a thing you can tag to a track, an album, or an artist it is a mentality, a scene, a vibe, a phenonmenon. the very word implies place, subduction, subversion. I think 'underground' is a mental or social 'place', a subsersive mentality. When you have this mentality and you connect with others and make music and spread this mentality then you start to have an underground.

Bingo.

I dunno what you guys are talking about.


Underground = Dubfire

I buy all of my music from Beatport, isn't that underground?

I think there will be always an underground scene, like some said underground is more than just unreleased stuff, it's also a culture and a spirit. At the same time i like the idea of being able to listening to tons of good unsigned music (myspace) in a very comfortable way.

quote:

Originally posted by shonguiz ... good unsigned music (myspace)...

There's a lot more out there than just what you find on Myspace. Myspace is a networking and promotional tool. It's about getting your name out to people, therefore going against the very concept of "underground."

quote:

Originally posted by stev�sto not only does the internet (youtube specifically) expose things quicker AND REACHES MORE PEOPLE with greater range than a print magazine or a corporate terrestial radio station, it also dilutes the diversity of local music scenes.

In a big, empty country like the US, maybe. Dubstep came from London, in the tiny, crowded UK. It's the same in most parts of Europe. The Internet has not sped up the spread of local scenes here. Don't assume the whole world works like the US.

It will just make it harder to find

quote:

Originally posted by idoru There's a lot more out there than just what you find on Myspace. Myspace is a networking and promotional tool. It's about getting your name out to people, therefore going against the very concept of "underground."

well it just depends on the audience

but yeah the idea is introversion

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J In a big, empty country like the US, maybe. Dubstep came from London, in the tiny, crowded UK. It's the same in most parts of Europe. The Internet has not sped up the spread of local scenes here. Don't assume the whole world works like the US.

so true.


even in new york city there is an underground scene of locals doing their thing though.

I make music in my parents basement, therefore, underground music is still possible.

/thread

I think it depends on ones definition of 'underground'.

To the generic person on the street, anything on this site is 'underground'. You go into most music stores in this country and you will not find what some people on this site call 'commercial', apart from the big DJ releases.

What is bizarre with this site, is that you have an underground 'section' made up from a totally 'underground' genre.

Ask a person on the street what dance music is - they will most likely in this country say clubbers guide-ministry, hed kandi or clubland...you mention even Tiesto, PvD or AvB they will be like, 'huh-who?'.

Although i like my trance, i do listen to alot of stuff by Kintar & Rex, Shiva, Topo, MoShic, Zur-Face, Deep Z etc they are not really common topics in these forums apart from MoShic sometimes, and could be 'undergound'? i don't know, but it doesn't really matter either. If its good - its good, underground or not, the only difference being is that it could be good for alot of people, just they don't have the exposure to make them 'not underground'...but then if they did, they wouldn't be underground it seems...

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