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Where has the funk gone?
Are any of the people currently residing in the musical realm of househeads beginning to feel as disillusioned with the direction of house music these days as I am starting to? It’s not the fact I’m thinking the music itself has lost it’s value, but I’m beginning to see a troubling trend that has plagued any number of genres irrespective of whether it’s classified as ‘electronic’ or not. What I’m referring to is that instead of exploring the most diverse of all forms of dance music, I’m finding that most DJs are jumping on the sound of ‘what’s hot’ at any given time. Musically speaking, the current sound to the electro/minimal that every DJ under the sun is playing. I’d be a hypocrite if I’d said I don’t enjoy the sound, it’s just that going out and hearing the same style and sound from DJ to DJ seems less attractive than not. Gone are the days when a house DJ will walk into a club and cater the music to the crowd, or bring their own feel to their sets. More and more I’m finding the DJ will walk into the club, saying “well this worked in Montreal, and it’ll work here too”. But the problem isn’t just that the DJs are homogenizing, but the producers themselves seem to have lost the courage to break away from the norms and are only producing the one style of music. Whatever happened to funk and soul in house? What happened to instruments like strings and brass, or a bass guitar providing some old skool funk to the low-end? What happened to tracks that made you feel like you were at a party and not in a dark grimey room? I love the grime, but I appreciate the ability to mix it up more. One doesn’t have to look further than trance to find out what happens without ingenuity and experiment in a sub-genre of music. Everyone jumped on the uplifting sound, and although that gave mass-exposure to electronic music at the time, but because it was so identifiable as a sound in itself, producers and DJs were afraid to break away from the mould of what worked and the style stagnated. Is anyone else as afraid as I am that house is headed down a similar path?
Someone please dissuade me of my opinion.
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Not Everyone Understands House Music, It's a Spiritual Thing, a Body Thing, a Soul Thing
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