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I'm very suspicious of this "anyone can do it" malarky
(Hope this isn't rot, please let me know if I'm derailing this)
But, hang on a minute - isn't grime really just the most modern, ultra-British incarnation of that beast known as punk? I mean, surely the very foundations of this scene are its DIY, anyone-can-do-it come one come all inclusiveness?
It's all about passion and enthusiasm, as was punk - if you can pick up a guitar / bang the drums / get a cracked copy of Fruity Loops you CAN do it. Fuck Rick Wakeman...
Also, not so sure the techno analogy holds. I appreciate what you are saying about armchair criticism, but in my opinion people, yea even people in this very forum, are far more prone to bitch about really popular tunes in that way, as in "Christ, have you heard the top ten? Have you heard whats number one? Shit, I could do better than that...". Now, THAT is patently not the case at all. Otherwise there wouldn't BE a top ten, just hundreds of number ones.
Techno, especially 16 years ago, is a vastly different bag. The skills and financial investment required to set up even a modest rig with authentic potential was waaaay more than a £300 PC and access to LimeWire to get hold of ACID / FL / Reason / Cunase whatever. The need for a mixing console, however modest, and required learning curve, the need for a tape machine and sync, the multitude of synchronisation nightmares (CV/Gate and MIDI hath no love lost, remember? Kenton interface=£400!!). Learning a hardware sequencer, programming synths and samplers...cabling!! Shit, looms don't come cheap, and you need space to put the bastard stuff somewhere. FX, outboard, all of these things were and are KerChing'sVille. Now, of course, the above named appz come bundled with the whole nine-yards, all Out Da Box. Tcha, kids these days, eh? They just don't know how easy they've got it.
Not only that, but techno completely eschewed traditional song structures, requiring what had up until then been the sole preserve of avant garde modern composition...textures, layers, progression, breakdown etc., it was all pretty new at the time, and at least a passing interest in funk was essential if the whole thing was going to groove right. The people complaining it was repetitive / simplistic / stupid completely missed the depth that was, undoubtedly, there - and are now probably the same anal elitist weasels harping on about their Derrick May limited editions and how Kathy Brown has ruined Strings of Life.
Grime, on the other hand, is fairly convential ABCB verse/chorus/bridge stuff, and can be produced with a half decent PC and nothing else. It doesn't, by any stretch, involve layers and textures, its pretty one dimensional as far as instrumentation goes.
I'm not saying that's crap, rubbish or without value or anything of the sort. I like the damn compilation! But, to rally the point, it's punk by any other name, and as such, I really reckon anyone (who loves it, buys the records, tunes into the stations and knows the MC's) can do it. As the scene matures, no doubt the production will mature with it, and who knows, maybe it'll disappear up its coffee-table arse in a jazz obsession stylee, a la drum'n'bass for a good period of its early childhood. At the moment its raw and urgent and exciting, and hurray for that.
But it won't sell outside London. ;-) |
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