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I think situation will definitely affect music, and situation is often a story scripted by your location.
I'm a big fan of dance music, grooves in general, and I struggle to think of much of that that hasn't been forged in the fires of public acceptance. I think the nature of that fire shapes the music; disco, reggae, house, funk and hip hop - all shaped by the situation from which they grew.
The soundsystem culture of Jamaica was instrumental in the music's growth, and the nature of that platform shaped the music that vied to be on those decks. There's a reason the early stuff is so damn catchy, and that reason is it had to get past a rowdy crowd and make them dance.
Other places have had parties with decks, but Jamaica's ghetto scene, along with some other political and cultural conditions, made the music what it is. The situation has obviously changed(quite drastically in some ways, not so much in others), but the ancestry of that scene is still audible in the music coming out of the island today.
Disco is a similar story, albeit a little more drug soaked and quite a good bit gayer. Similarly, I think the music was shaped by the scene it sprang from, and similarly I think it retains some of the early traits created by that.
Most music is shaped by public acceptance, to a greater or lesser degree. Well, obviously, yeah. I do think, however, one of the purest forms of that is still hearing a tune cold on a dance floor. you have no idea what it is, who it's by, and why you should like it... You just know if you do.
What a certain dance floor wants will be up to the folk on it, and they will want different things depending on their situation. If everybody needs uplifted, the music will be uplifting. If people are generally nihilistic or frustrated, there'll probably a good deal of catharsis expected from a night out. If everyone's on drugs, the big tunes will almost certainly be really fucking druggy. 'Higher State of Consciousness' springs to mind.
I think that is changing a little, though, yeah. People can see round the world more easily than fifty years ago, and I think loads of DJs are waking up to the idea that music is one beast with many limbs. Access to the appendages of that animal has increased as well. I've never been to Jamaica, but I reckon there will be a club somewhere there that plays Glaswegian music on occasion. Franz Ferdinand, maybe? Rustie, perhaps? Certainly Glasgow has a reggae label. The guys behind Scotch Bonnet do a great night called Mungo's HiFi and another in a pub, Dub'n'Grub. Their label gets a lot of play, including opening a Mr Scruff mix album.
We're at a point now where folk can choose the music they surround themselves with a lot more than they could in the times of The Beatles. I can go to a dubstep night in most decent sized Scottish cities. Fifty years ago I'd have been getting a bus to Coventry or London for the Reggae. Twenty odd ago, I'd have been off to Wigan to hear electro-funk.
I don't know what this burgeoning omni-scene means for the future, but it will definitely have an effect. I know several Scots making music that might seem geographically foreign. It doesn't seem odd to anyone hearing it, and it seems to be getting less and less odd to those who hear about it. |
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