But SIIIiii,
House music and Hiphop were the first music forms that really floated my boat. I fucking loved that stuff and, from my twelth year onwards, it was practically all I listened to. But the House, Hiphop, Techno etc. that I liked had fuck all in common with Happy Hardcore and Gabba. There's always been this idea wafting around the dance press that, because most dance music shares a common scene/point of origin, it's all essentially "one", and to cuss any aspect/branch of it is tantamount to blaspheming against the whole. This argument doesn't take into account simple factors like taste, and, in todays climate, is club/rave culture really so frail that to dismiss one of its limbs is, effectively, to undermine the whole organism? Course not. That whole argument emerged when the scene was young and needed defending.
And people did take it seriously. Very seriously. People started to take it so seriously one branch of it acquired its own "respectable" name: 4 Beat. Did you ever read 'Eternity', Si? These guys weren't joking. The Trevor hard lads weren't joking, and I used to hang around with some of them. And watching people get into a macho contest about how many grammes of base they can stuff in their mouth, along with 5 pills and a trip, just isn't that funny when you're around it all the time.
Maybe my memories of it aren't as hysterical because, at the time, I lacked distance. Inspite of the fact I hated the music, I moved in the same circles as a lot of people who loved it. And I got so sick of people telling me I had to like Happy because "it's all Rave, mate".
I'm not sure that the tunes you mention (Toytown et al) are any indication that the scene could laugh at itself. Couldn't they simply imply a reappropriation of the language of the enemy, etc.
I do accept that Happy has its place.
Just as long as it's not my place.
[ 26-07-2001: Message edited by: Jamieon ] |
