Dance music today

[wow27]

Firstly, may i say thank you to the people who have responded to my messages about the rare groove lists,a big thank you to you all, and i hope you enjoyed reading them-i will be doing lots more in the future so watch this space!
On a seperate matter, a few people have commented that music today, namely dance music is a load of crap and "not what it used to be" - I really do have to disagree! i think house/disco/garage music today, has never been better! There is so much good stuff around these days and so many different styles of dance music-you really would be spoiled for choice! Alot of the music on the underground house and garage scene today really is class stuff, very funky and very soulful and would certainly hold its own against the older stuff!
The underground house and garage music that comes out of the U.S today (and the u.k as well), but more so the U.S, really is absolutely amazing and in a class of its own! I am a huge fan of 70/80's rare groove/garage music as you all know from the lists i have done,but there is just much good stuff out there today as there always has been!

[wow27]

Just thought i would responde to myself to see what happens ( are'nt i sad! haha)
I am new to this site after all and i'm still getting used to how everything works!

[Leanmean]

WOW27: Welcome to the board!
I like your lists, namely because I don't know any of them by name so they represent a challenge to me to rediscover them - if I can. I say if I can because I quit drinking and drugging in 1984 for 3 1/2 years and again in 1988 (it's been 14 great years now!); therefore, I didn't go out to the bars as often as I used to. (Yes, I equated my dancing with drugs & booze!) It's very likely that I NEVER heard the songs you've mentioned! On the other hand, when I DID go out during that time, the music they played at the grrrls bar sucked or close to it. Mind you, they were okay to listen to (especially Shannon's stuff I could dance to), but I like fast music and the songs they played were too damn SLOW. You know, "White Horse", "Meetin' in the Ladies Room" (what a STUPID SONG!), etc. I think one of the best songs of that day was "Din Daa Daa." I was fascinated with it and it was fast enough for me! I know lots of people on this board think THAT song is stupid, but to each her own! Hmmm... 1975 had a lot of slow songs... "More, More, More" comes to mind...

Another reason I like your lists (as well as Funky Dude's and others') is because I actually did rediscover some stuff that was lodged in the back of my hazed mind. For instance, Kelly Marie's "Feels Like I'm in Love" and the Strikers' "Body Music." You see, THOSE songs have the right beat for me. They move you right along - swiftly! Which explains why I LOVE techno and the morph of it: trance. The faster the better! Hey, I'm OLD too: 46! (Good thing I rarely go out dancing - I'd wear myself out.)

Now, regarding House and Garage: I'm a member of the http://www.housemusic.com board and there I was turned on to many, many cuts I forgot about (one being Eddie Kendrick's "Girl, You Need a Change of Mind" - a song I danced to back in 1973 or 1974) or never heard like Blaze and MAW.
My favorite House music compilation is one of the Respect Is Burning CDs done by DJ Deep out of France. Many on the housemusic board consider him an excellent DJ and the CD is a good representation of true House today. (I also bought another Respect Is Burning CD the other day called "After the Playboy Mansion" by DJ Dimitri out of Paris). What is it with these Frenchmen?

Anyway, although I enjoy listening to the CDs very much, I consider them Sunday brunch music or let's stay in bed and make love music - nothing I would or could dance to.

One more thing, if only we could hear a sound byte of what you listed so I could see if I have heard it before. If it's something I like, I would buy it. So much for research!

Well, thanks for letting me ramble. And thanks for your lists.




_________________
You can slide my finger on it

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Leanmean on 2002-10-22 12:20 ]</font>

[paul]

Can you name a few of todays dance songs that are worthy?

[Nano]

Let me pick a few excellent dance tracks and CDs (mostly hits and mainstream stuff):

-FATBOY SLIM - "The Rockafeller Skank"
-FATBOY SLIM - "Praise you"
-TRICKY - "Black steel"
-ST GERMAIN - "Pont des Arts"
-ST GERMAIN - "Thank U Mum"
-BASEMENT JAXX - "Bingo Bango"
-BASEMENT JAXX - "Red alert"
-DAFT PUNK - "One more time"
-ALEX GOPHER - "The child"

-BJöRK - Debut (1993 and still her best album)
-PROPELLERHEADS - Decksanddrumsandrockandroll (1998)
-FATBOY SLIM - Halfway between the gutter and the stars (2000)

[BrunoRepublic]

On 2002-10-22 17:14, Nano wrote:
-BJöRK - Debut (1993 and still her best album)

No way... Homogenic or Vespartine or maybe the soundtrack to Dancer In The Dark!

Granted, there isn't much to dance to on any of these, but there's a fab "French mix" of Alarm Call that shakes the floor...

[jazz_pilgrim]

First of all, wow 27, welcome to the Board! :grin:

Even though I haven't responded to your lists there are a few tunes in there that I know! Pick of the bunch so far for me is Greg Henderson and "Dreamin" :grin: I also agree that Rod and Keep On Walking is a pretty cool tune!

Marky asked us to list some of the good new tunes two or three weeks back. If you scroll back through the threads, I am sure you will find the lists interesting! :grin:

I agree with you totally on your point about new music - there is a lot of good new music around - it is just a matter of being able to tap into it!

Two recent releases that are "wowing" :grin: me at the moment are the new BLAZE LP and new IDRIS MUHAMMED Japanese-released 12-inch I heard on the radio. The latter is particularly stunning and is one of the best new tracks I have heard for ages! :grin:

[DeepBeat]

There so much good good new music around that never gets played it makes me mad.
I don't like techno or most of the "progressive" house tracks that get played in the clubs but there is so much other powerful, funky and soulful music (130 bpm's is my limit) around it HURTS not to see it in the charts.
Dance music is supposed to be going through it's most successful period with "club culture" reaching the mainstream like never before and still the club tunes that climb the charts are TRASH!
I'm trying hard to understand what is so wrong with this picture and I can't make it out.
If Americans could listen to the wonderful house music that they still make it would be a different story. I think that US dance music is more "underground" than ever before. Not even the pre and post-disco era were so hidden from the public. Radio is dead...there are no influential clubs around...so what's a person to do?
This is one time I don't envy you my friends from the States.

[QUINNY]

Could it be that (dance) music has reached saturation point? There is so much being made that it is physically impossible for it ALL to reach people's ears. I feel the tide against dance music is turning and we may well find less of it being made in the near future. Or does cheap recording technology mean that it will just keep on being made in ever more numbers?

[markydefad]

I hear you people, who's opinions I respect, telling me that there is all this wonderful dance music out there--yet I never hear anything remotely interesting. Nothing that makes MY feet wanna dance. Do I have to move to Europe to hear the good stuff???

I keep thinking that it's generational; maybe you still have some tolerance for the hip-hop brand of dance (Missy Elliott,etc.) that I hear praised by folks I respect. I just think it sounds like electronic ghetto junk. Doesn't move me in the least, except to want to turn the station.

Am I hopeless??? :lol:

[QUINNY]

Marky: It's a generational thing, but the few times I've listened to modern stuff recently I've found myself tapping my feet. That's a start.
I think half the trouble with modern day music is that the really popular stuff is really poppy and fairly banal, whereas the more underground stuff I've heard is too much like elevator music. It's all moods and chords and rhythm patterns with no strong hook. The big dance tunes of the late '80s and early '90s were brilliant by comparison.
For me, the best show I've heard on radio has been the Deviation show on BBC 1Xtra, Thursday 12 midnite - 2a.m. Friday. An eclectic mix of soulful jazz'n'funk (at least the last 2 weeks).

[DanceMan]

Maybe there is a lot of great music out there but you cannot go by my ears. I am not hearing it....

Everytime I visit 'younger' friends(30s), all their "dance" music is hypnotic, electronic trance and everything else is a bunch of looped vocals or the hippity hop/garage? sound. Can anyone of you young folk onboard here recommend anything that sounds orchestral, lush and pretty with vocals that you can understand and lyrics you can possibly sing to? Are there any Voyage, Cocomotion or Constellation Orchestra type of CDs being sold today that you could turn us pre-Reagan disco die-hards onto? I for one would greatly appreciate it.

[Voyage]

I guess there is some good stuff nowadays to be honest but you know it kind of depends on what you like or dislike. Today there's lots of technology but there seems to be a lack of natural talent. If everyone in the Disco industry in the 70s had all of today's technology I wonder what awesome masterpieces they would have done; considering their work still a masterpiece because of its harmonic sounds.

Danceman as far as I'm concerned there's no Voyage stuff nowadays. I recommend you listen to Safri Duo's Episode II CD if you like drum and bongo beats. It even has one jazzy bossanova track. The rest of the stuff today is kinda hypnotic/electric/ear injuring (specially at a club after listening to the same thing over 40 min! :evil: )

To be honest right now I haven't been keeping up with the modern stuff lately in the last month. Most of my friends like that hip hop/rap thing. BTW yesterday I was surprised when one friend told me that the Sugar Hill studio had burned down b/c I never thought he would know that. We were talking about this song called "Asereje" being a cover of "Rapper's Delight". "Asereje" is being played to death here on the radio, TV, street, clubs, everywhere!

I've been focusing more lately on Italodisco 80s stuff (1983-1986). Anyone here likes Italodisco too?

Voyage

[martinus]

Hello !
Some new stuff worth listening to:
Hed Kandi: Stereo Sushi 3, fantastic!
Soulfuric Mix Sessons Double CD
Timewriter: Diary of a lonely sailor: soulful Tech/Deephouse
Stephanie Cooke: I thank you (shelter mix)
on King street rec.
Michelle Weeks: He is the light(Ubp mix)
on Soulfuric
Indeep(Not the 80's group !): Music is my life
Louis Benedetti feat David Ruffin jr: Show you my love (good Goldie Alexander coverversion) on Soulshine rec.

[markydefad]

It's funny cause I was just gonna mention that all the younger members here always single out the "Hed Kandi" series as the place to go to for good new stuff. When I was in SF shopping with Jeff and Keefe, I asked both about that series of CD's and whether I should purchase and each, on separate occasions, rolled their eyes and said "don't bother"!!! :razz:

Hey, we've been burned too many times to go down that road one mo time. Every rat eventually learns there is NO CHEESE at the end of certain tunnels.

Just call me Ratso Rizzo. :lol:

[BrunoRepublic]

I dunno, today's music isn't all bad.

There's that trance track that just a fast-paced synth tone in G with the morphing filters. That one's really good if you're stoned.

Then there's that neo-soul one with two electric piano chords and the wailing diva... that's quite nice for the first 30 minutes or so, longer if you're drunk and/or high.

And then there's the new R&B one, with the very minimal rhythm track, sampled phrase repeating every four bars, with the Whitney-Houston-coming-down-from-a-coke-high yelps and the background chicks cooing in 17-part harmony. This one's really popular; I hear on the youth-market-oriented radio all the time now.

I always get a kick out of the one that samples a bar or two disco track and repeats it for hours.

And the housey one with the three-note organ bassline is quite good too.

Fortunately, I have no need to actually purchase any of these tracks. Today's music producers have managed to refine their product to such narrow specifications that one can no longer distinguish any of them apart. But it doesn't matter, since the artist is irrelevant today. It's all about the DJ, who if skilled enough, can actually weave something distinct out of all these non-descript patterns and textures.

I predict that in a few years, they will no longer bother to come up with artist or track names for dance music. You'll just see white labels with things like "house track", "euro track", "trance track", etc., written on them.

Then we can truly celebrate the death of individuality, and welcome the new age of global corporate conformity.

[DeepBeat]

On 2002-10-23 13:14, martinus wrote:
Hello !
Some new stuff worth listening to:
Hed Kandi: Stereo Sushi 3, fantastic!
Soulfuric Mix Sessons Double CD
Timewriter: Diary of a lonely sailor: soulful Tech/Deephouse
Stephanie Cooke: I thank you (shelter mix)
on King street rec.
Michelle Weeks: He is the light(Ubp mix)
on Soulfuric
Indeep(Not the 80's group !): Music is my life
Louis Benedetti feat David Ruffin jr: Show you my love (good Goldie Alexander coverversion) on Soulshine rec.

TELL 'EM MARTINUS! Here's some cool stuff.

[jazz_pilgrim]

Martinus,

Haven't got hold of Stereo Sushi III yet. What are the best tracks on it??

I'm still getting over that fabulous Mondo Grosso track from Stereo Sushi II !!! :grin: :grin:

[ladyboygrimsby]

If you want some great modern music, I can recommend the new Blaze album 'Spiritually Speaking'. It's not really like Voyage (the only tune I ever liked of theirs was Point Zero), it's more on the Salsoul tip. For beautiful downtempo music, Zero 7's 'Simple Things' is great and the new Cinematic Orchestra album is pretty good, too (the name of it escapes me). If you don't like any of those, then I'd conclude that it is, indeed, generational.

BTW, Hed Kandi is utter crap.

[zeca azevedo]

Hi everybody,

in the second half of the 90's, dance music experimented a wave of desconstructing songs, ripping off melodies, repeating rhythm patterns ad infinitum and using electronic sounds and textures. Dance music became very abstract just to keep on with some druggy experiences - ecstasy, etc. Anyway, I relate this techno fascination with something I like to call "technological fetichism" - the boom of the PCs everywhere created the illusion of a democratic comunity of information. This fetichism is historical and it will end - in fact, the beggining of its end happened in 9/11. All this techno escapism will be remembered as a sign of these times, nothing more than that.

Me, I prefer some songs with gourgeous melodies. Nothing against all contemporary dance music, of course, there's some good stuff in the middle of the techno flood.

Am I wrong?

zeca azevedo

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: zeca azevedo on 2002-10-24 10:20 ]</font>

[martinus]

On 2002-10-24 03:10, jazz_pilgrim wrote:

Martinus,

Haven't got hold of Stereo Sushi III yet. What are the best tracks on it??

I'm still getting over that fabulous Mondo Grosso track from Stereo Sushi II !!! :grin: :grin:

I like the tracks:
Rasmus Faber: Never felt so fly
Amy Helm: Own way home
Linda Clifford: Sunshine
RobinRush: After the storm
Simon Grey: One
Groove Junkies: Inside my soul
Stephanie Cooke: I thank you

[born2disco]

I'd say if you think all modern house or dance music is ****, you are definitely not looking in the right places!

Marky - I want to point you in the direction of ONE particular track from a couple of years ago which I think has the spirit of oldskool disco but is completely fresh new & funky. The track: 'Moody' (Joey Negro Club Mix) by Sessomato. You can find it on Disco Kandi 2 comp (tho most of that comp is shite, this track stands out). If you don't wanna buy the CD you could surely download it from somewhere.

This track rocks! And there is a helluva lot of new stuff in a similarly funky vain. If you heard some of our local house/garage DJs here in Melbourne I guarantee you would not be able to leave the dancefloor!

CIAO

[midas]

DirtyVegas is good
specially Days go by

[martinus]

I'd say if you think all modern house or dance music is ****, you are definitely not looking in the right places!

Marky - I want to point you in the direction of ONE particular track from a couple of years ago which I think has the spirit of oldskool disco but is completely fresh new & funky. The track: 'Moody' (Joey Negro Club Mix) by Sessomato. You can find it on Disco Kandi 2 comp (tho most of that comp is shite, this track stands out). If you don't wanna buy the CD you could surely download it from somewhere.

This track rocks! And there is a helluva lot of new stuff in a similarly funky vain. If you heard some of our local house/garage DJs here in Melbourne I guarantee you would not be able to leave the dancefloor!

CIAO

Sessomato "Moody" can also be heard on Joey Negro's Mix-compilation "Back to the scene of the Crime" on AZULI rec.(4-Vinyl unmixed or mixed Double CD).
Other fine tracks are:
Benjamin Diamond "We gonna make it"
Yolanda Wyns "I know you, i live you" (Chaka Khan cover)
Blaze "Wishing you were here"
Sunburst band "New york city woman"
Love station "Teardrops"
All good soulful funky housetracks in Joey Negro mixes.
Also it features re-edits of MFSB "K-Jee" and Brick "Living in your mind". The weakest track is the overplayed opener "American Dream" by Jakatta.

[Hannah]

Hi everyone, I'm new to this 'chat' lark but felt compelled to reply to the following comment by markydefad:

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2002 6:30 am** *Post subject:
I hear you people, who's opinions I respect, telling me that there is all this wonderful dance music out there--yet I never hear anything remotely interesting. Nothing that makes MY feet wanna dance. Do I have to move to Europe to hear the good stuff???

Now I have been into disco and dance since god knows when but I only started to really LOVE it when I discovered 'L'America' @ the Emporium in Cardiff. This (if you have not already discovered it) is a superb club night which has expanded considerably over the past few years. They take on new talent, have fantastic residents and always manage to house some sublime talent from the US on their big nights. A majority of the music played is from the US and it kicks arse!! The mixture of headonistic beats and funky disco is what life is all about!

Despite being a proud citizen of England I feel it my duty to inform you that US house is the best dance music around and US DJs are amazing - esp. Joey Negro (!) So NO you definately dont need to come to Europe - you live in one of the funkiest countries in the world! (esp. NYC)