The Next Big Thing (From 'Trash' Magazine)
The next big thing is just around the corner. Can you feel it? Of course you can. 2003 is the best year in pop music and pop culture ever. If at this point you‘re expecting a list of records or artists as evidence of my boisterous opening gambit, well, sorry… that isn’t the point.
The point is going out again to gigs where you don‘t feel like a powerless punter forced to listen to yet another dull, supine rock band plug their product; but where you feel like you’re in a room full of like minds on a quest for thrills, and where they look and act like you could do all this too, a because you could and maybe you will.
The point is not going our to clubs to worship someone for his ability to make 50 tunes sound completely identical; but rather dancing badly in a basement where a DJ who can‘t-mix-won’t-mix plays brilliant records from all over the generic shop, with a healthy disregard for good taste, and where you and your friends don't know and what his name is, least of all care.
The point is knowing too much about how much record labels and media conglomerates con you out of your spondulicks and working out ever more ingenious ways (download, upload, file-share, CD burn, iPod) to create your own soundtrack, style and culture. and with no flab, no filter, no interest in which bit‘s naff, because you have nothing to lose byt the chins of cynicism and misplaced irony and fear of failure to be sufficiently cool. Cool, we are finally learning, is just a way to sell us shit disguised as perfume. Now we can smell the Next Big Thing. Why now? A convergence of accidental things that maybe aren’t accidents at all. Since the 1980s, everything we‘ve been fed has been designed specifically for us according to our age, gender, race, job, class. We’ve grown instinctively bored of being defined by people who don‘t see us as individuals, and the mix’n‘ match music we’re listening to is the inevitable result. Sales are plummeting while gig attendances, homemade mix compilations and hardware that enables us to DIY music go through the roof. They can't work out who we are anymore.
Let‘s get music specific. First, CDs are too long, self-indulgent and expensive, and the packaging is crap. Why splash out £15 for three great songs when you and your mates can buy one copy, burn off the tracks you want, design your own sleeve using your PC, and then take the product back to the multinational CD store that closed down your mate’s funky little record shop and swap it for something else? The argument that global corporations won't be able to fund new bands unless we fund them is as laughable as it appears. They already charge us £15 for something that costs 50p to make. Hear any of the new, penniless but computer-literate bands complaining? No. Not only have they already worked out ways to exploit download culture, but they know that audience goodwill ensures audience loyalty. Why would you steal the work of someone you feel a genuine,m ground-level kinship with?
As for current music, there are signs of this retro-nuevo attitude everywhere. when Beck plays in August, we‘ll be reminded of how Odelay mixed every kind of pop and made it sound organic, of how it’s possible for a genuinely brave artist to make each album sound utterly different form the last and trust us to keep up, of how a thin white geek can reinvent himself as a comic James Brown/Prince-type performer, because he knows we‘re smart enough to both laugh with and see ourselves in him. When the Human League play this month, we’ll be reminded that wit, experimental music, catchy tunes and awkward working-class glamour were and still are the perfect mix and that the 1980‘s, despite rumors to the contrary, were marvelous, as long as you filtered out the pap - same as it ever was. When The Rapture release their debut album in September and also fit snugly alongside the Gang of Four on Rough Trade’s July Post Punk compilation, we‘ll recall that the political punk-funk of the late 1970s wasn’t dour and worthy, but so thrilling and visionary that it invented American punk, inspired Nirvana and REM and Red Hot Chili Peppers, and is now set to subvert the UK mainstream disguised as disco pop. because we‘re 20 years smarter than we were. When we hear Eargasm, the first album by breakbeat duo Plump DJs, we’ll discover that dance music isn‘t dead - it’s just been away rediscovering that dancing is free (possibly even drug-free) fun, and if you make music out of black and white, gay and straight, male and female influences, then we‘ll all have more fun because we’re all dancing together. Don't listen to some dinosaur droning on about how much better 1967 or 1976 or 1988 was. 2003 is their equal.
Which is where we came in. I still haven‘t said what the Next Big Thing is. That’s because you know already; the Next Big Thing is you. You own your culture. The point isn‘t that there’s nothing new. The point is that they've got nothing new to sell you.
Comments:
But what do YOU think about this Binnit? “can‘t mix won’t mix”? Ceeennnnnsssoooorrreeeeddddd!!! Excuse me, but there is even an art to mixing badly. If you can‘t mix at all, you get all kinds of problems that just sound Gash to the people, believe me, not good. I’m in two minds about this. It‘s well written and all, but I’m just a bit bored of reinventing the 80‘s now, or any other year for that matter. 2003 needs it’s own identity, and hasn't found it yet. I do agree however with “You are the next best thing”, we just have to make ourselves get off our arses and do it.
I'm dead tired by the way, and may have missed the whole point of it, but there you go. My tuppence worth!
chix out.
Chix
Still a minority voice though! The populous are not THAT interested in being different. It will continue the way it always has - I agree with Chix about 2003 needing it's own identity and needing to be reinvented.
Perhaps/hopefully/possibly Chix, you may be involved in it‘s shaping - young visionaries. Audacity and it’s kin - unfortunately I'm not that prophetic! - Either way something will come and be the Next Best Thing, and it will release a number of people into the things they are interested in because it touches where they are at.
Then it will become popular and begin to lose its appeal to those at the fringe who will then become the visionaries for the Next Big Thing. The Next Big thing never changes, it just wears new clothes! Its mission is to reflect what people see around them. A constant Work In Progress.
The only thing is that Media now hold such sway over our culture that I'm interested to see if something totally new and fresh will be allowed to come out unadulterated by the Media and the powers that control it!
Random rattlings really. See what you think.
Badger
Yeah, but do you actually WANT to be part of the next big thing?
To be honest, things that start underground in my opinion, are best left underground. The minute they get snatched up by the masses, they tend to loose all focus, integrity, and BECAUSE everyone is doing, the creative people DON'T want to do it.
I know I'm part of that generation, whatever the crowds are doing, I want to do it differently.
So, badger‘s right. What we’re doing now, if and when it evolves into TNBT we'll be doing something else.
censored institution, censored the masses and their chain thinking, censored TNBT, cos by then it‘ll be right back to what’s “cool” and “fashionable”.
That's what happens when everyone jumps on an idea and turns it into “cool”.
ooo, I'm getting into this now.
Come on Binnit, what you got to say?
Chix
What do I think? Well for a start I agree with Chix about the art of mixing - it‘s a definite skill, and one that should be appreciated; on the other hand when the point of going out and having a good time is lost in the lands of DJs getting off on playing you their up-their-own-bum records that don’t touch anyone then I'd rather have someone who just slaps on good tunes that inspire.
Next up, I think the whole reinventing the 80‘s idea IS missing the point. The thing about certainly bits of the 80’s and for that matter late 70‘s with Glam Rock, and any other era for that matter is that it had lots of fun, glamour, flamboyance and so on. The 90’s were defined predominantly by ‘being cool’ - although funnily enough without any really definable music style outside of reworkings of older material. This is not to detract from some new influences Drum and Bass, Garage, etc but these were primarily on the fringes.
So what's next? The idea raised in the article is that people now have access to vast record collections in digital format, meaning that for most people their musical taste becomes more eclectic.
Therefore perhaps defining principle of what is ‘the next big thing’ is not something new or endless reruns of something old but a mix that reflects the personalities of the punters at a particular club and the personality of the club itself.
This is not to say that there is no room for experimenting, innovation or pushing musical boundaries - this is certainly needed; however it's more that we are perhaps not necessarily looking for something that is cool, cutting edge or whatever but for an environment that reflects the diversity of our subcultures, in a way that makes us feel good!
Andy
“2003 needs it‘s own identity, and hasn’t found it yet.”
Did you READ the article … what is that identitiy going to be? Is it going to be breaks? Not a bloody chance. What about Electroclash - equally unlikely … and so on for any form of music you would care to mention. Every generation's music is a reflection of the undercurrent of political and social ideologies.
But as much as it is fairly easy to charicature the 60‘s, 70’s and 80‘s because of the social and political climate, the 90’s and 00‘s are more difficult (in this country anyway) because the underlying politics and social changes are more difficult to understand. Perhaps you could characterise the 90’s as a more cynical look at the previous 3 generations; looking out for ‘cool’ elements that we could recontextualise. However it also marked a shift away from the 80's money/capitalism culture - not hugely but people started asking questions at least.
What about the 00‘s; there is a ground swell movement that is asking whether any of the last 40 years has really improved things that much … for example where the excesses of the 80’s were replaced by the cynicism of the 90's, now we are saying … actually I like the idea of “enough”; not dropping out like travellers, or endlessly consuming but saying I want community, simplicity, to engage with people, my environment, art, music etc.
So how can this possibly manifest itself in music? Probably a shift towards music those values. Rejection of elitism (i‘m not saying necessarily rejecting the sub-culture thats we all feel help define our identities) would probably come into that. Rejection of ’cool‘. Mostly though, the next big thing is … I like it, so i’ll buy it.
“Either way something will come and be the Next Best Thing, and it will release a number of people into the things they are interested in because it touches where they are at.”
Either that or those people are merely released because they are no longer bound by the rules that have previously existed.
"To be honest, things that start underground in my opinion, are best left underground. The minute they get snatched up by the masses, they tend to loose all focus, integrity, and BECAUSE everyone is doing, the creative people DON‘T want to do it. I know I’m part of that generation, whatever the crowds are doing, I want to do it differently."
That‘s nothing to do with your generation … it’s to do with the arrogance of youth (I speak from personal experience). It‘s about trying to identify with people or groups of people that inspire you. In turn this is becomes elitism. I bloody hate the term underground … it just says, I’m sooo much cooler than you; you can‘t possibly understand this music. So what if it loses focus surely that means you just keep moving. Does art EVER stand still? No because people are constantly reinventing it, reworking it, going back to earlier work and reinterpretting it, always pushing on. The question isn’t whether it is a good or bad thing for the masses to get into an ‘underground’ scene … it‘s where are you now. Don’t do something just because you want to be different; do it because you want to do it, or it inspires you or you feel you have to in order to satify your creativity.
How does this relate to TNBT … it is not that there is necessarily this great new underground dj wank style coming up from da streets … but perhaps that finally music might catch up with fine art and ask the question how does context affect the music? The venue, the juxtaposition with other records, the people at the venue (and their juxtaposition with each other). What about the idea that just by playing the right music in the right place at the right time, people are just made to feel included, happy, inspired, challenged, or whatever.
The sooner people get the hang of the fact that institutions, the masses and chain thinking are here to stay, and the only way to change the status quo is by subversion, the sooner we‘ll see some real change. This country is all out of revolutions; it’s not going to happen again by force, rather by viral infection. But then it rather depends on whether you want anyone else in your little club?
"The only thing is that Media now hold such sway over our culture that I'm interested to see if something totally new and fresh will be allowed to come out unadulterated by the Media and the powers that control it!"
Riddle me this Badger … why is the music industry running scared at the moment and putting ALL their time and effort into short term (Gareth/Will et al) gains? The media is only as powerful as people let it be … why is the-ocean (and it's ilk) important?
Andy