Now, dear reader (since there's only one of you, I'll address you, personally) I know what you're thinking. "How dare this punk bash a whole genre of music!? Who hates on music? He must be one of those internet trolls I've heard about".
Pictured: One of those internet trolls you've heard about. Certainly not Crownlol.
Before you go fetching your torches and pitchforks, consider this: Three years ago, did you know anything about dubstep? Maybe, but could you name 5 artists off the top of your head? I bet you can now. One totally isn't Skrillex, either, I'd wager.
Which brings me to the point of this little blog, friend. The music is infectious. Hell, I listen to it when I play League of Starcraft. But dubstep is doomed to a fate worse than "Disco Demolition Night", or that guy who got skewered by the Unicorn in Cabin in the Woods. Let's take a look at why, so we can tell all those scene kids that we told them so:
5: Incredibly Rapid Rise to Fame
Using This handy tool that no one except SEO nerds can comprehend, I was able to ascertain that at the start of 2010, only 1 person had ever searched for the term "dubstep" on google. At present "dubstep" registers nearly 60 billion ticks per mepafloop!
What this means in layman's terms, you unwashed peasant you, is that dubstep got huge really fast. Just like disco. This can be fatal for a genre, because as things get overly popular, they alienate their core audience.
Actually, in this case that might not be awful.
Scenekids aside, once something becomes too popular it gets overproduced. And once something gets overproduced, all the fat dorky kids and pop-loving girls get into it. Which is really easy, because...
4: Dubstep is Easily Accessible and Non-Offensive
The defining characteristic of dubstep is the half-time drums, and wobbling lead melody. Literally anyone can listen to it and not think it's too much. There's no squealing guitars, no screeching vocals, no one with an accent so hood it's obviously practiced, and no ridiculous techno thump. Just a nice, steady rhythm that one can nod their head to. You can seriously play dubstep in the background while friends are over drinking and playing Apples to Apples. I've done it. I have friends, I totally do.
Furthermore, there's nothing to keep those people that ruin music away from it. There's no satanic lyrics, nothing about shooting people, absolutely nothing controversial. If little Susie heard one of her big brother's totally hot friends mention it, she can just go listen to it. Her mom will think she's watching cartoon robots or something.
So that thing I just said about the half-time bass? That means if people can't dance in any style, they can just kind of bob along, and not feel stupid. However, if you can dance, dubstep is even more fun. Can you dance to hip-hop or house in a club? Go nuts. Can you rave? That works too. Can you shuffle? Shut up you fucking liar, that shit is impossible outside of Super Smash Brothers Melee.
By being easy to dance to dubstep, it not only makes it easy to listen to the music, but easy to participate in the music. And that's where get a massive influx of scenesters and pretenders.
2: Dubstep Has a Ridiculous Scene
The more outlandish a movement's "scene" is, the harder it'll eventually crash and burn. You were alive while this was cool.
I call this the "redtube" effect. You see, as people get more and more used to something, they need more and more extreme stimulation for it to be exciting. In music and social trends, this can lead to outlandish things like polyester suits, rhinestone-studded leather on straight dudes, or that candyguy from earlier. He probably spells it with an "i", god I hate him. You know what movement doesn't really have too-outlandish fashion? Hip-hop. You can wear like, a basketball jersey and perform ON STAGE, and you're totally in costume and character.
Dubstep, on the other hand, has these people:
1: Dubstep is Really, Really Easy to Copy
The ingenuity of dubstep isn't in the technical ability of the DJ's, or the coolness of the samples. It's the freshness of the idea, the concept of mixing hip-hop and techno. It opens worlds, for stoner fans of rap and reggae to join with stoner fans of acid house and drum n bass.
The problem with having your uniqueness not be individual musicians, but a concept, is that it is really easy for big producers to just straight up rip off. Big production companies can very easily rip it off, reproduce a million tracks that sound just like the founding artists, and sell it to everything that moves.
Eventually, the artsy community where it started will get tired of hearing Christie Bubblegum bumping dubstep out of her Jeep Wrangler, and there will be a "Dubstep Demolition Night". I just hope some sort of metal renaissance fills the void.
Not this metal.
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I really enjoyed your entire blog and I think that you are extremely accurate. This is a definite 5/5 for being informative and entertaining to read.
My only problem with your write-up is that in the beginning you mockingly acknowledged a sole reader, yet later on you would refer to several readers. You need to be consistent in your writing!
Edit: for example, your referral to us (the audience) whom you stated to be a single person (me) as "unwashed peasents" (plural).
I agree with all of this except #4, in my experience it hasn't been the easiest genre of music to get my friends into. Sure there's no screechy guitars, but you get screechy/loud/obnoxious samples in a lot of it that turns a lot of people off.
actually there are quite a few more offensive dubstep like I want to kill everybody in the world lol and some people think it sounds like transformer being raped
An acquaintance got me listening to some mixes from dubstepforum.com back in early 2008. I went back and listened to them again recently and the stuff was actually pretty good, chileld out - not this wobbly gash that is circulating nowadays (skrillex?).
Regardless it's not my preferred genre so the cool/fashionable/trendy kids can listen to that crap until they grow up for all I care.
On April 24 2012 13:46 Vod.kaholic wrote: I agree with all of this except #4, in my experience it hasn't been the easiest genre of music to get my friends into. Sure there's no screechy guitars, but you get screechy/loud/obnoxious samples in a lot of it that turns a lot of people off.
The genre has seemingly devolved into "who can do the most outlandish noises or the filthiest bass". The "redtube" effect!
I tend to agree. And just watching the arguments, if you can call them that, over the sub genres of it is ridiculously stupid. That said Pendulum / CellDweller <3 lol It can bring some damn good music.
I like some of the new 'filthy bass' stuff, but in general I like the more chill and eletric feely type of music better. My favorite dubstep artist is Skream for instance, but I also enjoy some Skrillex.
I just hate how riled up dubstep haters are and how far they will go out of their to make sure that you know dubstep isn't music. And on the opposite side of the spectrum you have equally annoying fanboys who would rather die than let someone have an opinion differing from their own.
Some day people will look past eachother's music preferences and we shall all become unified! (I have a dream!!!!)
I don't really know what dubstep is. From what I've heard, its something that tone deaf people listen to. Disco is something girls listened to in the 70's.
On April 24 2012 22:04 Ghin wrote: I don't really know what dubstep is. From what I've heard, its something that tone deaf people listen to. Disco is something girls listened to in the 70's.
I felt like sharing my ignorant opinion.
It really isn't all that awful. It's like techno, but with a very slow bass drum rhythm, instead of the heart-thumping 180BPM of other techno styles.
There is a first confusion as to what Dubstep was (loud deep modulated bass lines or wobble bass and bass drop - something present in other DnB production), and what it described today as Dubstep by the main media which is a mix between Eurodance, Hard Tech, Trance and DnB (not exhaustive) - aka yet another genra made for mass dancing.
There is also a second confusion between the pictures you linked and reality - I'll described the first one as "fluo kid" and the second one as "bonker" both term being absolutely not coined by anyone else but me. - Neither of these archetype are characteristic of what you think the Dubstep crowd is. While there is a overlap between this clothing style and the music, both of these styles exist outside of the Dubstep movement and within other near genra, in particular Hard Tech and DnB.
But I agree that the genra you think is Dubstep but isn't will probably die out faster than Disco (and more like how the techno associated with Jumpstyle and Hardstyle died).
Your problem is that you don't see Dubstep for what it really is. You have to look at its beginnings to really understand that. Dubstep was raw and hard to grasp. It already came in very different shapes and there was no real scene. What Skrillex and others have made of it is very different.
Dubstep was never a formula. Music like this will not go away.
hahaha really interesting post! i think i can agree with most points. except the outlandish outfits thing, cuz i think it's prevalent in many electronica cultures like hard trance and trance etc. ravers always look like that! and trance is still going strong
And when all is said and done, I will continue listening to the genius beats of producers like Excision, Datsik, Joker, Liquid Stranger, and Ajapai....because I actually like the music, less for the stupid popularity contest, and more for the actual music.
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