I just put it in the American style and a perspective for them to dance to it. In Jamaica all you needed was a drum and bass. So what I did here was go right to the ‘yoke’. I cut off all anticipation and played the beats… and people would love it. So I was giving them their own taste and beat percussion-wise.. cause my music is all about heavy bass…

Skrillex or DJ Kool Herc, father of hip-hop? 

this came out over a month ago, but it is required reading for anyone who has ever tried to wrap their mind around that question You only have to look at the Billboard charts to notice that Americans as a whole have taken to club sounds lately… there’s also a deeper boom going on, one you can trace down from hit producers like David Guetta and Swedish House Mafia to the huge rave-style events they play in this country; and from there to big-tent, pop-minded acts like Deadmau5, Aviici, and Kaskade; and from there to the way Skrillex can pack tour dates in places like Montana; and from there to peers like Bassnectar and 12th Planet. If these aren’t names that mean much to you, well, it’s a bit like that [emo] rock scene again. Those who are in the business of noticing what makes money move around the industry seem to have plenty of eyes on this stuff; notice the Grammy nods for Skrillex. Those who act as gatekeepers for musical artistry have been slightly more standoffish about it. One reason for this is that the acts we’re talking about are not, generally speaking, interested in offering some refined or studious advancement on the long, rich, soulful history of electronic dance music. Skrillex’s work, in particular, is a lot more of a pile-up, as if someone’s picked all the most obviously, superficially cool and high-impact parts of a dozen different genres, dredged them in stimulants, and started mashing them against one another—the same way Quentin Tarantino can rifle through a dozen film genres and borrow all the best fight scenes. There’s Daft Punk’s insistent pop-dance; the blocky neon blips of electro; the melodic buzz of old video games; the gushy, sentimental melodies of trance; the high-speed skip and glitch of Aphex Twin; the glammy pop feel of L.A. party music—all things that are easy to like. And when you mush them all together into one clanging, high-octane stew, they become extremely easy to like, whether or not the listener has ever known or cared about electronic music before. Not elegant, deep, or moving, but very easy to get a thrill out of… (read more)

this came out over a month ago, but it is required reading for anyone who has ever tried to wrap their mind around that question

You only have to look at the Billboard charts to notice that Americans as a whole have taken to club sounds lately… there’s also a deeper boom going on, one you can trace down from hit producers like David Guetta and Swedish House Mafia to the huge rave-style events they play in this country; and from there to big-tent, pop-minded acts like Deadmau5, Aviici, and Kaskade; and from there to the way Skrillex can pack tour dates in places like Montana; and from there to peers like Bassnectar and 12th Planet. If these aren’t names that mean much to you, well, it’s a bit like that [emo] rock scene again. Those who are in the business of noticing what makes money move around the industry seem to have plenty of eyes on this stuff; notice the Grammy nods for Skrillex. Those who act as gatekeepers for musical artistry have been slightly more standoffish about it.

One reason for this is that the acts we’re talking about are not, generally speaking, interested in offering some refined or studious advancement on the long, rich, soulful history of electronic dance music. Skrillex’s work, in particular, is a lot more of a pile-up, as if someone’s picked all the most obviously, superficially cool and high-impact parts of a dozen different genres, dredged them in stimulants, and started mashing them against one another—the same way Quentin Tarantino can rifle through a dozen film genres and borrow all the best fight scenes. There’s Daft Punk’s insistent pop-dance; the blocky neon blips of electro; the melodic buzz of old video games; the gushy, sentimental melodies of trance; the high-speed skip and glitch of Aphex Twin; the glammy pop feel of L.A. party music—all things that are easy to like. And when you mush them all together into one clanging, high-octane stew, they become extremely easy to like, whether or not the listener has ever known or cared about electronic music before. Not elegant, deep, or moving, but very easy to get a thrill out of…

(read more)

Birth rates in America were sagging low in the mid-70s… in raw numbers, they sunk down near three million newborns a year. They were cresting relatively high around 1990, with raw numbers topping four million a year. You don’t exactly have to be a sociologist to notice that the sheer size of this age cohort makes its members’ lives, and their relationship with pop culture, a little different from others’. People born during a dip in the birth rate grow up consuming a lot of culture that’s aimed at someone older than them. People born during a boom do not do cultural apprenticeship, because everything is quickly aimed at them; they watch the things that appeal to their age group bloom and succeed, whether anyone else is interested in it or not. This is why some Americans have spent decades clutching their heads as the Baby Boom generation makes big chunks of our world revolve around itself: Large cohorts have a large gravitational pull.

Nitsuh Abebe wrote this great column about someone who called My Chemical Romance my generation’s Nirvana, our boom of MySpace bands, and how Skrillex is a weird outgrowth of that. 

thanks, Slate

thanks, Slate

The latest efforts in music blogging from Andrew Alan McClain.

21, junior at the University of Central Arkansas, journalism major.

This is my music blog.

email me your most whimsical thoughts at andrewmcclain3@gmail.com