On British Music

[Medic]

Why is it so fucking good?

This is a list of the groups I consider my favorite. At a mimimum, I have an album of theirs [if not in CD then mp3 at least]

-- Paul Oakenfold, Britain
-- The Prodigy, British
-- Audioslave, America
-- Darude, Finland
-- Juno Reactor, Britain
-- Lo Fidelity All Stars, London
-- Rage Against The Machine, America [defunct, but I loved them and their current aforementioned incarnation, minus the crazy Mexican national ]
-- The Chemical Brothers, U.K.
-- Pendulum, from Austrailia, relocated to Britain
-- Roni Size, British
-- The Crystal Method, America

------ Less than favorite, but enjoy --------

-- Junior Senior, Denmark
-- Darude, Finland
-- EZ Rollers, Britain
-- Total Science, Oxford, England

I actually didn't go as far as I could have, the point's clear though.

The amazing thing, this isn't through TYRING. I mean, once I hear a sound I like, certainly, I go out and add more of the same from that artist or in the case when I "discovered" Drum and Bass, a genre new to me in general. It's not like a lot of this is even accessable stateside.

A BIG creditor for a lot of this goes to the PS2 music game Frequency, that contained Roni Size, Lo Fi All Stars, The Crystal Method, Orbital, and Juno Reactor. The very latter in that group I was first exposed to in movies [Mortal Kombat: Annihilation most notably] but Roni Size in Frequency was a fortuitous find in that it was the launching pad to DnB.

Maybe my own perception of American music is unfairly influenced by Clear Channel Communications iron grip on American FM airwaves. The "Big Three" I grew up on, rap, rock and country, do nothing for me -- as soon as I heard the first electronica album pounding through the wall between my and my sister's room, I was hooked. Other genres I hear a lot in the states to a lesser degree such as popular hispanic oriented music, ska, reggae, and 4/4 house / techno all do equally NOTHING for me and time and time again, I will discover "a new sound" and only after having been sucked in by it, do I find out it's 7 times out of 10 British. I always find it hilarious reading anything critical about the state of British club music because though it may be tired over there, I find it refreshingly original and fun to listen to. Is there anything more to this?

It's worth noting my proclivities steer me towards electronica over everything else. This is a general taste and there are exceptions to every rule.

And I would hope it doesn't have to be mentioned, that the spirit of this post and thread is NOT this America bashing trend. I really don't think this needs to be said in this, the AMP forum, but I'm cautious and caution tells me: some people on this board have thin skin. That being said, in innoculation to any such levy against me, STFU IT'S MUSIC!

[Rye]

I think with British musicians, there's always going to be an audience for guys that want to take it further than anyone else has done it. Black Sabbath went lower and more melancholic than any rock or blues band had gone and founded all of metal, really. The punks went ruder and grislier than everyone else. Motorhead went faster. Iron Maiden went more anthemic. Napalm Death went faster and more brutal than anyone else had dared go. Venom went more evil than anyone else and founded black metal. Cradle of Filth went more symphonic and gothy than anyone else, Carcass pushed the grind envelope even more with samples, deceptively simplistic downtuned riffs, pitch shifted vocals, and would later revolutionise the genre yet again by creating melodic death metal.

The Beatles revolutionised rock and roll, they approached music as proper artists not stopping within established limits and mixed tons of disparate genres and styles together.

On the dance side of things, there's the mixture of industrial from Gary Numan and similar artists in the 80s, The Prodigy experiment with the early dance and take the embryonic genre to new (imho, unparalleled) heights, then they mix it with heavy rock, again, bashing down artificial walls between genres and pushing it new places.

A similar thing happened with hip hop, too, in which the abomination known as UK Garage was spawned.

As for why and how we do it, I have no idea. Music as it's taught in school is pretty rubbish, so people tend to go into music of their own accord, perhaps, and as it's a self-fuelled thing, we do what we want and get something new to fit with what's in our minds.

[Havok]

As for why and how we do it, I have no idea. Music as it's taught in school is pretty rubbish, so people tend to go into music of their own accord, perhaps, and as it's a self-fuelled thing, we do what we want and get something new to fit with what's in our minds.

You are still mad about losing "The Colonies" and are always trying to out do us

[Lt. Dan]

Boh! Big ups to the Drum and Bass.

[Dorsk 81]

You forgot Muse.

[Admiral Valdemar]

You forgot Muse.

Indeed. I was recommended their album "Sing For Absolution" after loving the music video (which was a nice sci-fi CGI affair by Particle Systems who made I-War). Considering the girl that told me to buy it, I didn't expect I'd like them as much as I did.

You also missed out Massive Attack it seems.