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What do you call it?
What do you call it?
In the early 2000s, the UK underground music scene went and had an identity crisis and it seems a decade later the scene still can’t pick a definitive name for itself. So the question must once again be asked: what do you call it?
In the 1990s UK garage was the predominant UK underground genre with catchy beats and vocals, championed by artists like Artful Dodger, MJ Cole and The Streets to name but a few. The scene focused on providing enjoyable raves and it was a fun loving time with garage songs making the official UK charts.
The emergence of So Solid Crew in the early 2000s with their charting hit ’21 Seconds’ brought a more aggressive side to garage with more focus on the MCs rather than the beats and singers. With Pay As You Go and Heartless Crew, a new sound emerged with deeper basslines and increasingly complex and powerful lyrics. Increasingly, the fun loving clubbers who enjoyed a two-step to the mellow yet dark vibes of garage didn’t quite identify with the newer sounds, leading to the identity crisis of the UK underground music scene. Wiley addressed this issue with his single ‘Wot Do U Call It?” The question was answered by the emergence of multiple genres, notably: grime, UKG, bassline, funky house and dubstep.
Grime emerged as a platform for inner city MCs to taste mainstream success: Dizzee Rascal won a Mercury award; N-Dubz got a show on E4; Tinchy Stryder co-owns Roc Nation with Jay-Z. Bassline and funky house brought back the raving spirit of UKG with the same vibe, however this was a short-lived period and the sound diminished.
The acceptance of dubstep as a mainstream genre: Skrillex won an award at this year’s Grammy’s and breakfast cereal Weetabix using dubstep in their advertisement has made it established an genre. However, the screaming basslines that replaced deep sub-bass as the primary sound of dubstep caused many of its primary supporters to grow weary of it. In fact, many dubstep producers are flirting with other genres such as techno house and recently a revival of the early 2000s sound has returned. Pioneers, namely Loefah who owns a house label called ‘Swamp 81’ and increasingly plays house music and Skream who tweeted this week that he will play techno, house and disco in all future sets, represent a response to the apathy that many dubstep fans have expressed.
— Oliver Jones (@I_Skream) March 7, 2013
Once again, the UK underground music scene has an identity crisis. Heralded by artists such as Disclosure, Dusky, James Blake and Mount Kimbie, a new sound influenced by all preceding genres has emerged and it has been given many names: post-dubstep, UK bass, bass music, future garage, EDM are all names that have been used to describe this current genre of music, which recently entered the official charts, however the question still remains: what do you call it?
words by Cory Walker-Eastman
