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Over the last year it has become increasingly obvious that electronic music is dying a rather painful death; while increasingly interesting indie acts are beginning to come to the forefront. I'm saying this as a fan of dance music. Like the recession and economic crash of recent years, it is due largely to a catalogue of contributing factors, whether it be overexposure in the charts, the lazy approach of derivative producers or the increasingly innocuous crowd that are dragging the events and festivals through the mud.
I write this as a huge fan of electronic music and someone who has always approached the indie scene with extreme disdain. Growing up as a teenager in the 00s it was wall to wall crap on the radio - from The Twang to The Fratellis - it only served to anger me no end. There were a few gems on the radio in the form of your Arctic Monkeys and your Interpols, but the scene at large became incredibly top heavy as forgettable band after band churned out imitation hits with little or no talent. In a sense it became top heavy and like any economist will tell you, the crash ensued leaving guitar music along with the echoes of the Britpop knocked into a coma.
At the same time as the great indie recession, the last great galvanising scene in the UK was growing in the rumbling depths of Brixton's Mass and Shoreditch's Plastic People. Finding dubstep was like a revelation, it just sounded new, fresh, exciting and frankly unlike anything that had been heard before. It opened up a whole new world of bass, production and DJing. I sold my guitar, bought some decks and proceeded to spend the majority of my money on endless swathes of vinyl that from Vex'd to Digital Mystikz still stand the test of time today. The club nights were amazing, like any great movement it was like suddenly fitting into something like you were the lost piece of the puzzle. After years and years of drinking through the misery of pungent indie club nights in Camden and sorry nights at the Hawley Arms, myself and many of Britain's youth had found their home.
Digital Mystikz's 'Anti-War Dub' was an anthem of the scene
Fast forward to present day and it's clear that the same fate that befell the indie scene is now befalling electronic music at large. After Skrillex, Caspa and Rusko introduced the concept of "jump up", the elements of dub were lost and so was the scene at large. From there as the young audience matured we came to the Mount Kimbies of the world in the form of post-dubstep and then finally into house music via the medium of bass. The transformation was complete and with Skream, the godfather of dubstep, professing the genre "dead", the end was nigh and all but a few stragglers grasped onto a lifeline in the form of house.
Here is where things have begun to go drastically wrong, electronic music has become far too overpopularized and don't worry I'm not saying this as some sneering East London shirt wearer because this is despite how many see it, a good thing.
When I say it's too popular I mean everyone is playing the same songs, as abundantly clear during last years season in Ibiza. By the end if I heard 'Latch' by Disclosure again or Chris Malinchak's 'So Good To Me' one more time then I was ready to gauge my brain out of my ears with rusty spoons. Each set we saw by various DJ's was predictable to the point of stupidity. Playing Breach's 'Jack' for hundredth billion time just to please some gurning Essex boy who is the shade of an oompa loompa does not a healthy scene make.
Herein lies the problem, electronic music has become more predictable than an episode of Scooby Doo. Reflecting the crash of the indie scene it has become derivative. Just like there was no really different between many of the 00s indie bands, there is no real difference between Clean Bandit's 'Rather Be' and MK's 'Storm Queen' Remix, both of which landed at No.1. In the same fashion the scene has become top heavy and is collapsing as the foundation of innovation crumbles underneath. In its place there are new breeds of indie bands emerging, synth focused singer-songwriters like SOHN all the way to the balls out fun of Catfish and the Bottlemen. It has once again become an interesting preoccupation, which I reiterate, I say as someone who has been incredibly averse to indie music.
So there it is, the circle is closing as house music becomes the domain of TOWIE meets MDMA, the final nail in the coffin being Joey Essex's house album. Sorry to break up the party, but it's over, it will be driven underground once again as the musical circle of destruction and ressurection begins again. Let's meet up in ten years time when the innovators of electronica are again at the forefront.
The circle of life begins again below
