2009: The Year Dubstep Went Mainstream

In January 2009, at the last FWD vs. Rinse night to be held at seminal London club The End, a well-known DJ premiered an unknown track to a heaving, sold-out crowd – many of whom had queued for hours in the bitter cold for entry. Even by its producer’s usual standards, it was a slow-burning, brooding tune, churning sub-bass and barely-there percussion only lit up by a piercing, distinctive female vocal. Several minutes in, without warning, its skeletal shell suddenly dropped away to a furious old school drums ‘n’ bass breakdown that lasted all too briefly before fading out again. Nearly a year later, it seems almost impossible to imagine a time when it wasn’t ubiquitous – the DJ was Skream and the track was his remix of La Roux’s ‘In For The Kill’.

In many ways, that tracks success story mirrors the rise and rise of dubstep as a whole this year, buoyed by mainstream flirtations and high-profile remixes – but, thrillingly, maintaining a staunch sense of independence and DIY attitude throughout. There were hints of this success level before, in particular through Burial’s Mercury Prize nomination and The Sun’s subsequent unmasking campaign, but nothing that could have anticipated its increasing acceptance by the ‘indie’ masses.

So what was the catalyst for such an explosive upshot in profile over the last year? In some ways it was inevitable – any genre exhibiting such exponential increase in growth and diversity is likely to reach critical mass at some point and begin making ripples in the lower tiers of the mainstream. There may also be some clue locked within the charts’ reacceptance of all things electronic and self-made, from Little Boots’ flirtations with a Tenori-On to La Roux’s shameless plundering of the eighties. Such music is ripe for remixing and reinterpretation, and the fizzing synths of Joker’s huge remix of Simian Mobile Disco’s ‘Cruel Intentions’ have undoubtedly turned ears in his direction.

As ever, one label stood head-and-shoulders above the pack, ending its fifth year of existence on a high with a storming compilation and massive party at London’s Corsica Studios – Hyperdub. November’s Five Years of Hyperdub compilation acts as a fantastic standalone primer for the movements of an entire genre, drawing explicit connections from the stark and dark minimalism of Digital Mystikz and Kode9’s earliest productions to this year’s crop of new tracks – Joker’s jagged ‘Digidesign’, Darkstar’s garage-pop lullaby ‘Aidy’s Girl Is A Computer’, Zomby’s house-infused ‘Tarantula’.

Kode9’s label was also one of the first traditionally ‘dubstep’ imprints to really embrace the deep tribalist grooves of the rising wave of UK funky – his own ‘Black Sun’ was something of a landmark release for Hyperdub, as acidic as it was deeply danceable. 2009 was the year when dubstep really ‘got’ funky, and got funky with itself. The core group centred around Rinse FM – Brackles, Oneman, Geeneus, Dusk & Blackdown – embraced its irresistible melodic and percussive grooves with vigour, seeing it as an escape route away from dubstep’s blind wibble-wobble alley. Producers like Brackles, his brother Martin Kemp, Untold, Shortstuff and Geiom further enhanced these crossover regions, bringing back two-step’s sexy swing and filling their tracks with luminous, looped melody and chopped, euphoric vocals.

Perhaps the most well-known example of this hugely vibrant hybrid sound is Joy Orbison’s summer anthem ‘Hyph Mngo’. Rightly caned by everyone, from more underground concerns like Scuba and Untold to big-hitters Sacha and Zane Lowe, Joy’s is the name on everyone’s lips as we move into 2010. He’s even made it onto the BBC’s Sound of 2010 list of ‘ones to watch’. Yet, as with all the producers who’ve come from this scene, there’s nary a hint of pretension – just like Skream, Benga and Joker, he’s as happy playing to the big-room crowd as to packed, sweaty basements. It’s the music’s legacy, and it remains at its most comfortable where the ceilings are low, the speaker stacks are huge and the bass is all-encompassing.

Even as artists like Orbison herald its rise in wider consciousness in 2010, dubstep – or whatever you want to call it at this point – will retain its insatiable sense of FWD propulsion. What I’ve mentioned here is but the tip of the iceberg that 2009 proved itself to be. The future’s bright.