Why do people like dubstep?

[RJ Dalton]

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/45vj/

That's all I've got to say about the subject.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

Charlie Brooker (yes I'm quoting him again, because he's right about everything ever), said in a piece about nightclubs, and that's where this music is suited, that yes, it's enjoyable on drugs, but neck enough ketamine and you'd have the best night of your life, alone, flicking old corks across the floor of a shed.

I'll sound like an old man here, but if you go back to disco, that genre was also basically created to induce rhythmical body movements like dancing, yet, somehow it had an upbeat, good time feel to it. Most 'club' music nowadays seems to be all about rhythmic basslines and nothing about heart and soul.

Oh and sampling a 70's track and putting the vocals thru a chipmunk vocaliser doesn't count.

This is even more hypocritical because I love a lot of electronica, I just don't 'get' club music.

The other point Brooker made about nightclubs is no-one really likes them, it's just that everyone thinks everyone else expects you to, it's a massive conspiracy designed to induce friday night misery on those who don't have any drugs. Also, if you go to nightclubs to get laid, you by default, for the good of the human race, shouldn't be allowed to procreate.

Spend your WKD and drug money on a hooker instead, and lessen the misery for all involved.

I'm not slamming an entire genre of music, I'm slamming most of what's played in nightclub, I'd suggest that if it's not getting played in nightclubs, that by default makes it quite good, and that if you need to chemically alter your very mind to enjoy something, it's not 'good'.

However, I will leave myself open, I didn't think I could like dance music until I discovered Orbital, or rap til Cypress Hill, country til Johnny Cash, I'm sure there's someone out there in dubstep I could get on with. Hell, Fallout 3 opened my mind to pre 60's music

 

[lovest harding]

The same way everything else becomes popular: Lots of people like it.
Seriously. It's that simple.

It amazes me how people still can't recognize that their opinion is just one opinion among billions.

 

[kittii-chan 300]

The music sucks and it will go away very soon. Hate this kind of crap with a passion and its not music. Everybody knows that this crap is just club music. Go out and dance to this garbage while getting very drunk. You go home with some random person and and hate yourself in the morning. Very much like to think this stuff plays in hell when you first enter.

I stopped reading at "it's not music", as that phrase is pretty much only uttered by morons.

People listen to it because they like it. You might not like it, but they do.

but it isnt actualy 'music'. it is an assortment of special computerized effects and electric beats. my personal definition of music is: an assortment of notes played by instruments. maybe if all the effects were done by guitars with chaos pedals or something it would be deemed as music by me but it is a digitally created sound.

OT: some of it is ok at a stretch. but most dubstep i have heard is just the title repeated over and over again in different pitched distorted voices with the electric effects going on in the background. all of the ones i have seen on youtube have the same video too. a circle with "UKF" or something that spins around sometimes.

I dont think many of the people that listen to it actually like it much. i have never seen someone actually listen to a full dubstep song without switching too another one every minute.

on the brighter side of these dubstep videos: no justin beiber comments!

PS: it's not nice to call other people morons T_T

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I dunno music like that gives me a headache and soon enough makes me aggressive, probably because it really annoys me and reminds of dickheads who drive around blasting music out of their cars.

I think that's part of my problem, even if it isn't that genre, it's got those connotations of becapped fucknuggets who kit out a £500 car with £5,000 worth of speakers purely to piss off anyone in range of a mile of them with their bass bins.

Heavy bass just seems to attract them, which is why I want to invest in a large bass speaker at the bottom of a local cliff.

Again, dubstep might be fine, I just can't help but connect it with chavvy twats in shitty cars making life worse for anyone in audible range.

Reminds me of an old line I used to use often, tho it won't apply to US escapists as, having baseball, you have a reason for the caps. Over in the UK, it's just a sign to keep a firm grip on your wallet or ipod.

"Baseball caps are like pubic hair, you can remove it, but there's still going to be a c*** underneath"

 

[Zombie_Fish]

You got a source for this? I assume it's a doctoral thesis you're writing or something, intending to suggest a new origin for jazz than -all- scholarly literature to date? Really, source this or sit down, because it's the most ridiculous claim I've ever heard.

How about it being taught on the A Level Music Technology syllabus? Whilst I'm willing to accept that its definitive origins weren't there, it's known that Jazz was played by bands in red light districts before the success of big band music.

 

[mellemhund]

its purposeless noise, can't even dance to it, waste of time.

music should either evoke emotion (see anger,happiness,sadness, melancholy, peace) or be in conjunction with an activity (see swing music, most videogame songs, and the massively wide genre known as "dance")

step achieves none of these criteria, whilst also ruining the various songs it comes across (im talking to you whoever posted that butchered version of still alive.

It'l go away in due time, its gained very little traction, and whilst some elements may survive by being integrated into other genres such as house and techno(which has already happened to a certain extent), the movement itself will die down.

Well by your definition it's music to me, as it both stirs emotions and I can dance to it. So take your subjectivity to the long term parking.

 

[Crazycat690]

possible artistic merits of an entire genre of music

What "artistic merits" could dubstep really have? "Entire genre of music"? Dubstep is to music what throwing random paint at a piece of paper is to art. Sure it's subjective, but some things still have a greater artistic value than other things, if I put a bowl of shit on a table and claim it is art, you would probably disagree right? I didn't put alot of effort into it, well depends on if I'm having a good day or not but that's besides the point... I could use the same arguements as the pro-dubstep-likers, "it's new art so old people can't understand!" or "who are you to judge art?". But fact remains, it's still just a bowl of shit, objectively it wouldn't be nearly as amazing as the Mona Lisa as an example, sure I can call it art all I want but it still smell and look like shit, and anyone who likes it is obviously hipsters full of shit. There you have it.

Ok ok so perhaps I'm overthinking it, sure it has the right to exist. Although the reason why I personally dislike it is because they cram it into places it don't belong, like trailers for games like AC and Uncharted. It's overrated, and like all overrated things media throws it at us until we get sick of it.

Also, I wouldn't call it music, the same way I don't call trailers movies.

 

[Shia-Neko-Chan]

It's not like dubstep sucks as a band, they're generally okay. But I feel like they need a new sound guy. He only likes doing the same thing every song. :/

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I'd have to take issue with 'it's not music without an instrument, if it's created electronically', however, as almost all music nowadays is fed thru filters to create smoother, cleaner sound.

That's on a par with the outrage at Bob Dylan going electric

Never thought I'd be defending it in part, heh.

But then I do enjoy a lot of electronica, and all that would be 'not music' if a drum machine doesn't count as drums and a voice sample is less than a vocalist. Phil Hartnoll, half of Orbital, is currently creating a blend of classical/electronica, but surely it can't be dismissed because he's using samples of violins?

In case you think anything techno is artless balls:


(and I realise that may not sway you, especially being so slow to start, 30 seconds or so of just 'ticking' really).

Could be as simple as that 'rule' I forget the name of:

99% of everything is shit.

I'm a die hard metal fan, and I KNOW most metal is shit. Looking across to jazz, country, techno, pop, world music, 99% shit. The good stuff stands out and stays with us however. I will pop back to this thread and try out some of the suggestions and see if I can 'connect' with some dubstep, as I admit to being fairly ignorant of the genre.

 

[unoleian]

*snip*

Oh, look at that. A lot of people have never heard of subjectivity and have subsequently taken it upon themselves to make ill-fated attempts at dismissing the possible artistic merits of an entire genre of music by using various objective standards selectively derived from their own personal tastes and perceptions - even going so far as to make ridiculous negative generalisations about it's listeners or their tastes

Come on, guys. Really? Really?

Jesus did you even read my post, or the three others after it, where I was rather posting IN DEFENSE of dubstep as music?! Don't drag me into this, I enjoy the music, good sir, I merely started my post with a rather topical and personally opinionated thrashing of Skrillex, not an attack on dubstep. Perhpaps you missed that.

And this--

Good things do happen with dubstep's sound, when you take it and try to grow it beyond a bass-line and a massive drop-- Very good things.

Spoiler: I'll just leave these here

I'm all for doing away with trash that amateurs throw together in Ableton in 15 minutes and call music, but anyone who vehemently states dubstep can't make music at all is in denial or just plain ignorant.

I know a few of these tracks push genre lines pretty hard, perhaps even break them, but dubstep's influence on the above ranges from outright explicit to hovering around just in the background. And, personally, as a lover of a wide range of music, I think this is good shit. But maybe that's just me.

-----


Jesus, I was hoping for a positive reply to my attempts to show some appreciation for this music, not for someone to add me to the list of verbal slaughter because they couldn't even read farther than three fucking sentences.

 

[AlphaEcho]

People like things you don't and you should live with it?

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A-aYZl7JhU
this is why

Aye, I personally don't like Skrillex very much, but if his bass gives me them bumps and sends shivers down my spine, I can even ignore the crap non-wub-wub bits of noise.

 

[dududf]

I like some dubstep, because it helps keep my apm up.

 

[Ed Wain]

I'm not a huge fan of dubstep, but there are a few tracks I enjoy, and my personal theory on why it's popular comes down to the mathematics of the bars and where the notes are placed to induce surprise in the listener.

The idea is that you get a sixteenth note slightly earlier or slightly later than expected, and it creates a sense of pleasure in some people. If it doesn't get you off, that's fine, but you don't really have the right to claim that "it's not music" just because you can't hear what makes it enjoyable.

 

[Ghostkai]

Why do people like <insert OP's favourite music type>?

I have no idea... Perhaps it's down to people having different tastes.

 

[Alssadar]

It's basically a club beat, with extensions on the bass so it's all just a dance/rave tune.
But it can go nowhere beyond the club beat, as all dub step is is whub-whub-whub-whub.

It can fit rather nice with any time of dance (except ballroom), as well as non-dances, like flicking your wrist.

 

[Sniperyeti]

Well I dunno about you guys but I like it when it goes WUBWUBWUBWUBWUBWUBDARRRRRRRDUNNNNNNWUBWUBWUWBUWBUWB

 

[bwaremypower]

Because it sounds awesome when you have robot ears.

 

[ScoobyDizzle]

dubstep now is too much womp womp wub wub, its a decent genre but like all ya just gotta know where to look, try Digital Mystikz or Skream for dubstep which actually has a vibe to it.