Originally posted by KickIT
I don't know about you guys, but I'd love for some Big Beat to come back. Maybe mix it up with some nu-skool and funky, but the original Brighton Big Beat sound was where it was at.
*c*
I couldn't agree more - at the same time though, the big bouncy sound that was championed by cut la roc, monkey mafia, wiseguys, fatboy et al. was a little TOO much for some people...at some point i think that the rise of darkness in nu-skool breaks is a direct response to the sugary sweetness of big beat.
I read an interview with freddy fresh on breaksworld, which was run rougly five months after mixmag ran the article "big beat is dead," in which they said that the 'movement' had met its demise and was now called "smash house." The interview basically explained that, in Freddy's opinion, not only was the idea of declaring a style dead completely idiotic, but also that any shows he had played since big beat's apparent funeral had gone over amazingly...and so you have a bit of a mystery...how is it that promotors and distributors push a sound and then change directions for no apparent reason?
i think that the easiest answer is that big beat never existed....not as a sound anyway, and those who did declare themselves "big beat" producers or dj's is a loose sense have had anything but mundane careers since, and the people im thinking of are krafty kuts, soul of man and the FLR guys, Fatboy Slim, and even Cut La Roc, whose single freeze was played out like crazy by sasha and bedrock.
eclectic mentality and track selection HAS survived, and generally the people who always impress me most are the ones who incoporate many genres into their sets, and arn't afraid to reach back a year or two to play the tracks that are worth hearing. New promos and the newest tracks are great, but im at a loss trying to figure out how any dj can claim to have an individual style when all they do is play out the latest three months releases from a certain genre, be it funky, nu-skool, progressive, or whatever the hell labels and distributors want to name the current crop of music. Genres will rise and fall, but it should be because of the feeling of the dancefloor, not the magazines and the people who print up obituaries for nametags.
big ups to beaker and jelo, two local-ish guys who come to mind when it comes to fusing styles.
when i played at TemperTantrum's tribe board new years party, i seem to remember a non-breaks DJ grabbing 3 tracks i knew i was gonna drop.....which made me pretty damn happy.
