Some say dubstep sounds like a recording of a broken fax machine. Others say, “Shut up, I’m enjoying myself over here.”
Dubstep and electronic dance music: Are they the relentless, fad-chasing soundtrack to a thousand bad frat parties or a constantly evolving, endlessly enjoyable genre that doesn’t get the respect it deserves?
Con: Turn that racket down
From the moment it started to get popular, I knew I would never get into electronic dance music or dubstep.
I guess I understand it, though. Popular DJs such as Skrillex, Avicii, Steve Aoki and Porter Robinson must be doing something right to reach the levels of popularity they’ve attained. They have the ability to attract and control massive numbers of people with their music, which is a quality a lot of artists strive to possess. But what bothers me most about dubstep is the culture.
Last weekend, I attended Virgin Mobile FreeFest, where I overheard two teenage boys decked out in glowsticks and neon sunglasses talking behind me during M83’s lukewarm set. They were discussing the literal minutes left until they could see Skrillex. After M83 finished, I attempted to exit the area, only to be almost trampled by hoards of underage Skrillex fans. In all the years I’ve attended concerts and festivals, this was the most aggressive I’ve ever seen a crowd — and all for a bunch of “womp womps” and bass drops.
It seems to me this culture has grown so ubiquitous solely because it’s fun. Teenagers and college students like EDM and dubstep because they can get drunk and dress up in weird furry boots and animal hats and wave lights around. The music lacks any depth or meaning, and fans accept that because it’s just another excuse to party. Liking something because it’s fun is fine, but it’s the most unauthentic excuse ever for being interested in a genre of music.
There’s also just something jarring about the music itself. Rather than settling into any sort of pattern, theme or predictable sequence of sounds that would lend itself to a comforting familiarity, EDM and dubstep take chunks of redundant beats and filter through them with no warning other than ear-splitting transitional record-scratching, beeping and whirring. In fact, the only consistent thing about music of this genre is the ever-imminent bass drop, constantly hanging over your head as you listen. And to this end, the bass drop is so predictable that it’s not very thrilling. In a discussion after FreeFest, my friend described EDM as a symptom of an ADD generation, and I’d have to agree.
But, my fellow youth, is this really how we want to represent ourselves? As a collection of rowdy, party-hungry teens without even the attention span to hear more than 20 seconds of the same sound? It is certainly not how I would like to be remembered by future generations.
EDM and dubstep can certainly be fun to some, and in the right setting (such as a club) acceptable listening material for those who want to have a good time. But as a genre of music to idolize, learn from or draw meaning from, it holds no weight. I’m all about pushing boundaries in music, challenging norms and trying new things, but dubstep and EDM do not do that. Instead, musicians of these genres feed the masses following a pretty standardized recipe. After all, there’s only so much you can do when your only goal is to start a party.
—Kelsey Hughes and Emily Thompson
Pro: Stop hating and just dance
The bass hits. A thousand fiendishly-tossed glow sticks rain down on you from above while a subphonic wobble ruptures you from below, a sound so loud you can feel its grip tightening around your esophagus. There’s a short reprieve, the faintest hint of an airy melody, and then it starts all over again.
This is a microcosm of life at the center of a dubstep concert. For some, the mix of pain and pleasure is an exhilarating ride, and for others, nothing could be closer to the icy wind of hell’s ninth circle.
Like it or not, you are still listening to music, and music is art. Yet despite dubstep’s God-given right to be explored and studied, it often gets the short end of the critical stick because of people’s social hang-ups.
Somewhere along the line, dubstep got saddled with an unshakable reputation as an annoying fad: It all sounds the same, and everyone making it is just trying to cash in on a bunch of uncultured listeners. People love to talk about how only the hardcore candy kids love dubstep and how the college crowd mostly just deals with dubstep because that’s what the DJs are playing, neither of which are ringing endorsements of quality. On top of that, good and bad dubstep is continually and universally frowned upon by pretentious trend-watchers and their captive blog-scanning audiences.
Plenty of music in the genre is truly terrible (although so is a lot of folk, punk and hip-hop) but there is a lot of emotionally powerful and intellectual dubstep people choose to overlook in favor of genre bashing.
Most dubstep is dark in nature, such as Burial’s rich 2007 sophomore release Untrue or Sepalcure’s haunting self-titled 2011 album. (Check out “See Me Feel Me” from the latter album.) But let’s not sell the genre short — dubstep can do many things. Listen, for instance, to the infectious “Ultra Thizz” off Rustie’s sugar-coated Saturday-morning cartoon-style riot Glass Swords, or enjoy a recording of one of EOTO’s live dubstep-improv shows (played on real instruments, no less).
With each act, dubstep’s horizons get a little broader. Dissenters like to pretend dubstep starts and ends with the stereotypical grimy wobble that has been played to death by producers such as Datsik and Excision and, worst of all, taken to bland pop extremes by acts such as Flux Pavilion and Rusko.
These kinds of producers, however, aren’t making music for headphones, and likewise, many of them don’t even put out full albums. It’s not about the songwriting, if you want to call it that. These guys are all about the live show. Their music is an experience more than just a sound, something you feel and share under the lighted stage.
Despite what critics might say, this doesn’t devalue dubstep on the whole. It’s a musician’s lifestyle choice and one dissenters often nag on, as if the idea of an “album” isn’t just as abstract of a human construction as the idea of attending a live show.
You can argue people only like live dubstep because they take drugs when they go (a vast generalization, at best), but 1960s psychadelic rock had the same rap, and look how revered it is today (classical composers, by the way, wrote strictly for the live environment).
It always happens this way — big band crooners made room for rock and 1960s folk rock; disco made room for punk; 1980s synth-pop made room for grunge; alternative rock made room for hip-hop. And now?
To classical purists – hell, classic-rock purists, or an indie rock auteur or any skeptics — dubstep and other modern electronic music is a sideshow for the brats, the musical equivalent of listening to a record of protracted dial-up tones.
But one day those kids will likely be electronic music purists, and the screeching sound of their children’s violins will send them running for the hills.
It’s OK not to like dubstep. That’s your opinion — by no means is it my favorite genre. However, to put down an entire genre, its followers and its most talented artists based on an uneducated judgment of the music or its community is nothing short of musical bigotry.
Give beats a chance — drop the bass.
—Zachary Berman
diversions@gmail.com
