Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Two music idiots ask: "What the hell is dubstep anyway?"

"Dubtep is robot dinosaurs fighting with lasers," random guy at Burning Man.

Music is a big part of Burning Man. For reasons unknown to me, the vast majority of the offerings are various sorts of electronica. The meager live music offerings are dwarfed by large theme camps offering dj music. It's important to note that the Burning Man organization does not bring, host or promote any of the artists. It's all done by theme camps interesting in hosting a huge free dance party in the dessert.
For the first time, I was camped with a electronic music expert who alerted us electronic idiots on when the world famous artists will be spinning the latest dubstep.
Dubstep expert
As we came to learn, dubstep is all the rage. (If you aren't already, you should be playing the clip above). Following our music expert's instructions I listened to several artists people pay good money to hear including bassnector and Opiuo. That often meant lasting until 3 a.m. But while I knew they were spinning dubstep, I didn't have the foggiest idea what defined dubstep.
As we sat in the queue to leave Black Rock City after a week of excess, (exodus the bane of Burning Man) Princess Fussy Pants asked me, "What is dubstep anyway?"
"A series of beep and twerps," I replied, to a laugh. But what is dubstep really?
Given the fact that we had hours of mind sapping traffic to clear, we decided to ask our fellow automotiveinmates. Below is a list of responses from other waiting to leave the incredibility enjoyable and exhausting festival. Some went for humor, some aficionados gave us a clear thoughtful response.
  • "Dubstep is robot dinosaurs fighting with lasers." 
  • "You know when your in the jacuzzi and you put your head under water by the jet? That is dubstep."
  • "Pitch driven base line -- kind of a wobble. Beeps and twerps are more electro house."
  • "It's all about the whoop. Baseline of whoop, more dynamic that house or techno. Wah, wah, wah, wah."
  • "drug music."
  • "Don't know -- I'm not a fan."
  • This one super knowledgeable, not so articulate fan said it has something to do with a "double oscillating base" related to reggae and two step -- hence the name. 
  • "It's doing a hit of nitrous by the speakers."
  • "70 beats per minute sounds like doom ... do dat -- doom doom do dat."
If that doesn't want to make you run out to shill out $100 to see bassnector spin I don't know what will. Please share your impressions of Dubstep or call me a idiot below.


5 comments:

  1. Behold, I am about to drop some knowledge (or confusion) upon you: Opiuo is NOT considered DubStep; he would fall into the "GlitchHop" category - not to be confused with "TripHop", that's a whole separate thing. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Annoymous you just blew my mind. That to add to it Chris Macias tells me moombahton is all the rage now.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lucky for all of us 'music idiots' he [Dave Nada - inventor of moombahton] breaks it down for us:

    "I JUST INVENTED A GENRE

    iT'S LIKE NORMAL SLIDE-WHISTLE SONGS EXCEPT

    ALL TRACKS 78.9 BPM OF PITCHED DOWN SLIDE-WHISTLES WITH 222 BPM BREAKDOWNS

    INTROS MUST BE ONE MINUTE LONG AND ONLY CHOPPED SAMPLES OF GABBER KICKS

    SONGS ARE ABOUT FROGS, SPIDERS, AND CATS OR SOUND SAMPLES OF FROGS, SPIDERS, CATS, AND SLIDE-WHISTLES

    PERFORM IN CLOWN WIG; LABEL ALL SONGS RACIAL SLURS

    END EVERY TRACK WITH NOISE FILTER SWEEP

    GENRE IS CALLED RICKROLLATON AND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SLIDE-WHISTLE BASED GENRES"

    ReplyDelete
  4. It begs the question: if a track is 78.9 BPM of pitch down slide-whistles with 222 BPM breakdowns and the intro is one minute long and only chopped samples of gabber kicks, but they are NOT about Frogs, Spiders, Cats or sound samples of Frogs, Spiders, Cats, is it still considered moombahton?

    ReplyDelete
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    ReplyDelete