Back To The Future

By Joe Kavanagh

Depending on whom you ask, the echo of pumping club music can resemble either a pulsatingly primal call to the dance floor, or the grating sound of a fax machine that has run out of control and is attempting to trash the office. Perhaps no other genre of music elicits such wildly disparate opinions when it comes to assessment, with neither side even capable of seeing the other's point of view. To its - typically - young adherents, dance music offers an experience of an almost sexual nature, a sense that led directly to the creation of the drug, Ecstasy, which was essentially the brainchild of club music diehards armed with a knowledge in garden variety chemistry. Most people, however, were more than content when club music passed from the halcyon days of the late 90s into the state of near dormancy that it has found itself in for the past decade or so. Buckling under the weight of false expectations and a rash of unimaginative albums and artists that wrecked its credibility, club music's precipitous decline could be seen by its increasing paucity in music charts and in the closure of so many so-called "super-clubs" such as Liverpool's Cream and Manhattan's Twilo. "Guitar music is the new dance music" screamed the self-appointed guardians of "cool", and so people reconnected with live music in a way not seen since the late-70s. Dance music was dead. Temporarily. Like disco before it, the club music that dominated the 90s, had become too bloated and formulaic, happy to go through the motions even as it inspired its own demise.

After a few years, and a few listens back to music that appeared increasingly dated, it almost seemed like the explosion had never happened at all, and its disappearance made fools of those in the media who had predicted that electronic music was not only the music of the present, but the dominant music of the foreseeable future. Like disco beforehand, it was driven back from the underground from whence it came and even vanished as a category in most music award shows. And there it remained, slowly regaining its street credibility under the caring ears of deejays and producers who attempted to mould it into new incarnations capable of packing dance floors. It had lost the mainstream punters whose patronage had inevitably led it into becoming music of the lowest common denominator and was now free to grow without any care for commerciality. It is not an exaggeration to say that the most creative music is often made by those artists that never have to worry about "profit margins" or "core audiences". In other words: if nobody is buying your records anyway, then you can do whatever the hell you like. Thanks to this passionate, devoted and inventive cabal of enthusiasts, dance music is now ready to make its return to the mainstream, aided and abetted by the type of nostalgia that compels each subculture to nod to the past even as it looks to the future.

There is one subtle yet very important difference becoming increasingly apparent this time around and that is the fact that the line between electronic/dance music and rock music has become blurred to the point where it really no longer exists in any meaningful way. In the past, electronic music was readily identifiable from it's instrument-driven counterparts. One could never accuse the Art Of Noise or Kraftwork of being rock n' roll bands irrespective of how broad you want to make that definition. Most would agree that the first substantial European crossover between club music and rock music came with the emergence of the New Order-driven "Madchester" scene, when a groundswell of musicians realised the potency of combining gritty chords and jumping beats. Even still, these bands remained with their feet planted firmly in the rock band camp. In the mid-90s, bands like Prodigy, Underworld, Fluke and Crystal Method rose to huge prominence because they successfully merged both factions into a musical recipe that they rode to prominence in charts throughout the globe, even if pundits and punters still stubbornly insisted on referring to them as "dance acts". Critics and hipsters alike confidently forecasted that the next generation of bands would take their cue from such seminal influences, leading to a perfect assimilation of the two. But it never panned out. Not even close. If recent trends can be seen as the beginning of a pattern, then it now appears likely that those critics were right after all; just a decade too early in their predictions.

As this year draws to a close, beat-driven outfits such as Goldielocks, New Young Pony Club and Pendulum are already being touted as the acts most likely to breakthrough in 2008. All are card carrying members of the club scene whose aim is to make music that makes people dance, with beats and basslines given as much, if not more, import than any lyrics or melodies.

It's all about the dynamics, the energy and the fun. Next year may be the Year of the Rat but I'll bet that if you look very closely, you'll probably find that this particular rodent has a glow-stick stashed somewhere on its person.