Dirk van den Heuvel/Groove Dis (dirkv@groovedis.com)
Fri, 03 Dec 1999 00:59:56 -0600
This is getting frustrating...I never said what you seem to be implying I
said (I'm not bitching at you about it, it's just not what I said). I never
said that non-US artists dominated SOUNDTRACK work. I never said there
weren't good American acts doing trip hop, jungle, etc.
What I DID say (to recap--and then shut up) is:
1. downtempo music gets used a lot in movies, but for TV commercials and
ads big beat and drum & bass are used much more (check how many cable
stations have drum & bass sound beds under their promos)
2. many big dance acts break through and have(massive) success, but many
similar acts toil away in (undeserved) obscurity--i.e. they don't seem to
opening many doors
3. of the big (or biggest) acts in trip-hop, jungle and big beat (note I
never said techno) they are primarily from the UK while in rap, turntablism
and r&B the US dominates
That's it. These three points are not necessarily linked.
For the record- I love Hive, DJ Wally and the like. I've been selling and
championing those kinds of records --and their records specifically-- (as
a radio and clubdeejay, as a writer--anybody remember the acid jazz column
I shared in Underground News, and a buyer for Cargo) for over ten years.
That doesn't mean I have to think DJ Wally's records are as good as
Portishead's Dummy or that Dragonfly have ever written a song as good as
"Protection". Period.
Anybody left who wants to argue with me can take it to private email and
leave the rest of the group in peace.
On a more positive note, I was just listening to the first Blackanized CD
in the car tonite..I had forgotten how good it is. They can't sustain the
level of quality through the whole album--sometimes they can't even sustain
it for the length of a song (a lot of cool snippets that sound like the
"beginnings" of cool songs). But for creativity and such, it rocks. I esp
like the Battlestar Galactica sampling track-let (mini-track?, half
track?). It's a mix of funky trip/hip-hop beats with cool samples (like a
more mellow Depth Charge) and socio-political, race awareness UK rap. In
the vein of much of the stuff on Scenario, Grand Central, etc.
At 12/2/99 07:59 PM , Moonlight wrote:
>Dirk, i think i finally see what you're saying.
>
>Just thought of one great US act that's had tons of soundtrack work:
>Moby. Some more techno, others more ambient.
>
>American (or is he Canadian?) Robbie Robertson has had some songs that are
>up there with Massive Attack, and has done soundtracks for "The Native
>Americans" and "Forces of Nature" (though he merely assembled FoN, and
>isn't on it anywhere, and it was more europeans like Faithless,
>Propellerheads, U2, Tricky (who's now almost as American as Madonna is
>British))
>
>Folk Implosion had some trip-hoppy songs on the Kids OST ("Natural One",
>"Wet Stuff"), wait, now that i'm listening to it, this is much more indie.
>
>But generally, i think you're right. I think it may be that UK and other
>european acts are more established, so for big-buget flicks, the copany may
>say "get those big-name brit techno guys." And back to the fact that these
>musics aren't so big here, smaller pool of established artists to draw
>from,e tc...
>
>But, is Craig Armstrong American? He's done more soundtrack work than
>anyone i know.
>
>_________________________________
>Adam Roesch / roesch@augsburg.edu
>Augsburg College / Minneapolis / MN / USA
>
>http://dogbert.augsburg.edu/~roesch/pork/
>My Fila Brazillia/Pork Recordings fan site (Updated 16/11/99)
>
>http://dogbert.augsburg.edu/~roesch/nt/ My Nobukazu Takemura Discog
>
>"And me? I got a bug to squash." B. Adamson
>
--Dirk van den Heuvel-- (dirkv@groovedis.com)
President/General Manager
Groove Distribution LLC (www.groovedis.com)
Your guide to the underground
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