AM001

“It's always been about the underground, the industry take our music, water it down & fed it to the
masses. Too many young ones get caught up in the bright lights”
Taken from Last.FM. "I work in a (commercial) record store, and everytime I see new CD's coming
in. And when Korn turns into POP-Korn*, Nelly Furtado trades her musical identity and the beautiful
original (sad) use of her voice and still make happy songs to make some sort of pussycatdoll-music,
and when Richard Ashcroft makes a Robbie Williams-pop CD when The Verve had so much
potential, then I ask myself... is commercialism killing music?"
Solution? Whether it is society, commercialisation or DJs and producers, something needs to be
done. There are already radio shows which promote new music, and dozens of various events.. but
they are all aiming at specific people who make an effort to listen to the new music. We need to be
thinking on a much broader scale and let the world realise that music is more than their labels. We
need to work together, intervene and just really grab people's attention. There will always be a
trend, unfortunately, but I think somewhere along the lines people have got stuck into these same
ideas and don't appreciate music as a genuine heartfelt piece of art.
"The reason it is not underground anymore goes way deeper, it's because people just follow fashion
these days, not much is underground these days! As mainstream music goes downhill in general,
youth are not used to quality underground sounds. Everything is too easy these days, people used
to spend all day in record shops, now they want 5 million tunes on their iPod in 5 mins without any
effort made, that's why the underground has gone. Nowadays people don't even wanna pay £2 quid
for a tune. I play old and new and my only stipulation is that it is GOOD. 100% just good music, not
just cos it's new or cos it's old. Old skool will never die no matter how much the new skool wishes it
would. It's only the djs and producers that can move it forward." DJ Emma Champion.
"It's Particularly hard as artists who enjoy experimenting with different sounds, as everyone wants
to label u" Soneni and The soul.
"I think lack of decent production killed the scene off. House (especially Deep House) is killing it at
the minute because it is excellent quality club music. A LOT of new garage being made is not even
worthy of radio play let alone clubs. There is a couple of producers who are producing quality music
but you can't build back a scene with 1 or 2 producers!! Make club bangers and get it back into the
clubs." DJ Smiffy P.
"People these days that use to be into UK garage think it is dead or do not wish to listen to any new
stuff or give it a chance because they cannot move on from the bad associations it once had. The
sound has changed a lot over the last 5 years or more and it is slowly becoming the sound it once
was. Not everything is going to be liked by everyone but that would have still been the case nearly
20 years when it first began but because people hear a couple of tracks on an album they believe
that it is the only sound of UK garage around and just dismiss it. I find it hard to believe that it is
completely dead when I’m constantly hearing it on pirates and podcasts still. What makes me really
laugh is that for example Sunship remixes a track, Kiss fm playlist it and then people really love it but
have no real idea what genre it is." Rascal Soundzone.
"Old skool garage all the way can't be beat. Have to keep a close eye on my cds. I'm just a
garage fan big on my old skool" Toni.