Justice - † Pretentious symbol = french dance?

I refuse to download this until I can hear this on a proper CD-quality recording with decent bass and treble.

hey wait a second ... this is GREAT

A++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I really like the Justice album, although I'm sure if I heard this stuff in a club I would leave.

i've listened to this more than i did discovery at the time. best of discovery better than the best of this tho (obv?). the uffie one is really annoying me tho.

having lived with this for a while now i really love it

(except the uffie track, obv)

i've listened to this more than i did discovery at the time. best of discovery better than the best of this tho (obv?). the uffie one is really annoying me tho.

-- Alan, Friday, May 25, 2007 3:02 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

whoa wtf

nope, this is still total shit

hey the lex d.a.n.c.e. is pretty good

i've heard it, i hate it

why?

have only heard "d.a.n.c.e."

I can't stand Justice because of the people I know that like them. I know this is not logical or right.

Though I guess I don't like the music of theirs that I've heard either.

i felt the same way until i saw that video of them playing in ... chicago? where they're under the green light? wearing leather jackets? and bobbing in slow-motion to "waters of nazareth"? that was just impossibly cool, and helped me realize that justice really is REAL DANCE.

you know i'm not actually that keen on waters of nazareth myself.

btw, i should have said up the way, that i tended to skip about on Discovery a lot - i liked some tracks a LOT and the rest, it all as an album, i wasn't actually that gonzo for. i've been playing this through start to end a lot (well in the form i have it anyway).

I'm trying to decide if I'd like Justice if I was 18.

I probably wouldn't like myself. More!

When I said indie I didn't mean indie really I suppose. I hate using genres to describe what I like and I was too lazy to name some artists but I'll rectify that now. Spiritualized, Mogwai, Ryan Adams, Whiskeytown, Dan the Automator, The Chemical Brothers, Will Oldham, Nick Drake, Primal Scream, Doves, Super Furry Animals, Spacemen 3, Simian, Slint, Tortoise, Public Enemy, Autechre, Jon Carter, Leftfield, Orbital, Miles Davis, I could go on all day. I'm not part of the indie scene at all really I suppose. Yes I may be a freak for having music as my sole interest but in a social sense other people who really like music are off the fucking wall, cut themselves, or whatever they do. Also these people tend to like shite music so perhaps my problem is that noone likes the bands I like either. The hell I have putting on a cd when I have mates around. It could be to do with me being 18, who knows. yes the message board may just help, I'm not quite suicidal yet

-- Ronan Fitzgerald, Tuesday, August 21, 2001 12:00 AM (5 years ago) Bookmark Link

A typical indie kid vicar? Find me some fucking typical indie kids who like alternative country and I'll make you very rich. It said Ryan Adams not Bryan Adams, theres a difference. I see you live in Ireland too, have you any idea how fucking difficult it is to even buy a Whiskeytown cd here? I had to spend 30 quid on one fucking Will Oldham CD, and I've paid that for Spacemen 3 stuff aswell, its certainly worth it but christ if thats what everyone else is doing then I must be living under a rock or something, I don't care about liking weird stuff for the sake of it being weird, I just want to find some people who like the same stuff that I get on with, given the points I made about the bands above its pretty unlikely without the internet.

-- Ronan Fitzgerald, Tuesday, August 21, 2001 12:00 AM (5 years ago) Bookmark Link

careful!

i just like 'theres a difference'

Spiritualized, Mogwai, Ryan Adams, Whiskeytown, Dan the Automator, The Chemical Brothers, Will Oldham, Nick Drake, Primal Scream, Doves, Super Furry Animals, Spacemen 3, Simian, Slint, Tortoise, Public Enemy, Autechre, Jon Carter, Leftfield, Orbital, Miles Davis

hmmm ... poll idea germinating ...

poll [ends 5-27]

o Bryan Adams
o Ryan Adams
o theres a difference?

ronan invoked himself at 18, sure, but still feels a little wrong to dig up history like that. especially with the search function so crippled.

the chemical brothers have a new a big beat song featuring the klaxons out.

i found a good one from ethan about "blip-hop" but i didn't feel like digging up an equally lame one from myself to preemptively cover my ass

i defend the blip hop thread

i was gonna start a noize thread about the funkstorung remixes comp but yknow who gives a fuck

the remix w/ rza on it is sorta key

CD 1:

1) roger clinton - do the bartman
2) marcy playground ft barrington levy - bonnie & shyne
3) rammstein - all my life
4) gravediggaz ft everclear - the rockafeller skank
5) jay-z ft thom yorke - everybody wear sunscreen
6) goo goo dolls - get at me dog
7) eagle eye cherry feat. vita and amil - block rockin beats
8) cibo matto ft juvenile - man, i feel like a woman!
9) faith hill ft george michael - put it on me
10) ben folds five - ny state of mind
11) vitamin c - we bout it bout it
12) garbage ft b'witched - woo hah got you all in check
13) xzibit - god mustve spent a little more time on you
14) cher ft big tymers - believe
15) green day - cmon ride it (the train)
16) meredith brooks - nuthin but a g thang

CD 2:

1) bone thugs n harmony - wonderwall
2) fiona apple ft bryan adams - gonna make you sweat
3) citizen king - make em say ungh
4) jamiraquoi - we be thuggin
5) three doors down - money, power, respect
6) jill sobule ft eve - i kissed a girl
7) crystal method ft lauryn hill - how bizarre
8) santana ft rob thomas - no scrubs
9) flipmode squad ft dru hill - barbie girl
10) jewel ft dj qbert - blue (da be dee)
11) canibus - my heart will go on
12) natalie imbruglia - mind playin tricks on me
13) technotronic - nookie
14) lord tariq & peter gunz - goodbye earl
15) soul coughing ft poe - tha crossroads
16) freak nasty - candle in the wind 97

-- $$, Sunday, February 8, 2004 6:55 AM (3 years ago) Bookmark Link

1) roger clinton - do the bartman (funkstorung remix)
2) marcy playground ft barrington levy - bonnie & shyne (funkstorung remix)
3) rammstein - all my life (funkstorung remix)
4) gravediggaz ft everclear - the rockafeller skank (funkstorung remix)
5) jay-z ft thom yorke - everybody wear sunscreen (funkstorung remix)
6) goo goo dolls - get at me dog (funkstorung remix)
7) eagle eye cherry feat. vita and amil - block rockin beats (funkstorung remix)
8) cibo matto ft juvenile - man, i feel like a woman! (funkstorung remix)
9) faith hill ft george michael - put it on me (funkstorung remix)
10) ben folds five - ny state of mind (funkstorung remix)
11) vitamin c - we bout it bout it (funkstorung remix)
12) garbage ft b'witched - woo hah got you all in check (funkstorung remix)
13) xzibit - god mustve spent a little more time on you (funkstorung remix)
14) cher ft big tymers - believe (funkstorung remix)
15) green day - cmon ride it (the train) (funkstorung remix)
16) meredith brooks - nuthin but a g thang (funkstorung remix)

"sleep is the cousin of death." -- ben folds

-- strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, February 11, 2004

thanks for reposting those ethan, it's good to know you remain a nasty asshole through good times and bad...

(i mean that as well as possible)

take it easy dog i thought it was funney

so did I!

if you want you can dig up the famous 'god i love those apples in stereo' post

1) roger clinton - do the bartman (funkstorung remix)

this is hurting my head

x-post why would I when I can reveal that you are white and like hiphop

LET US ASSESS THIS WARRIOR FROM THE EMERALD ISLE

-- MIKE HANLE Y, Wednesday, December 5, 2001

remember how gail deslongchamps would always call you ronin

the 47 ronans

those were the days

graham, gail.

when you didn't have to register to post. people trusted each other.

http://bp3.blogger.com/_yPlEJdnt6Ow/RkOiyrZEpjI/AAAAAAAAAAM/fN2Y7U55kV4/s1600-h/NOJUSTICE.jpg
What's ILM think of this?

I love Palms Out Sounds, but that post is basically quaint.

when a group's entire rep is pretty much blog/mp3-derived it's kinda hard to take that too seriously. sorry but it's true. i mean of all the bands.

i cannot believe they dragged bad religion into it

This actually makes me want to download the piece of crap and ysi it unsolicited on every forum eva.

But I will refrain.

why do I feel like I'm playing Castlemania during most of these tracks? I mean, I guess they sampled Goblin's Argento soundtrack (at least according to wikipedia), but they really turned up the gothic horror synths on a few of these ("Valentine," "One Minute to Midnight" etc). Most of it sounds nothing like D.A.N.C.E. and everyhting like "Carpates," the only snoozer on their first single.

i feel like i'm playing castlevania when i listen to studio's 'out there'

um, right. video game-related typo or has it just been that long that I actually thought is was Castlemania? I kind of hope it's the latter...

i feel like i'm in castlevania whenever i'm reading a dance thread on ILM. bats and hunchbacks all over the fucking place ... where's my whip?

ghost ride it

This is much better than I expected it to be!

it was better than i expected it to be too, there was a good song which wasn't 'waters of nazareth'

but still very very shit generally

was it d.a.n.c.e.?

considering you get down to like slint or whatever i cant imagine youre hating on this for being too corny hipster whatever

no it was 'stress'. i don't know who/what slint are/is

i cant imagine youre hating on this for being too corny hipster whatever

it's half that half abrasiveness+ADD-dance syndrome i think

slint or squeeze or smash or smog or whatever

Ethan there is a fine art to calling The Lex out on his indie band faves and you are frankly rubbish at it, even Passantino is better than you.

As far as the blog house canon goes right now - Black Strobe > Simian Mobile Disco > Justice > Digitalism BUT the much-maligned MSTRKFT album from last year might be better than all of them.

'Stress' is awesome but it does kind of add credence to Justice's whole "we make music without really knowing how to" schtick because if they DID know how to do it they would have made the beat 1000 times more slamming than it actually is. As it happens, they end up with a pretty flaccid 'tic' noise.

i disagree completely w/ that list

justice > blackstrobe >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> simian + digitalism

'blog house' as a term is going to keep pissing me off for the rest of the year probably. i'll just call it blog dance perhaps.

Well at least you've given up on 'haircut electro'.

true heads will never give up on haircut electro.

i haven't given up on it! it's still a more accurate term for much of this stuff.

i gotta say jess and other folks being into this doesn't surprise me really, seems like its what people had been hoping rock music would do, incorporating dance and electronic-ness and fun and relative populism and all that (although this might be contradicted by vahid's 'this is real dance' thing). i havent really listened beyond the singles but i don't really get out of this what i like about dance music so i donno, maybe i need to listen to the album and its like the dance ac/dc or something but for right now i'm happy letting this stuff blow by w/out jumping on board.

i dont mean to argue the 'not real dance' perspective ... i think thats kind of a silly argument and i'm in favor of all the things justice represent w/out actually enjoying the singles i've heard, or something

it's like, i'll dance to this stuff when i hear it out, but that's more because i have v. limited going-out options here and it's better than not dancing if i'm in the dancing mood. but i can't be bothered to seek it out on my own, it just doesn't do for me what i like dance music to do

i gotta say jess and other folks being into this doesn't surprise me really, seems like its what people had been hoping rock music would do, incorporating dance and electronic-ness and fun and relative populism and all that

you got that backward there, chief

uhm, i must say that i think 'D.A.N.C.E.' might be one of the most annoying things i've heard in ages. fuck this shite.

in more ways than one, i'm glad i dismissed this stuff as garbage before hearing it for so long. because it proves that i was right the whole time.

that and uffie is terrible.

cosigned

justice > blackstrobe >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> simian + digitalism

(most stuff in the world) >>>> simian md > justice > black strobe > digitalism

black strobe lose points because i am being deluged with multiple copies of their album

the one song in this vein i really properly love is jojo de freq's 'saturn returns'. bleep! bleep!

yeah, i DEFINITELY vote for Simian Mobile Disco over Justice, tho that would be a 'lesser of two evils' vote.

Just be thankful you guys don't have BangGang and their associated acts. Melbourne really is the worst place in the world for this stuff - whether it's commercial-haircut or indie-haircut it's just worse than everywhere else.

I just had to review a single by a guy called Muscles with a song called "One Inch Badge Pin" (as in "Drive a one inch badge pin through my heart") sung as if the only two songs ever made were "Open Up" and "House of Jealous Lovers" over the top of what the press-release describes as "soft trance synths and O.T.T. lo-fi house tunes", which is part of BangGang's chosen genre of "futurustic indie dance house gabba gabba hardcore music".

The first line of the song is: “Last night I met a girl who said she had connections in the Melbourne independent music industry…”

link!

Bang Gang

yeah tim, that looks quite terrible. i mean, reallly really bad.

"dj buttf*ck aka gus da hoodrat"

i don't really understand the issue with justice. is this perhaps related to not understanding the appeal of mylo??

Vahid do you mean you not understanding the appeal of mylo, or others not understanding the appeal of mylo?

I was listening to the 2nd Anniversay Get Physical mix again the other day, specifically "Our World (Our Music)" and thinking "this song is just perfect". Or more, it felt like the reconciliation of lots of different impulses, the deep house atmospherics, the electro-house insistent bassline, the strings... It's like the dance track that plays at the very end of the universe. It's positively utopian.

There was a very reconciliatory perfectionism to a lot of electro-house circa 2004 - even or perhaps especially "Drop The Pressure", which in a certain sense is perfect, there's nothing about that tune that could be changed to enhance what it is (you might dislike what it is, but that's a separate issue).

Justice etc. stuff never aspires to this, there's always a sense in which the music wishes to remain unreconciled and imperfect, and in a more blocky and obvious way than the delicate dialectical negotiations i tend to over-diagnose in almost all music I like. It's like they saw Herbert's Let's All Make Mistakes and invented a sub-genre based on the title rather than the music house therein. This refusal to move towards perfection can be appealing not just in terms of post-indie anti-professionalism, but also dance music notions of rawness, anti-slickness. I can well imagine people who disliked electro-house on account of a perceived slickness embracing this stuff because it goes to such lengths to avoid this attribute. On the other hand, at times it feels like this music never pursues anti-professionalism as an end in itself (you could make an argument for Switch etc. at this point) but always a means to some other end, which is a kind of meta-narrative comment on what it means to be making/listening to/dancing to dance music. Hence this sort of bipolar swing from self-consciously embracing dance signifiers ("D.A.N.C.E.", "It's The Beat") and establishing a distance from them ("Last night I met a girl who said she had connections in the Melbourne independent music industry…”). When Switch call tunes "Get On Downz" or "This Is Sick" there's a similar self-consciousness, but it's not conflicted at all - it's more emphatic and polemic than that.

I'm not implying qualitative judgments w/r/t electro-house, Justice, Switch etc. above. I'm just trying to think through potential different logics at work.

tim i am fasting right now and can't really think all the way through what you're saying. also i don't think that justice sounds like some sort of anti-accomplished sound. it sounds just as "well-tempered" as anything else, especially in contrast to digitalism or SMD or "human after all".

what i meant earlier is that maybe i don't understand LDN-ILM's rejection of justice because i didn't understand their championing stuff like mylo or headman ...

I don't mean Justice specifically so much as the entire scnee of which they are a part. The Justice I have heard seems to swing very quickly between noise and shine.

scene, obv.

I feel quite safe in saying: YALL R GAY

Tim Finney, myself, and The Lex will not tolerate your hate speech on ILM. We have not and will not charge you a cent and you're free to take your business elsewhere. I'd rather not call the police, but if you insist on continuing to disturb our guests I will. Please leave.

muscles is a former (very minor) ilx troll.

No way!!!

ILM needs to get out more.

The ribbing of Justice here is pretty mild.

Plus I think it's worth considering that Mylo and Headman had their biggest hits in 2004. That's three years ago so to expect some sort of consistency between people who liked them, then, when you could expect to hear Mylo in the middle of Tiefschwarz, the Knife, the Rapture etc (and this was a genuinely new and interesting DJing style), to like Justice now seems a little off to me.

Not least because, Justice sound nothing like Mylo or Headman. Plus it's obvious why people don't like Justice, if you look at what the people disliking them are listening to now.

That plus, if you lived in Europe Vahid you'd understand! (or Melbourne seemingly!)

"it's obvious why people don't like Justice, if you look at what the people disliking them are listening to now"

it's really not obvious to me

I don't get out enough to actually hear this kind of music in the specific clubs/at parties you would hear it at. I'm LDN-ILM (ha, separate board?) but don't reject them (I like them about as much as Mylo).

i like em more than i liked Mylo, who i thought was mostly meh.

"ILM needs to get out more."

Spencer I don't think you'd like the Muscles track. Although (what I think is) the Bag Raiders remix is quite good. Sometimes this stuff gets emotional and straightforward in a manner reminiscent of Cosmos's "Take Me With You", which i can't help but be sympathic towards.

tim he was calling himself "idle idle", i would search for stuff but the search sucks now. he liked the last sean paul album!

what was headman's hit??

"birth school work death"?

The Headman DJ mix on Eskimo was pretty good! I discovered Ed Laliq's "Drowning" and New Fast Automatic Daffodils by listening to it.

I have vague recollections of idle idle. A quick google search reveals he was also underwhelmed by Lindstrom & Prins Thomas.

He's not a bad musician actually (the production is occasionally good-winsome) but the song is intolerable.

Mylo was fucking awful and had street teamers spray-painting up half of Glasgow with his bullshit. Teuchter fuck.

the first time Muscles posted on ILM was a "listen to this remix I just made" - three people said "your home-computer glitching of this pop song is not especially good", and he erupted in a flurry of "I just made it last night in three hours and I'm over it now maaaan, don't pin me down with your preconceptions." Later he posted on a thread to say "People still listen to techno?"

It was kind of an in-between stage in his career, following trolling M&N hard for years about seducing his parents' maid, and before touring the US supporting Soulwax.

1" Badge Pin got a fluxblog blowjob about a year ago, too.

It was kind of an in-between stage in his career, following trolling M&N hard for years about seducing his parents' maid, and before touring the US supporting Soulwax.

'Haircut electro' is a silly term because electro has been haircut music since what, 2002, and is probably less haircut than at any point in the last few years.

Plus I think it's worth considering that Mylo and Headman had their biggest hits in 2004. That's three years ago so to expect some sort of consistency between people who liked them, then, when you could expect to hear Mylo in the middle of Tiefschwarz, the Knife, the Rapture etc (and this was a genuinely new and interesting DJing style), to like Justice now seems a little off to me.

I'm having trouble with this, it doesn't seem especially obvious to me. If only because the biggest DJing proponent of that whole Justice sound is Erol (his sets are like 75% this stuff now), and he was also pretty central to that whole Rapture/Tiefschwarz/Knife/Mylo thing you talk about.

Maybe it's because electrohouse c. 2004-05 felt like a big unifier in dance music, it hooked people who were into all sorts of shit. And that audience seems to have split into two now - the people who were into the more restrained, shinier stuff eg Get Physical have gone down the minimal route, others who were more into, say Washing Up or Rocker have gravitated towards this Verynoisyelectro sound.

(and this was a genuinely new and interesting DJing style)

haha WAHT

ronan you know i love you but that is straight up "this is the first time i have heard eclectic DJing and my mind is BLOWN" scorched-earth revisionism

Maybe I'm biased because frankly I'd take any peak 2004-era electrohouse over all this Justice/Simian stuff and maybe 90% of minimal too.

Rapture - Tiefschwarz - Knife - Mylo isn't particularly eclectic by the way. At the time they all felt like part of the same thing - especially when you consider some of the biggest tunes were Ewan Pearson/Tiefschwarz/Rex The Dog/Mylo remixes of prominentish artists like the Rapture or the Knife.

i did forget 2004, yeah

"If only because the biggest DJing proponent of that whole Justice sound is Erol (his sets are like 75% this stuff now)"

why is ILM (london/uk/w/vs) so anti it then. i'm no blog hound looking for stuff so my view of how music is being taken on board is highly ILM skewed. it's nice to hear that it's just the old granddads on here that are the hataz

Haha old grandads like the Lex.

Old grandads like 22 year old me.

grandadism is a state of mind

old is a feeling.

Next question: why is this dance music rather than previous examples provoking a grandpa reaction among so many?

(e.g. strongo you were being very grandpa about electrohouse circa 2004 - "it's just slowed down trance innit" etc. - why then and not now? Not being accusatory, but I'm interested in the distinction)

'Haircut electro' is a silly term because electro has been haircut music since what, 2002, and is probably less haircut than at any point in the last few years.

of course it's a silly term. i disagree that it is less haircutty now than it was tho. people still insist on having haircuts.

In Melbourne the divide has really been three ways, b/w erm indieclash (which i think steve uses "haircut electro"), commercial electro-house (where the more impressive haircuts are - this is stuff like TV Rock) and minimal etc. The divide between the first two esp. is really hazy - I get the impression that dedicated commercial electro-house nights will play indieclash and some minimal (the Get Physical end esp. if it counts) but neither indieclash nor minimal nights will play any commercial electro-house.

commercial electro-house = "haircut house"

why then and not now?

mostly because i don't hear this as electro-house! i think it's much more in line with the whole post-2000 united states trend towards playing "whatever"; go out on a friday night to a non-aligned dance club in america and you will DJs spinning justice-style stuff alongside cut-and-run hip-hop and pop remixes, baltimore club, old daft punk, big beat, switch and jesse rose style shit, basically anything that ISNT tiefschwarz/black strobe-style electro-house.

to be perfectly honest with you, i still hate 75-80% of "blog house" but i just think this is a really good electronic pop/dance album. i have a kind of pet theory about it that i am developing for my justice review (namely that the internet has allowed people the access to make their own "made-in-two-minutes"-style tracks and remixes but at the same time it's INSTANTLY ARCHIVED all this shit that might be mind-blowing in a two-minute segue or juxtaposition on a friday night but does not really need to exist in a clean, full-length mp3 saved forever and ever) but it's still pretty inchoate at the moment.

i.e. i think justice are part of a generation of french kids who grew up in a world where they never knew anything BUT electronic dance music/house/rave (think about it...if they're in their mid- to late-20s at this point, they were 15 or 16 when homework droppped...i don't think it's a coincidence that i've read reports of justice dropping fat of the land-era prodigy tracks in their sets) and so they've grown up listening to rock and rap but it's all been filtered through this electronic/clubbing culture. it's no wonder it comes out sounding like heavy metal daft punk and not masters at work.

might be worth re-reading the MSTRKRFT thread at this point.

or maybe suicide lol.

on that thread you can see my hatred towards blog house soften in timelapse

i'm actually listening to "waters of nazareth" again right now and wondering if i DO actually hate this stuff unreservedly.

-- Bea Arthur - Lost COmic GEnius ? (dubplatestyle), Sunday, June 25, 2006

i have seriously mellowed on this stuff, btw

-- shabba ranks (dubplatestyle), Monday, October 9, 2006 7:50 PM (7 months ago) Bookmark Link

i think it might be because it's ALL I'VE HEARD when i've gone out this year. this stuff and that baile funk track with the DURN-DUH-DUH-DUH horn fanfare.

-- shabba ranks (dubplatestyle), Monday, October 9, 2006 7:53 PM (7 months ago) Bookmark Link

i kinda LIKE the "let's all jump up and down" aspect of it

-- shabba ranks (dubplatestyle), Monday, October 9, 2006 7:53 PM

that "baile funk" track turned out to be "a bit patchy," sigh

ronan you know i love you but that is straight up "this is the first time i have heard eclectic DJing and my mind is BLOWN" scorched-earth revisionism

-- strongohulkington, Tuesday, May 29, 2007 12:52 PM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

of course it's not new in the grand scheme of things (disco etc) but relative to what had come before (and what came after) it was quite fresh.

there was an absence of any one dominant thing at that time and it was interesting, and rare. how long before that kind of waiting period happens again?

Rapture - Tiefschwarz - Knife - Mylo isn't particularly eclectic by the way. At the time they all felt like part of the same thing - especially when you consider some of the biggest tunes were Ewan Pearson/Tiefschwarz/Rex The Dog/Mylo remixes of prominentish artists like the Rapture or the Knife.

it's a little muddy because when the 2004 stuff came along that would be what I'd call "electrohouse", and that was mostly quite dancey, but there was a time of overlap between the sort of "waiting for dance music to return time of 2003" and electrohouse.

also as far as I recall people played a lot of stuff that was sort of "classic" from 2003 and 2002 amongst the 2004 stuff, because it took a while for people at the clubs to start liking and knowing "House of the Jealous Lovers" or "Losing My Edge". even though these were older they needed some kind of dance infrastructure to support them, and there hadn't been one at the time of their release.

I look back at that time as one when not so many people had a lot to say about dance and there weren't too many new fans. it was like dance became sort of eclectic pop for a while. and it was actually quite fun. but now that aesthetic just seems forced, since there is plenty of good techno and house around, and also old. the new acts aren't any better, in my opinion than the original wave, and are generally more rock orientated.

I'm having trouble with this, it doesn't seem especially obvious to me. If only because the biggest DJing proponent of that whole Justice sound is Erol (his sets are like 75% this stuff now), and he was also pretty central to that whole Rapture/Tiefschwarz/Knife/Mylo thing you talk about.

what I meant was, it was 3 years ago, tastes change first and foremost. and also that I just don't think there is a great similarity between Justice etc and the first year of electrohouse (remember how italo influenced some of that was)

actually doesn't Jess nail a confederate flag to his desk everytime someone mentions italo?

x-post to jess, this is all making more sense now, I agree it's not a continuation of electrohouse, that was pretty much my point above.

Weird, it definitely is over here, and you don't hear this stuff mixed up with other stuff at all! It's just wall to wall grinding synth riffs.

actually, this is a little tricky. I guess you can trace it back to 2004 electrohouse. but that's such a long time that certainly it doesn't sound exactly the same IMO, and so it's understandable I think that lots of people don't like it.

wtf are you all talking about? 90% of ths stuff uses Homework and Analog Worms Attack as its guide. 2004 era electrohouse is what it's trying to escape, 1997 era Daft Punk is what it's successfully recreated. Basically, if you don't like Homework or "Flat Beat" era Mr.Oizo, you don't like the new french dance.

how many tracks on this album are 4/4 house tempo?

no more or less than number of 4/4 tracks on a theo parrish or moodymann album

leave those jazz-funk greats out of this

Tim, have you ever been to a 'Brains' night? From what I've heard that would be the best thing ever.

And that audience seems to have split into two now - the people who were into the more restrained, shinier stuff eg Get Physical have gone down the minimal route, others who were more into, say Washing Up or Rocker have gravitated towards this Verynoisyelectro sound.

i don't get this at all! i mean...we, and everyone we know, loved 'washing up' and 'rocker' and vitalic in 04/05, and mostly veered towards minimal (yeah yeah lock tavern obsession, but that's v much "love/hate the scene, hate/hate the music").

also i'm pretty sure the people on this thread hating on justice go to more parties than the people repping for them.

what lex is saying is ...

do you party?

also i'm pretty sure the people on this thread hating on justice go to more parties than the people repping for them.

-- lex pretend, Tuesday, May 29, 2007 11:12 PM (7 minutes ago)

i'm pretty sure paris hilton goes to more parties than anybody on ILX

i'm pretty sure therefore she deserves the nobel fucking peace prize

i'm pretty sure i have more chest hair than you, lex, therefore shut the fuck up

chest hair isn't so hot. you lose.

also, consider anger management classes, you fucking idiot. my point about parties was in response to shit like ILM needs to get out more.

spencer is #1 party guy tho.

hey lex, consider using that big overbite of yours to STFU with

and if he isn't, DON'T SPOIL MY 'LUZE (xp)

consider anger management classes, you fucking idiot

Paris needs this as a T-shirt slogan

haha i don't have an overbite, though my favourite tennis player does. i'm hott.

(to death, as miss p would say)

wtf are you all talking about? 90% of ths stuff uses Homework and Analog Worms Attack as its guide. 2004 era electrohouse is what it's trying to escape, 1997 era Daft Punk is what it's successfully recreated. Basically, if you don't like Homework or "Flat Beat" era Mr.Oizo, you don't like the new french dance.

trying to escape electrohouse my ass, it's the dregs of it.

And funny how something aping NINETEEN NINETY SEVEN is "the new French dance". A little contradiction at work here yes?

There are far more interesting French artists than Justice, all of whom are doing something a lot newer and less atypically French too.

less atypically french = more french?!?

it still is French, there's a particular sound to Freak N Chic, Shonky, Marc Antona and these guys that isn't like what's coming out of Germany.

Fitting with the last 10 years of the scene should not be a plus point when we're talking about dance, and not least when it's French house.

Justice are to Daft Punk as Coldplay are to Radiohead.

more interesting != better/more fun/whatever

i dread this 'frenchcore continuum' prospect i think

did you know that the original of "talk" is almost as good as the jacques lu cont remix, and perhaps better than most jacques lu cont remixes and all of his solo work?

i know jess agrees with me on this.

I almost agree with Ronan's analogy except I might replace Coldplay with Muse

more interesting != better/more fun/whatever

how do you know what I meant?

x-post I meant more, inferior nicotine patch for gasping smokers left by absence of 20 a day megaband

I means seriously even the people who like this record must admit it's just a lame stopgap

hey ronan, over here in america, we're not waiting for the next revolution in dance, we're just living our lives one day at a time maaaaaaaaaan

not rly.

(xpost)

Ronan, can you guess my favorite Hystereo track?

It better be "Corporate Crimewave"!

NO!

It's "Gly" and my point is that I will always lean toward stuff like it!

gonna love you? xpost

hey ronan, over here in america, we're not waiting for the next revolution in dance, we're just living our lives one day at a time maaaaaaaaaan

-- moonship journey to baja, Tuesday, May 29, 2007 11:58 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

fair enough, but I was just thinking about this, and like, it's TWO THOUSAND AND SEVEN. is it not pretty fucking bleak for crossover dance music that people are still talking about Discovery or that acts are still pillaging that sound?

x-post which one is it then? I like Hystereo more than their music these days, which is a shame cos they are two of the best people I've met in my entire time going to clubs and stuff over here. They live in Paris now.

I like stuff like GLY better than Justice. Justice is not like GLY.

But I would say it's "french" sounding.

Also, Ronan, in America, we still need crossover dance music.

i would have said i'd go along with ronan's a:b::c:d analogy, but now i see it was a badly veiled "poor man's x" dig. srsly, buzz harsheners, all.

I don't mean to be a buzz harshener, I just sometimes feel Daft Punk corpse fucking has got to end. I also like the more Braxe style of Daft Punk imitation.

i understand your point if you are talking about kavinsky or something (yeah even down to the anime obsession, right?) but does justice REALLY REALLY sound like much else from the last three or four years?

it's the dance version of ratatat, not the indie version of daft punk, i think that's why all of us who like their battles and gang gang dance like it so much

this constant reffing back to DP is inevitable, but also pointless. like there's this big landmark and everyone uses it, but then some ppl are tired of everything being in relation to it, and other ppl can't see anything but the landmark, and meanwhile you're miles away and there's so much stuff around it and the landmark is still visible but here you are and there it is still on the horizon...

it's late, man

Ronan, I've just listened to the french artists you named upthread. I have to say that it's basically "techno" and if I dropped any of those tracks at a random hipster party here, then people would be immediately bummed out. I of course like all kinds of house myself, but I also know that it just won't work here. Luckily, I will happily listen to music inspired by Daft Punk (especially when it's mixed in with bmore, hip hop, rock whatever).

I also think that the acts you mentioned, taken out of context, do not sound like their pushing any kind of boundaries. They were good, but they're definitely working within certain audience expectations.

Maybe just think of Justice as rock/pop music (although I think it's much more than that, and it's more than just 'crossover' as well).

their should be they're in second paragraph

i understand your point if you are talking about kavinsky or something (yeah even down to the anime obsession, right?) but does justice REALLY REALLY sound like much else from the last three or four years?

it's not even that it's the indie version of Daft Punk that bothers me (even though it is!), more that it's just a crappy rehash of the last big dance crossover act in the absence of any new ones.

why does popular dance music have to sound this way? it's so unappealing to me at the moment, I honestly think it's about the last thing I'd ever want to listen these days but everyone seems to fucking love it.

yep it sure is late :)

x-post I consider those guys house music, very much house music.

Ronan, I've just listened to the french artists you named upthread. I have to say that it's basically "techno" and if I dropped any of those tracks at a random hipster party here, then people would be immediately bummed out. I of course like all kinds of house myself, but I also know that it just won't work here.

that's fine, I know this. I just don't think random hipster parties are a good barometer for what is good music, here or there.

at the moment music like Justice/CSS/Boys Noize/Simian just all sounds the same to me. it's so kind of...what you see is what you get and in your face that it just makes me feel completely miserable. I just think: what is the point of this, I can't switch off and enjoy it.

lately I like music that seems to make the world stop turning for a while.

those artists are not my absolute favourites but since French was mentioned I'd have to say I like them a lot more than Justice and think they're fresher sounding too.

noze.

hell even Vitalic!

Ronan, I'm sure you've at some point smarted from hearing someone say that all house music sounds the same!

I'm now thinking of this stuff as crossover in the other direction. Maybe it's pop/rock that is crossing over to me as a "proper dance music" person.

It appeals to me *much* more than disco-punk DFA style stuff, largely because it's more "track-y".

i loved this stuff in the fall of 2005 but the recent output leaves me cold (except for "D.A.N.C.E.", which is one of this year's great singles so far imo). the in-your-face super-compressed production aesthetics feels so damn one-dimensional and drab after a while--which makes sense as there's no dynamics to grab your attention long-term.

Ronan, I'm sure you've at some point smarted from hearing someone say that all house music sounds the same!

THIS VERY DAY I said to someone else "it all sounds the same is pretty much bottom of the food chain when it comes to criticising dance music".

It's purely me that finds that. But I think I made my personal problems with Justice etc pretty clear!

Jeb nails it a lot more succinctly above.

is anyone criticising justice because "it all sounds the same"?! it all sounds rubbish and amateur, maybe.

ronan otm throughout

me, I did.

Justice is meaningless vacuous music with underwhelming lyrical content.

ok this is self parody now, right? you two seem to be trying to belittle the music (or the people who like it?), but it comes across sounding so granddadish.

amateur. underwhelming lyrical content. we've all heard this before about music before - usually about an erupting or more radical new genre, which i'll grant this isn't. but still. even if ppl agreed partially with these, these have never been a barrier to liking music - and in some cases are seen as a +ve quality.

(before before)

mine was self parody

phew!

alan you're one step away from "IT'S ALL JUST A BIT OF FUN LEAVE IT OUT LADS"

= vile

see you are smuggling in a moral stance there. "it's all a bit of fun" IS indeed vile when it's used to defend something that can truly be said to be immoral - usually something political that has effects on people. if you really think that music extends into that sphere of influence, that's your look out. but you are then one step away from saying that this music is dangerous - which is too regressive for me to seriously consider.

that would explain why you spend so much time trying to run stuff down you dislike tho.

just to correct any apprehension - i like this music, quite a lot as it happens, but i don't think it's going to change my life or anything. it is FUN to listen to. i wouldn't listen to it if i didn't enjoy it.

i am only really active on here because i'm a bit bemused by the active dislike. it reminds me of the arctic monkeys thread back in the day - the major difference being that i don't like the AM all that much.

MISapprehension obv LOL

why bother to even talk about music then, if we can't express like or dislike of it?

i'm not suggesting that.

i've decided to pretend that this thread is about Cascada. i spend far more time reading about Justice than actually listening to them sob.

the active dislike of a large number of posters on this thread really shouldn't be any surprise - all those posters are fans of dance music, this is an offshoot of dance music which doesn't work in the ways that dance music usually works, and which in fact in both sound and audience is more similar to rock music, which none of us have a particular affinity for.

and i don't think that rock music pretending to be dance music, or dance music which works like rock music, is a particularly laudable thing to try to do

large number of posters? 4-5 people? just as many seem to like it or even love it

that's quite a good summary of it i think - pretty much what i've concluded from what ppl were saying elliptically.

why don't you think it's laudable though? that's interesting.

a bigger annoyance for me is veterans like Joey Negro, Armand Van Helden and Tim Deluxe who keep churning out formulaic "funky" house (+80s sample) tracks and having minor hits with them. i'll take Justice and whatnot over that at least. Michael Gray is OK tho. but yeah, commercial dance crisis film at 11.

after all, "doesn't work in the ways that X music usually works" is usually a sign of something interesting happening, even if you don't personally like the result, right?

(xpost agane)

why don't you think it's laudable though? that's interesting.

well as i'm sure you're aware, i don't actually like rock music! also, it smacks of "dance music for people who don't actually like dance music", a bit.

also, the ways in which justice are 'rock' are based on the bits of rock which i like the least - the roughness, choppiness, jerkiness. i'm not saying that ALL attempts to mix rock and dance are automatically doomed to failure; i've heard and loved 'standing in the way of control' dropped into electro sets too often for that.

has anyone else actually heard 'saturn returns' by jojo de freq? this might be the point of union, it's definitely in the vein of simian md et al but manages to not be so lifeless and drab.

after all, "doesn't work in the ways that X music usually works" is usually a sign of something interesting happening, even if you don't personally like the result, right?

not at all! unwelcome thoughts of fusion cooking etc. i'm a purist, i like things to be what they are, and not try to mesh awkwardly with completely different things.

i feel that's got me somewhere. a rarity on ILM (rarer than ILE!). so ta!

'lifeless' and 'drab' are really bizarre descriptive terms for this. i don't think they describe the problem (which is there) accurately. how do you measure 'life' in a piece of music?

I don't think there's anything 'awkward' about a lot of this stuff either. a lot of it is perfectly danceable for the way most people actually dance (i.e. not as good as they might think they do). i guess they're trying to make things more unpredictable in the tracks event-wise. the only real problem for me is the relentlessness, abrasiveness and flattened compression of so much of it - need a wider palette of sounds more pleasant. it's purely a sonic issue.

i think a good chunk of the album works as "a palette of sounds" - i was thinking exactly that phrase. have we got an 'exemplar' album here?

Lex this is why I mocked you for choosing to go and see Justice over Alan Braxe and Kris Menace last year!

don't care about justice but there's a fischerspooner thread i came across up last week that is very, very similar in themes and arguements to this one. except 5 years ago.

If ILM had existed 10 years ago there'd have been a Prodigy thread that was very, very similar in themes and arguments to this one. Or maybe a Fatboy Slim thread.

FISCHERSPOONER on Top of the Pops?

a '97 ILM would be awesome ha ha. i guess i could just read the old alt.music.alternative on google groups tho. in fact, i think i will.

i'm a purist, i like things to be what they are, and not try to mesh awkwardly with completely different things.

http://www.isop.ucla.edu/africa/mgpp/images/mg75a.jpg
http://us.altermedia.info/images/dukepislogan400.jpg

lol found a Ned post already

(since the lex will invariably ask, that's the frontman for lords of the underground and the guitarist for starsailor.)

like i won't ask who either of those are?

This is irrelevant Lex since you are not a purist.

this new dance music ... so choppy, rough, amateurish ... so unlike old rave music ... hmmm ... perhaps we shall call it "new rave" to distinguish it from the works of the old masters .... hmmm ...

I never liked rave anyway.

tho I like the indie affection for it even less

basically I despise all fun

the active dislike of a large number of posters on this thread really shouldn't be any surprise - all those posters are fans of dance music, this is an offshoot of dance music which doesn't work in the ways that dance music usually works, and which in fact in both sound and audience is more similar to rock music, which none of us have a particular affinity for.

-- lex pretend, Wednesday, 30 May 2007 10:01 (3 hours ago) Link

notorious rock-loving dance-haters like me and jess and vahid and

i love fun, it's just that i have better fun than the people who like justice (given that two of them are notorious sourpusses vahid and jess this is perhaps not a surprise)

Ronan i was gonna say, tho afraid of it coming off as some sort of criticism tho it really isn't, wasn't 'Homework' kinda your starting point for being into dance music too? maybe not but if so, funny how there's been camps dividing from that. it was an eclectic record tho and as you say there was the Bangalter/Braxish sound at the same time which many preferred, even now.

i wanna hear Daft Punk's pre-'New Wave' actual daft punk tracks to see if it sounds a bit like Justice.

I can't really remember what my starting point for dance was, mostly whatever my brother liked. But I wasn't in America so it's not really like you have a "starting point" over here is it, I can remember liking the Prodigy and stuff when I was probably around 10 years old.

so you did like some rave then? altho i guess Prodigy were something else at that point.

i don't suppose Justice or many of their fans necessarily have a specific 'starting point' either then.

so me and jess and vahid like this fun dance music because we're.... sourpusses? and you loudly hate it because you.... love fun?

btw lex i listen to BIG BEAT!!

i'm not being loud, i haven't made a sound in about an hour. though if you toddle off to eg the minimal thread you'll see both ronan and myself loudly loving a load of fun dance music

btw i also liked big beat, back in the day

i have almost as hard a time equating 'minimal' with fun as Lex does haircut electro with fun. or at least, the fun potential is not evidently greater with one MORE than the other.

Wait, so after all of this, can we talk about how Le Dust Sucker's first album should finally get it's due now (to borrow a page or blurb from shrbrn)...

I was wondering when the M word was going to be dragged kicking and screaming into this.

these threads are just............there are some people here who just play out the same narrative on every single music thread regardless of what anyone says.

oh?

the first time is tragedy, the second farce

it's all self parody duh

what about the 167th time karl?

all of the arguments made against Justice here were made six months ago on MSTRKRFT thread and elsewhere tho right?

i mean if there is ANY dance kid who should kneejerk loathe any aspect of disgusting indie or rock creeping into the genre it's me. and i don't loathe justice => justice is not rock qed.

-- The Lex (The Lex), Saturday, June 24, 2006 2:25 PM (11 months ago) Bookmark Link

i dont get it. did jess and the lex just trade opinions?

all of the arguments made against Justice here were made six months ago on MSTRKRFT thread and elsewhere tho right?

-- blueski, Wednesday, May 30, 2007 3:01 PM

see, now there's a group that DOES warrant the daft punk comparison

ppl tell me, what genre is dextro?

i'm losing my patience, i just came here to bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce

jsl

my fave Hystereo track is still 'Winters In The City'. that gurgly/snarly arpeggiated synth-bass sound has definitely worn thin now tho.

dextro = IDM / prog-house

judging by the kind of music ronan liked when he showed up on ilm, his brief stadium house populist phase circa late 2002/early 2003 should probably be seen as some sort of poptimist abberation in his history. a spasm, if you will.

i'm still convinced when the lex's body is found one day he'll have his dick in one hand and a what's up matador? comp in the other.

"his last words were 'kiss me...bob pollard...'"

my fav hystereo is tank girl hystereo remix

a. i haven't heard the whole record yet

b. i agree with this below and most of what ronan's been saying

I think it's worth considering that Mylo and Headman had their biggest hits in 2004. That's three years ago so to expect some sort of consistency between people who liked them, then, when you could expect to hear Mylo in the middle of Tiefschwarz, the Knife, the Rapture etc (and this was a genuinely new and interesting DJing style), to like Justice now seems a little off to me.

Not least because, Justice sound nothing like Mylo or Headman. Plus it's obvious why people don't like Justice, if you look at what the people disliking them are listening to now.

That plus, if you lived in Europe Vahid you'd understand! (or Melbourne seemingly!)

-- Ronan, Tuesday, 29 May 2007 09:39

throwing tiefschwarz/ mylo/ knife (and i have to add annie, robyn, soulwax etc) into dj sets back then made sense, not that these acts are "eclectic", but i think north america was coming out of something that was more indie rock centric but still danceable (i'm in canada btw) - think the whole post punk/ punk funk/ angular/ 4 on the floor disco drumming and add electroclash to that ... and this music sounded fun and cheeky and fresh and just seemed to be in the same vein attitude wise ...

this below - YES!

i look back at that time as one when not so many people had a lot to say about dance and there weren't too many new fans. it was like dance became sort of eclectic pop for a while. and it was actually quite fun. but now that aesthetic just seems forced, since there is plenty of good techno and house around, and also old. the new acts aren't any better, in my opinion than the original wave, and are generally more rock orientated.

and this ....

i think it's much more in line with the whole post-2000 united states trend towards playing "whatever"; go out on a friday night to a non-aligned dance club in america and you will DJs spinning justice-style stuff alongside cut-and-run hip-hop and pop remixes, baltimore club, old daft punk, big beat, switch and jesse rose style shit,

-- strongohulkington, Tuesday, 29 May 2007 13:33 (Yesterday)

there was some similar discussion on a local message board about this scene and i think i made some comment about going out and it just looking and sounding like a big indistinct blob ... playing "whatever" NOW is not REALLY playing "whatever" - as you pointed out it's a trend with very clear boundaries, with very specific fashion and styles of music connected to it. a lot of sounds created in the past 2 or 3 years with this "whatever" in mind are coming out sounding very samey and boring and as someone said "one dimensional and drab".

observing the crowd for this music, most of them are early 20's so i don't expect them to know anything about 1999 - 2004 other than what they watched on music television. the crowd for minimal and than neo deep stuff is older. and aging ravers are scattered about anywhere.

i think i'm an aging raver :-/

i think anyone over 27 on this thread is an aging raver

I'd like to be a 'minimal grandad' and hate this (19 yo here), but it's kind of innofensively OK - and more tolerable as a student dance craze than Mr Scruff. Also, I know a few people who are getting into some actual electrohouse via this.

Electrohouse has had it's day anyway.

young ppl today - they're so intolerant ;-D

"actual electrohouse"

this is as bad as the strokes thread that got published in the da capo book where i suggested that if people got into the VU and television through the strokes then it was okay that they existed

I say electohouse because that is the housey extremity of what they are interested in, not cos I think it's going to take over the world.

gasp!

strongo = first against the wall when the rockist revolution happens

the shame will never die

hmm. not typing too good right now!

the crowd for minimal and than neo deep stuff is older. and aging ravers are scattered about anywhere.

i mean "the crowd for minimal and that neo deep stuff is older. and aging ravers are scattered about everywhere"

bleh!

http://eqbeastiary.allakhazam.com/pics/Culthor_the_Gatekeeper.JPG

i still think justice is not at all what i'm looking for in dance but i have to say agree that the arguments against the group in this thread, while trying v. hard to be self-aware, have the strong ring of oldster about them.

i guess how i felt about 'we are your friends' and 'dance' is sort of what rtc was talking about in the quik thread about populist anthems like mims and that fixxxers song where its more about 'social energy' or something, because when i'm listening to these songs absent the participatory indie club vibe they just don't come together, aimless trashiness that sounds more like an exercise in style without any function, or something. Event songs, "sweet home alabama" or "piano man"-singalongs. Thats all I can really imagine the appeal is about at least on the two aforementioned tracks, at least where my head is. I listened to a 'waters of nazereth' sample on that juno site and it sounds pretty great though.

vahid you're hardly some ambassador for perestroika and glasnost yourself!

x-post, I really resent the way people on this thread have assumed my very personal dislike of this stuff is something more than personal when at every juncture I have tried to personalise my argument.

basically, and don't feel sympathy for me, I am sick and miserable and the LAST THING I want to hear is super-compressed hyper pop music. since my entire argument is coloured by that fact I may as well nail it to the mast as I am not too keen on being co-opted into some "indie/not indie" debate I didn't even start.

eh? i don't even know if youre talking about me there but i'm certainly not trying to make any this vs that argument. specially not the rock vs dance one

no I agreed with your post really

You know I was going to say this isn't even my favorite group in this "genre", but listening again to the album and I'm *really* enjoying it!

"New Jack" is great broke down Todd Edwards funk.

I like how Spencer always seems to manage to deflect hundreds of posts of snark and/or debate by going "I love this! It's great!"

Love the 36 reference on "The Party"! However, I like Uffie's own new track much more.

I meant Three 6 of course.

and Matt, I know, I've never really played the ILM game correctly I think. I do wonder why, with the avalanche of 'text/content' these days why people take the time to (heavily) criticize things they don't like. I do also believe in silent majorities which is why I appreciate the poll threads.

I get that some people feel "political" or "activist" about taste which is fine. I used to feel that way more (and still do about certain traditional rockism debates), but in some ways I feel like the war is over and now we are living in a heaven of *so much* great music! (and not just Daft Punk wannabes).

i wish i could find that lecoq post about spencer

I have the same problem with this as I do with rock music which has distorted rhythm guitar running all the way through it - I don't know how to react to the noise and mess of it. Most of the tracks sound like compromises between noise and Daft Punk, like on 'New Jack', the way it's almost slipping away into static and losing the groove, it's pretty frustrating to me on any level (I would love noise-garage, but this sounds like Todd Edwards sabotaged by noise). On 'Stress' and 'Waters of Nazareth' the two impulses don't seem so opposed, it's more directed at your body and a lot more taught sounding.

Do you like My Bloody Valentine?

Deej, I know the quote and for the record there are obviously things I don't like. I listened to the Battles album and made like two quick posts to thread about not really feeling it, but that doesn't telescope into this-is-everything-that's-wrong-with-music-and-the-world. That said, I have felt that way about certain things, but maybe not with the same ferocity as some. Also, even though I wasn't so into disco-punk stuff, I usually wouldn't criticize people for liking it (although I have done that too) - it's probably just something I don't understand. Also, while there are conclusions that could be drawn about some people who *really* like Dave Matthews or RATM or whatever, this is really all just dance music and people who are into it are usually fine by me.

oh i was just joking, but you gotta realize the dudes taking yr side in this debate are known for being particularly critical and would prob reject yr utopian-crit-what-you-love stance for the most part!

Is anyone taking my side???

i mean 'irl' i basically agree with you unless i'm talking with people i know really well, but ilx offers you a lot more leeway to talk shit which is good i think.

xp well jess and vahid and ethan seem positively disposed to this stuff at the moment

Spencer, I do like MBV cos they have this textural depth. The general skronk of Justice doesn't work for me either as texture or groove.

the only justice song i know is d.a.n.c.e. but yeah i like the nu daft punk thing, zdarlight & all that

is it ok to like ernest saint laurent?

wait i also dig the justice vs simian joint, esp when it turns into booty bass

xpost: DEFINITELY.

Was just listening to his remix of Royksopp's "Remind Me".

Also, I do like critical takes on music (otherwise I would just troll the diplo board for zshares), but there's a difference between being critical and just criticizing... or something.

cant stand the vocals on justice vs. simian

i do really like waters of nazareth tho :-( its a banger

still for the most part ... even that song tim finney really liked on the ed banger comp sounds weak to me.

tripping over itself to sound edgy/abrasive

Is that why you put a frown in your positive statement?

i have an honest loyalty to finney's "rocker" description, which is what the stuff i don't like seems to violate (and which WoN manages to avoid)

xp frown was for backpedaling

judging from d.a.n.c.e. i dunno wtf the 'abrasive' criticism comes from

There are more abrasive sounds on the rest of the album. Overdriven bass etc.

ethan you really need to hear some of justice's other stuff in that case

does anybody have an album that all sounds like d.a.n.c.e.

kidzbop.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khMJVz5BmVw

pretty sure thats not actually boney m ... isn't that the original?

oh never mind

I've always thought "D.A.N.C.E." is kind of like Daft Punk vs. The Go! Team.

"d.a.n.c.e." reminds me of stuff like joubert singer's "stand on the word" and kitty grant's "glad to know you"

it's extremely ... disco!

i'm gonna go into the archives and find that thread where all these people stand up for "little black spiders"

another track i dig is that avalanches blend of wham over digitalism

^^^that song rules

YES

("dvno" is ok too, ethan you might like that)

xp well jess and vahid and ethan seem positively disposed to this stuff at the moment

haha, WAHT! they really like this? i thought that was just their contrarian nature getting the best of them.

I've always thought "D.A.N.C.E." is kind of like Daft Punk vs. The Go! Team.

yes me too - bit of Avalanches too, and 'Stand On The Word' as mentioned several times. the Go Team album is 'blarier' - btw their new single is way too formulaic/copy of their previous stuff.

it's the most 'palatable' thing i've heard by them. the rest of the time they sound to me like a more danceable (not difficult ha) Jackson (And His Computer Band) who everyone seems to have forgotten about (if they cared in the first place).

"radio caca" = better than soooooo much ILM-approved dance music

haha, WAHT! they really like this? i thought that was just their contrarian nature getting the best of them.

Name D.A.N.C.E. Artist Justice Album D.A.N.C.E. Ep Play Count 18 Last Played 5/30/2007 5:30 PM

im listening to twista now

you know whats the fake dance braxe-style joint is 'ottos journey' off that mylo record

http://kscakes.com/LolCats/Default.aspx

i'm going to leave it up to y'all what i mean by that

'peach melba' is the best Mylo Goes To Paris number - but don't think it was on the album?

who here likes Crystal Castles 'Knights'?

ernest st laurent hall & oates remix is necessary

i forgot 'we are your friends' was a justice creation! i loved that. at the time, i remember everyone asking 'who the hell are these justice dudes, making awful indie rock dancefloor-palatable?"

the time was THREE YEARS AGO. over it now. 'we are your friends' due for rehabilitation in 2009 along with 'milkshake' and 'gold digger'.

I like how Spencer always seems to manage to deflect hundreds of posts of snark and/or debate by going "I love this! It's great!"

yeah the only way you can actually deflect snark on ilm now is to make your own posts as content/thought-free as possible, any attempt to justify any stance gets picked on and torn apart. maybe what all the teenpop boosters should have done on the hilarity thread was just go "i love hilary! there's so much good msuic around, man".

I feel like the war is over and now we are living in a heaven of *so much* great music!

i agree with the second hal'f of this statement so much, this is basiclly my entire general feeling about music right now, but uhhh...justice aren't part of the "so much great music". at all. that's why i hate on 'em, people are paying attention to them when they could be paying attention to so much ACTUALLY great music! they are kind of pitiful in a way.

anyway you bore me, you people. i am going to boucne around to some hyphy, maybe follow it up with paris or lil' kim, maybe some ellen allien (=actually fun dance music).

cruisin

For the record, I actually have written a number of thoughtful things on this thread and the return of the repressed thread.

spencer that was aimed at matt, not you!

Ah ok. (though it still seems to me like you were talking about my 'strategy').

Anway, it doesn't matter because THIS ALBUM IS SUPER AWESOME!!!

OK 'New Jack' is great.

† = ~(P v Q)

I heard D.A.N.C.E. on the radio this week and it definitely pricked up my ears. I like the fact that it uses old style disco sounds. Someone here criticized it as sounding like heavy metal, that doesn't really bother me. I look forward to hearing the album. I tried their song "Waters Of Nazareth" and liked it okay, but not as much.

that's why i hate on 'em, people are paying attention to them when they could be paying attention to so much ACTUALLY great music! they are kind of pitiful in a way.

This is a thread about Hot Chip now?

"Genesis" sounds suspiciously Michael Jackson Thriller-esque.

I figured out the root of the justice argument. 90's revival must include faux-carrot top, ergo Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

http://www.thenoel.org/asianprince/CarrotTop.jpghttp://cache.idolator.com/assets/resources/2007/05/justiceleak2.jpg

who could be against these guys now?

...and for the skeptics, here's the last faux-carrot top from a generation of kids who grew up in a world where they never knew anything BUT dance music...

http://www.mtv.es/mtv.es/img/int3/fib2005_chkchkchk171x179.jpg

D.A.N.C.E. = plodding Sesame Street sub Todd Edwards (himself hit-or-miss at least 75% of the time) off-key falsetto with the cheesiest Daft Punk 80's TV commercial arpeggiatos. N.E.X.T.

So overrated & overhyped. This shit is the wurst.

Was already rubbed the wrong way by We are Your Friends' flat singing & blatantly anthemic ambitions, now this, should I suffer through another track of theirs or will those do?

no. sounds like this isn't your thing. maybe try 'new jack' if you're still curious.

"blatantly anthemic ambitions"

what's wropng with ELO?

Nothing's wrong with beautiful anthemic; everything's wrong with footstomping anthemic.

New Jack... is formally more interesting I guess, wrt interference-style cut-up grooving. It's basically a couple of alternating & superimposed loops tho, doesn't sound "live"/rock at all despite light use of distortion.

bimble yr making me seem knowledgeable on a dance thread! theres a whole history of dudes using 'old style disco songs' in dance, this is not new

this is like the shake ya tailfeather thread all over again

one dude from justice looks a lot like dangermouse dressed up as ... [insert joke here]

Nothing's wrong with beautiful anthemic; everything's wrong with footstomping anthemic.

you are Geir

It's basically a couple of alternating & superimposed loops tho

yeah i can't believe people still have the NERVE to just stop at that anymore!

But steve it's not a dancefloor-community without live musicians!

So overrated & overhyped.

correct.

This shit is the wurst.

lighten up.

mmmm wurst

Lissen. I enjoy loop based tracks and arranged instrumentation, these guys seem to do one or the other, I pointed out that New Jack is of the former variety.

There's nothing like bloghouse to be on the cutting edge of self-parody

A couple quoteables:
"Top MP3 blog Discobelle.net posted the remix on March 16, and it’s been a bit of a whirlwind for Plus Move ever since. Blogs from the Netherlands to New York were picking up on the pair’s dirty rocking dance sound."

"“At that time we both had discovered Daft Punk, which led to us falling in love with the sound of all the French electro artists.” Before Plus Move, Shifrin played in an indie-rock band and Mihailoff in a Rage Against the Machine cover band."

It’s got punk-rock attitude without the glitzy, pretty-boy type of a lot of dance music. People can just go rock out and have a good time. Daft Punk has a lot to do with it. They were doing this before anyone but still had that rock influence . . . and everyone loves to dance.”

how could you miss "We were working with the radio rip, and by the time we got the better version, it took just a couple of days to have that final edit. We knew we wanted to get our shit out there because, you know, Justice is huge, and people will eat that shit up."

EAT THAT SHIT, PEOPLE

Got a bad case of Rage Against The Mayonnaise

"It’s got punk-rock attitude without the glitzy, pretty-boy type of a lot of dance music"

http://www.jrj-socrates.com/Cartoon%20Pics/Fox/Simpsons/Poochy_300.gif

poochie rap >>>> uffie

drinking sweat from tramps socks is better than uffie

BAN punk rock attitude

"Before Plus Move, Shifrin played in an indie-rock band and Mihailoff in a Rage Against the Machine cover band."

!!! also, the "über" prefix should be put to rest. hint: if you regularly use words like "über-hip" you're most likely not.

I'm going to be out at a club tomorrow night where bloghouse will be played :( The sacrifices one makes to see dj funk.

better to hear it than read about it tho eh

I don't know about that.

isn't bloghouse stuff like switch, sinden & trevor loveys, rather than justice et al?

i hear ed banger described as nu-rave more than i hear it described as bloghouse.

it's really weird how there's loads of really quite different music getting lumped in together at the moment. which leads to a lot of strawman-bashing. hey ho.

I actually like Switch to a certain extent. This is sick is pretty good. Justice and the Ed Banger thing are what I think of immediately when the term blog house is used though those things you mentioned also come under that umbrella.

that must be a pretty fuck-off big umbrella

The unifying element is the audience.

mmm possibly

Throw in some faux-baltimore, some Drop the Lime, some ghettotech and you have the music policy at the blog-house nights I've been at.

well i've got to do something with my friday nights, jim

The unifying element is the audience.

that must be a pretty fuck-off big umbrella

ella ella ella ay ay ay

i like switch et al though perhaps not for extended periods of time. his rmx of 'bossy' = total 2006 jam.

hating on uffie while defending justice is...bizarre to say the least.

Not really. Instrumental Uffie would probably be better than Justice because Feadz is pretty ok, but those vocals really are the limit.

"disco sucks!"

Last year when MSTRKRFT played here, I made a joke to one of the mstrkrfters about a particular Switch track "never sounding like that when I play it". His response: "Yeah, we re-edit a lot of tunes that we play. You know, we take all the gay stuff out."

mstrkrftrs = noize boarders

they probably meant "gay" as in "lame", not "homosexual"

but i take your point

let's face it, this is dance music that's going to work for an audience of straight white people who are NEVER EVER EVER going to come around to "love can't turn around", except in the same goofy way they'll do the "kill whitey" dance to the crassest gangster rap with a big goofy overbite.

does that make it bad? i say no, and i also say this is where the big split is in this thread: people who are unwilling to listen to music made by and for people they wouldn't hang out with, and people who are either willing or define the range of people they'd hang out with much more broadly.

Someone here criticized it as sounding like heavy metal

^^ here's an example. yeah, GOD FORBID it sound like some of the most thrilling music of the 80s.

moonship can you talk about yr coming around from thinking its warmed over filter disco to saying THIS ALBUM RULES! cuz i get yr point if we're talking about 'waters of nazareth' and related but do you really like 'd.a.n.c.e.' that much? its not even GOOD filter disco, its ... tactless. or something. unfinished. i have no problem with big tacky populist dance like jj flores 'time for love' but i have to agree with what blunt said about how its like they're trying to hard to make an anthem, (cf also finney's explanation of the appeal of "Rocker")

i mean god i was the one promoting a richard humpty vission mix cd a few months back - i think ppl here are making an argument beyond audience.

i think d.a.n.c.e.'s relation to 'real' filterdisco is like the same as little brother or whoever to early 90s native tongues shit, and i like both

did you all notice that D.A.N.C.E. steals a big chunk of the madonna/britney track? i think that's part of what makes it so catchy.

yeah i was listening to dj sneak's "ju ju beats" dj mix from 2001 on the way to work today and i was like "oh yeah, this is filter disco", i mean real shit that totally sonned daft punk (their "disco cubizm" remix = total dj sneak ripoff), also i kept thinking "blunt just loathe this".

i guess what i was struck by w/ the justice album was that it took all that french glitch-hop stuff that people were excited about for a minute (nu-oizo, jackson, etc) and refracted it through the lens of grinding electrohouse, but then slowed it down to deep house / radioslave pace so that it sits a little better w/ my 30 year old heart (as much as i like switch i think i would have a heart attack trying to dance to three hours of the stuff and i ride bikes for 50 miles at a time)

but the biggest thing is just ... tunes! they have tunes! they're catchy! simian mobile disco is NOT, digitalism is NOT. but justice ... like the bridge in "waters of nazareth", you can't really fuck with that tunefulness they've got.

i hate to come on all geir and whatnot but there's nothing wrong with some well-crafted sonority. justice has a nice way of piling several layers of synth on that i don't think SMD have really hit, except for maybe in their remix of peaches' "downtown"

people who are unwilling to listen to music made by and for people they wouldn't hang out with, and people who are either willing or define the range of people they'd hang out with much more broadly.

I dunno about this, man. I got many friends deep in the blog-house.

well good for you jim, i'm referring more to people who are like "this is dance for bad indie people who secretly don't actually like dance and should be shunned"

i dunno, though, this thread is like the worst trainwreck of people talking past each other / using mismatched vocabularies i've been privy to on ILX for a while. what did that dude lyotard call it? "the differend"? here's the "differend" in action:

Nothing's wrong with beautiful anthemic; everything's wrong with footstomping anthemic.

-- blunt, Thursday, May 31, 2007

see i basically don't even know where to go with this. what's next, you're going to tell me that jumpstyle is stupid or something?

blunt are you actaully osunlade?!?!?

because i liked your two "offering" dj mixes and the 1cd yoruba comp but the 2 disc thing on soul jazz was sorta wack.

well good for you jim, i'm referring more to people who are like "this is dance for bad indie people who secretly don't actually like dance and should be shunned"

I am a bit like this but then I use my critical faculties for a second and realise that, whether this is true or not*, criticising a music for its fanbase is really retarded to the Nth degree. Yeah, these threads do tend to just be people at cross purposes, statements that need unpacking or statements that are so void of content they may as well not be there etc. This being on both sides. Though I think people who like this stuff are perhaps a little bit better at defining why than the haters (myself included).

* I don't believe it is. One of my best friend is into a lot of this blog-house stuff and he's had 1200s since he was fifteen or something and gives me a loan of his old deep house records. Also last time I saw a blog-house type dj he dropped "The chase" so it's certainly not all about parvenus and indie-kids.

the best i can figure is that a lot of people really don't like big chunks of this erol-alkan-championed scene so they're not really giving the justice album a fair listen.

i really really wanted to dislike this album as much as i really really wanted to dislike "waters of nazareth" (based on principle) but after a couple of listens i was like "hey! this is actually really good!"

i'm having a hard time sorting out / articulating why i like it maybe because i'm very strongly disliking lots of other stuff in this vein (mstrkrft, SMD, etc)

"Work On You" and "Hustler" are jams though...

Jumpstyle isn't stupid! It's stoopid.
Well I dunno what I meant with that "beautiful vs. stomping anthemic" remark, after the offhand ELO comment. Something to do with wilful lack of subtlety, lowest common denominator pandering, dumbed-down-for-the-crowd, lighter-waving stadium chants, Simple Minds, U2 & Status Quo. Beautiful anthemic evokes balearic stuff, E2E4... I actually have no idea what I'm going on about here. That'll teach me not to get sidetracked so easily.

Waters Of Nazareth is a pretty good example of anthemic stomping, and it's... not... so bad! I had uh, unbeknownstly heard it before. Not unlike crack or mickey D's, it's a very simple, efficient and short fix, and pretty corny too. A little too earnest for its' own good. But the headbanging distorted bass & beat come off gimmicky-lame after three listens, metal-grating in a way that unnecessarily fills in all voids and silences without much reason nor effort. Throwaway peaktime balls-to-the wall aggro house!

If I were Osunlade I'd put a spell on you fozzie bear.

Also I just counted no less than 37 spines in the DJ Sneak section of my collection, dunno about his DJ mixes but I can't imagine loathing them!

selfxpost- Osunlade is an ordained priest is why I'm saying this! I am so not hitting on you!

Something to do with wilful lack of subtlety, lowest common denominator pandering, dumbed-down-for-the-crowd, lighter-waving stadium chants, Simple Minds, U2 & Status Quo. Beautiful anthemic evokes balearic stuff, E2E4...

i think it's this 'noisy dumb vs smart balearic/minimal' dichotomy which is making me want to defend Justice, even though i'm not keen on most of their stuff. there's these two vaguely-defined schools of dance music coming out at the moment, and it seems like that sort of ed banger music gets attacked for drawing too much influence from 97 daft punk / filter disco, even though the beardo/cosmic stuff is just as backward-looking. but there's this "THESE sets of references are ironic and stupid, however THESE sets of references are clever and stimulating" level of discourse that's kinda boring for both sides.

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drf600/f613/f61317z4z1m.jpg

vs

http://www.discogs.com/image/R-66294-1098388417.jpg

spencer otm, as ever

second image not showing up:

vs

http://pressrandom.com/images/powerpill.jpg

can't we have both

NEVER

the dialectic of culture stops at ILM

MyDiamondStarCar (4 days ago) marked as spam

dj funk seemed admiring the first listen, but now it seems a little underwhelming compared to Uffie, Justice, Feadz, and the rest. he seems like a crazy guy though, ha

i'm not sure i'm verbalizing myself properly so i've gone back to making fun of their fans

if only dj funk could be more like uffie

you mean looks-wise yeah?

scrawny dork vs. american apparel model

oh wait...which one is which?

it makes perfect sense to hate "pop the glock" and "ready to uff" and be OK with "d.a.n.c.e." - the first two just don't FIT her

oh snap

I love both DJ Funk *and* Uffie (and Manuel Göttsching for that matter!).

does that make it bad? i say no, and i also say this is where the big split is in this thread: people who are unwilling to listen to music made by and for people they wouldn't hang out with, and people who are either willing or define the range of people they'd hang out with much more broadly.

sometimes music becomes too important to you to approach it in that rational a way. I don't mean that patronisingly either, just that where I'm at at the moment is getting a real escape from the music I listen to, and so it kind of becomes more personal then. that breeds rockism I guess.

<i>i think it's this 'noisy dumb vs smart balearic/minimal' dichotomy which is making me want to defend Justice, even though i'm not keen on most of their stuff. there's these two vaguely-defined schools of dance music coming out at the moment, and it seems like that sort of ed banger music gets attacked for drawing too much influence from 97 daft punk / filter disco, even though the beardo/cosmic stuff is just as backward-looking. but there's this "THESE sets of references are ironic and stupid, however THESE sets of references are clever and stimulating" level of discourse that's kinda boring for both sides.</i>

I think that's well put -- right now it's the discourse around Justice et al (mostly pro, but occasionally anti as well) that bugs me so much. I hate it when people take the line that "OMG Justice actually roxx because they use distortion, when all that other oonce-oonce dance music is just made for listening to in wine bars," because it says to me that the speaker doesn't know what they're talking about; anyone who's been to Berghain knows that people do indeed go crazy to TMFKAM (the music formerly known as "minimal"). And setting up that false dichotomy isn't just annoying from an abstract, logical standpoint, but also because it only serves to reinforce mainstream hipster prejudices against other kinds of dance music. (In other words, cf MSTRKRFT, "we take out all the gay parts.")

I'm not a huge fan of Justice -- I really don't like "D.A.N.C.E." -- but I don't mind everything they've done; I actually think "Waters" is pretty great, and they blew me away at the Fixed party in Miami. I hope they continue to develop and to gather fans; I just would like to see the hype around them become a little more inclusive. But of course that's not the way that hipster monocultures work.

mmm i hate it when people say, of stuff i love, that it's not the music they hate but the hype...but while i realise, looking through the all the acts mentioned here, that each of them has at least one track i love (even uffie), it's just not an aesthetic which stands up to being repeated, and more importantly it's not a direction i'd be happy to see dance music - especially dance music which gets mainstream attention - go in, esp if this is at the expense of minimal.

i say no, and i also say this is where the big split is in this thread: people who are unwilling to listen to music made by and for people they wouldn't hang out with, and people who are either willing or define the range of people they'd hang out with much more broadly.

nah i know loads of people into blog house, inc actual parisian mates of justice (who, having introduced it to me years ago, are themselves now bored of it).

though i am automatically wary of any music which takes a genre traditionally friendly to non-straight-white-men, and makes it more friendly to straight-white-men.

also, heavy metal fucking sucks.

i wish i'd listened to 'waters' earlier ... it really does kind of rule

it's not a direction i'd be happy to see dance music - especially dance music which gets mainstream attention - go in, esp if this is at the expense of minimal.

on behalf of all nonwhite peoples everywhere i thank you for your concern, lex. please help keep dance music safe for us.

btw dude, LOL @ namedropping your parisian friends who know justice

I don't see justice luv being "at the expense of" minimal, but (if we can use this "at the expense of" type logic, which is dubious generally) perhaps of the more commercial stuff in the space between funky house and electro-house that is actually not that far from Ed Banger, just minus the kind of self-conscious wonkiness which characterises the latter.

More interesting than "why justice and not minimal" or vice versa is "Why justice and not "Rock This Party" or "Candy Girl" or the Groove Armada single with Stush or etc. etc."

ie. the argument here is being cast as one between intelligence (minimal) and fun (ed banger etc.)

Whereas I think a more interesting (because harder to measure in neutral stylistic terms) argument is between fun (commercial stuff) and "fun" (ed banger etc.)

Am I being unfair putting "fun" in quotation marks for the latter group? Perhaps. But I don't think the argument that Ed Banger is "just stupid fun" really stands up when so much thought clearly goes into their aesthetic, visually, musically and discursively. I'm not convinced that they're being ironic any more than I would be w/r/t Daft Punk, but there's certainly a certain self-consciousness at work.

Ha ha everytime I say on ILX "this thread would be more interesting if we talk about <x>" the response is "..."

you are otm though

I'm going to make a bmore mix of "E2-E4" right now!

Also Tim, not sure if you saw my question upthread about whether the Brains nights were any "fun"?

I'm going to make a bmore mix of "E2-E4" right now!

maybe tim not otm

because justice isn't fun like fun, it's "fun" the way dressing up to go out is: fun, but also fraught with anxiety. it's fun for fasionistas, ie "fun"

minimal is fun too, also fraught with anxiety, tho in a more intellectual sense. fun for cerebral people (or continental dudes who are too weeded, ie hawtin + gang) - swings from dissociated "fun" like we did too much drugs "fun" (loco dice) all the way to cerebral "fun", fun like arguing on ilx fun (luciano)

the more accurate comparison maybe is ... "Why beardo house and not "Rock This Party" or "Candy Girl" or the Groove Armada single with Stush or etc. etc."

Er I think I agree with this though - well maybe not the last post b/c I'm not sure where you're placing beardo house in this maelstrom of choices - esp. as regards its relationship to Quesh etc.

See yeah I agree that minimal and justice both have a conflicted relationship to "fun". The conflicts are different and the sonic material is different, but the difference between them is not the extent to which they embrace fun, hence comparing them doesn't tell us that much about justice etc. except how far it is from minimal.

Whereas it seems to me that the truth of the "fun" about which Justice is conflicted is stuff like Quesh. This is what I meant in my Ed Banger 2 review when I (to paraphrase) said "Rock The Party" is where Ed Banger half wants to go and is half afraid to go.

Whereas I think a more interesting (because harder to measure in neutral stylistic terms) argument is between fun (commercial stuff) and "fun" (ed banger etc.)

ding ding ding.

"because justice isn't fun like fun, it's "fun" the way dressing up to go out is: fun, but also fraught with anxiety. it's fun for fasionistas, ie "fun"

http://www.onelove.com.au/pics2007/onelove_pix_070519/source/image/img_3639.jpg

yeah fashionistas my ass.....the only people I know who like Justice are college students, it's practically everything people accuse minimal of in terms of audience. every gig they've played here has been organised through Trinity College, which is where British people go when they don't get into Cambridge or Oxford.

I've played plenty of clubs where it's a wider mix of people and I wouldn't get asked to play them if I was playing Justice style stuff because it doesn't translate like techno.

maybe that's the difference between America and Europe. but worth considering since we seem to have entered the awful realm of "minimals are like this" and "justice fans are like this" YET AGAIN

Yeah this blog house/minimal dichotomy is ludicrous, I don't know why we're even talking about it. If Justice etc are taking the audience away from any part of dance music (dubious notion at best) then surely the biggest overlap is either commercial electrohouse or (more likely) breaks?

i think the "taking the audience away" idea is crazy, but the dichotomy isn't necessarily... talking to "serious" house heads a few years ago, they would say stuff like "i don't know what this is but i like it" or "what do you call this?" and i'd say "it's just dance music isn't it?". i mean, even taking a look at "serious" dance music boards this is seen as something different and it's seemingly only come into consideration very recently.

this i agree with <i>it's just not an aesthetic which stands up to being repeated</i> ... but just to be even thru the whole 'this' vs 'that' thing ... there's a lot of uninspired music in every subgenre. there are just as many mediocre sounding beardos with sheep-y reference points.

i think the BIG difference is that there is an actual social audience for justice et all and minimal. the only people who like beardo beyond the internet are europe and brooklyn.

rock music...which none of us have a particular affinity for.

Uh, I am heavily involved in dance music, and LOVE rock music. I just don't like new rock music, because honestly, it is boring music to listen to, almost as boring as Justice or Uffie. But give me some James Gang or Bruce or something and I'm all ears.

rock music...which none of us have a particular affinity for.

I can't see where you're quoting this from on this thread but I listen to rock & metal. Listening to pissed jeans right now.

yeah, I LOVE MUSIC. i just don't like justice (or uffie or....), and have a particular dislike for much new indie-rock (or whatever). i DO like Switch a bit, and Mehdi has some okay tracks, but i just can't fathom the love for this other stuff.

also, spencer, though i agree with your comments about the US in general, i think that it is a bit of an overstatement to say that people get bummed out by techno here. i was DJing parties in Oberlin, OH, last week, and as long as i started with some good funk and disco jams and built up to house and techno, people were loving it. i mean, people were LOSING THEIR SHIT when i played "Arabs in the Dessert" and "How We Rock," and i started a lot of oberlin kids on a Defected urban-house trip by playing the shit out of Julien Jabre and Sydenham stuff a while back...

though a small town in Ohio is no cross-section of the US in general (esp. given the number of college students), i think that your problem might be more that the people you party/dance with are boring and uninterested in shit that smells different than their own.

that and it's not like house and techno clubs are going out of business right now. tons of people have been at every single techno set i've attended, with the possible exception of Mayday/Saunderson/Pullen/Burridge at the WMC, where i assume the crowd was buttfucking to Tiesto on the beach while these LEGENDS played to a nearly empty room.

i think that your problem might be more that the people you party/dance with are boring and uninterested in shit that smells different than their own.

have you forgotten w/ whom spencer parties?

http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/7582/quojapanesejesusds1.jpg

the uffie track is atrocious. can't be repeated enough. the rest is pretty good. i dunno, it doesn't strike me as much of a dancefloor record tho. not in a "this is bad dance music" way, more just that they weren't going for that in the first place. 'stress' and 'phantom' are the best tracks and they're working some horror-movie soundtrack vibe.

(see also: erol's edit of 'waters of nazareth' having a much better understanding of dancefloor dynamics than the original.)

'stress' and 'phantom' are the best tracks and they're working some horror-movie soundtrack vibe.

phantom = the theme from argentos 'tenebre'! i still like hatiras 'the anthem' better tho ;)

"Phantom" is great yeah.

bimble yr making me seem knowledgeable on a dance thread! theres a whole history of dudes using 'old style disco songs' in dance, this is not new

Good, I'm glad to hear it! Doesn't mean my ignorance of such things makes my opinion lesser than yours or anyone else's here. And it doesn't outright mean that Justice sucks.

Actually there's something about the beat of D.A.N.C.E. that reminded me of the first bit of LCD Soundsystem's "45:33" which I think I'm going to pull out in a minute here.

I'm also planning to play the Justice album in its entirety very soon.

I, for one, welcome our new French house overlords.

I have to give them some bonus points for the album's inside sleeve art (on the t-shirt in this image) because it reminds me of the old paperback covers for PKD's VALIS with Space Jesus:

http://www.arcademode.com/catalog/images/items/ed_banger_records/amsp001.jpg

http://www.philipkdick.com/covers/valis-british.jpg

http://www.philipkdick.com/covers/valis.jpg

the Justice logo reminds me of a bad hardcore band, tho.

There is a bad hardcore band called Justice.

Oh, here's their myspace http://www.myspace.com/justicehc

Bahahaha

would people like this band better if they just thought of them as like another version of AIR?

because as i was listening to this album again last night i realized i had no desire to get up and dance jack my body around the room (as i do when i listen to the new cajmere vs green velvet mix) but i really liked listening to it and didn't want to turn it off.

i guess the immediate objection might be: "but it doesn't sound as lush as air"

i would have dance with all this justice reel 2 real cajmere whatever

http://pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/43488

Please tell me she didn't actually just say something so attrocious as "champagne kisses and Chaka Khan dreams"

stupid fucking bitch

bwAHHHhahaha

what do girls know about rock and roll anyway?

she really needs to be strung up and gang raped

I would hit it

with pizza crusts

i don't think i'd like them any better if i thought of them like AIR, who are lush and loungey. justice sound much more like an electro band than an ambient-pop band.

also, Justice will never match the brilliance of Logan's Sanctuary, so fuck 'em.

that review was well-written jess, but i still think this album and this group really blow-- like fr serious, i don't "get" it-- it just sounds fucking annoying.

my first draft was much more antagonistic and defensive until i realized that i really have no interest in defending the vast swathe of blog haus

as 'moonship journey to baja' said, but to everyone: chillax

hah the air comparison makes sense to me but i don't much like Air :(

I agree with table is the table...I still hate this!

and everything it stands for.

and all its empty promises.

devil signs are surely only done by FALSE METALLERS or lindi england nowadays.

justice is so not kult or necro

what are its 'empty promises'?

abortions for some, miniature american flags for others

what are its 'empty promises'?

I just think it kind of sins against the religion of deep house.

or I was just joking

It wipes its ass over the sacred traditions espoused by true pioneers like Ricardo, Richie, and Richard.

Or was it Robert.

Carl and Craig.

ronan(11:10:52 AM): do they think i am quoting catholic mass rejection of satan about justice
ronan(11:10:56 AM): sincerely
strongo(11:10:01 AM): you should quote the cub scout creed next
strongo (11:10:03 AM): on my honor
strongo (11:10:06 AM): i will do my duty
strongo (11:10:15 AM): to obey ricardo and richie
strongo (11:10:20 AM): and to the follow the law of kompakt

i like the (lol apologist) review

Great review (except for the perfunctory swipe at Uffie). Since I see this album as just really good and not suprising at all, I don't get why some people find it so annoying - unless I am part-of-the-problem...

Downloaded the album this morning, and only made it as far as "Phantom Pt. II." It's for people who found Daft Punk too subtle and complex, basically. None for me, thanks.

Spencer, I don't think you'll ever persuade me of Justice's merits, but can you enlighten me on Uffie? I mean, don't you find her voice incredibly irritating? What's the deal?

not much to it dude, quirky party girly rap

sometimes the haters make me wish i liked this

Why am I just not hearing why this is anything other than a french house record?

Sorry to check you all (this is going to be a little like my Dr. Who intrusion), but I heard one of the singles from this record recently and it bored me to tears. Even accounting for the fact some people love it, how can such simple music account for so much fevered debate?

now that is a dumbo question.

It was deliberately gauche; I'd like to see how the ILM dancepop eggheads approach external 'idiocy'.

i dispute "external"

As for Uffie, I find her whole delivery charming and there are actually some great hooks and melodies (especially on "Pop the Glock" and the new "First Love" - which everyone here will likely HATE).

Why so? (I have no opinion on Uffie either way.)

yeah but spencer you need to understand that it's not okay for rich white people to say "pop the glock" in public, ever. it's the 00s version of siouxse endorsing nazism.

dude it is pretty tacky

i mean i don't think anyone's getting all hugo chavez about it or something

Really? Isn't that phrase totally ancient and wouldn't a white person, or any person using it today be doing it for mildly ironic hyperbole?

yes, just like the n-word

Also, in the song it is said/sung in the sweetest way possible.

And NO, not like the n-word.

Be honest folks, you just don't like it cause it's French. Not because it's not good.

I mean, she delivers the actual line in an autotuned child-like sing-songy "Frère Jacques" style.

Isn't "glock" hysteria from like 1990?

just like prussian blue

first person to do a prussian blue/oizo - "nazis" mash-up = one million points (in hell)

uffie=false metal

i like some of this record, but the mr oizo pwns it from a very great height

especially "patrick 22", some kind of demon k-disco with car alarm sax - so good

sorry "new mr oizo" that should read

i really dig the fake slap bass noises on "phantom"

mr. oizo is better than justice, yeah, and "patrick 22" is probably top 10 of the year for me

ILM hate just makes me want to like Uffie more. Spencer just tell me u prefer the Sebastian remix of 'Pop The Glock' at least (where Uffie is rendered indecipherable, as it probably should be!).

and Spence re your French house comment, do you not think the beats have a lot to do with it? if 'New Jack' was a little faster, a little longer and had a thumping 4/4 instead of the stilted break it would be a great French house track in the established mould (maybe with the sampled vocals a little more decipherable at times).

Is moonunit of bajafresh hot?

in my mind vahid looks like yul brynner

so YES

i am hot.

hot-to-trot, that is.

how come everybody talks about D.A.N.C.E. but not D.V.N.O.?

i've decided D.A.N.C.E. is the answer track to "stand on the word".

The Uffie track on here isn't actually bad at all! Mostly because the backing is good and the vocal sounds more like Robyn than Uffie (cue Lex foaming at mouth).

Every other Uffie track = rubbish.

dvno >>>>>> dance

The original "Pop the Glock" is where it's at for me because I actually think Uffie's voice/delivery is great.

And regarding the music, I mean, haven't all those things been done before, en francais? Why is this style surprising anyone? Mirwais was often overdriven, Daft Punk's last album was a kind of lazy template, Oizo has always been "challenging", even Braxe makes atmospheric tracks (The Paradise etc). This just seems like another good-to-great part of that same French house continuum.

Anyone who remixes Uffie seems to end up chopping her vox up to bits, as if there was agreement among many producers that this is priority one ha. Well I'm thinking of Seb and Crystal Castles mainly I guess.

in my mind vahid looks like yul brynner

-- blueski, Tuesday, June 12, 2007 8:06 PM (42 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

haha this is otm

i am also liking the DVNO

"new jack" is just "rock on"/"windowlicker" on weightgainer5000

there's not much point in saying this really, but it strikes me that much of the ed banger stuff shares alot of similarities with early 00s idm, its almost like a house update of all that distorted gabba rude boy hyper-jungle shit that kid 606, dat politics, lesser, knifehandchop et al used to put out; fun, irreverant, slightly zany & obnoxious, some fake thug/rude boy signifiers, streamlined of any deepness, and occasionally uncomfortable to dance to. ed banger itself is a very idm sounding label name.

then again the beat on ne-yo's "sex with my ex" kinda sounds like a robotrippin' jackson

("the new janet jackson kinda sounds like mouse on mars!!" blah blah blah)

i just posted about robotripping

The Uffie track on here isn't actually bad at all! Mostly because the backing is good and the vocal sounds more like Robyn than Uffie [...]
-- Matt DC

NO WAI. this is really most annoying track on here, still. just the backing, not the vocal, which has sort of grown on me.

vahid you don't have a robotripping problem do you?

It's just a robotripping POSTING problem, uh huh.

Iranian Robo Cup Team in Final

BERLIN, June 17--Iran has reached the final round of this year’s Robo Cup, currently taking place in north German city of Bremen, an Iranian team spokesman told IRNA on Friday.
“Several Iranian Robo Cup teams have qualified for Saturday’s final round of the 10th Robo Cup in Bremen,“ said Mohammad Kashani Vahid who heads a joint Robo Cup team from Tehran’s Polytechnical University and Sharif University, IRNA reported.

Braxe could never be indie in the way that Justice are. He is a timeless house music hero.

http://www.culturalresources.com/images/CaesarRubicon.jpg

49 BC: braxe crosses the rubicon

Alea iacta est!

Just kidding about true house music...but there is something more proudly naff about Braxe than Justice. I mean, Intro, that could never be a Justice track and is very far from the current style of French House.

And Rubicon, that was practically "Sussudio".

Braxe is to Phil Collins as Justice are to metal.

i am still upset that jess + crabbe never took off

come on now, you can't compare an artist to a genre

I don't know enough about metal to guess who Justice are supposed to sound like.

me=false metal

justice are the van helden to braxe's kenny dope

haha i though for a split-second that van helden was a van halen pun

etienne de crecy = todd terry
braxe = bobby konders
cassius = masters at work
daft punk = vasquez + tenaglia
justice = van helden

people should really stop talking about "daft punk" and start talking about "bangalter and homem-christo". i can't believe crydamoure and roule still get such short shrift compared to "discovery" ... give me the singles (or even "my house in montmartre") over "homework" or "discovery" any day.

i am torn between doing a track-by-track breakdown of the justice album and eating a burrito

waves II was pretty great. like eating a gigantic bag of sugary sweets.

Braxe = Eddie Van Halen
Justice = RATM

or maybe Soundgarden

who is winger

i never heard anything by Le Knight Club that didn't make me go 'alllllright' Quagmire style.

Why is this style surprising anyone? Why is this style surprising anyone?
Why is this style surprising anyone? Why is this style surprising anyone?
Why is this style surprising anyone? Why is this style surprising anyone?
Why is this style surprising anyone? Why is this style surprising anyone?
Why is this style surprising anyone? Why is this style surprising anyone?
Why is this style surprising anyone? Why is this style surprising anyone?

Daft Punk-Radiohead
Justice-Muse
Mylo-Coldplay

Spencer, you hit the nail on the head: this style isn't surprising. It isn't particularly interesting. And it isn't particularly pleasurable, imo.

so you keep saying HITLER

I'm glad someone else is doggedly refusing to stop hating on this record.

All I want to know is why there is a 600-post thread dedicated to such laughably uninteresting music?

(this is a genuine provocation, i.e. so that someone will explain WHY it is interesting)

Groove Armada = Rikk
Lindstrom & Prins Thomas = Neil
LCD Soundsystem = Mike
Basement Jaxx = Vyvyan
Justice = Alexei Sayle

x-post why not read the thread?

hey louis have you tried nintendo DS "brain training"

*gulps* Very well. I may even stick D.A.N.C.E. on again just to remind myself why I disliked it in the first place.

xpost

BULLET DODGED, VAHID

i hope v. ate the burrito and has not been composing that breakdown for the past 40 minutes

REALLY

what's your problem, lfam?

Haha I think the Air comment might be OTM after all, for some reason the first half of this sounds much better at low volume than it did when I was blaring it out trying to get the appeal.

I = old man, clearly.

justice is all right ... p*tchf*rk had a glowing review, and digitalism has gotten the same. I mean, this stuff isn't anything mind blowingly new, but hey - anything's better than that minimal crap.

what kind-of people even "dance" to minimal? is it some big 24hr berlin dorkfest?

http://www.traveldocs.com/images/europe_b.jpg

Justice sound NOTHING like any metal band in history. Jeez, just because the artwork references Metallica...

i heard it was a 72 hour berlin drugfest but whatevs

franco filter metal

i truly love this thread. (actually, i'm still laughing at the third post.)

i heard it was a 72 hour berlin drugfest but whatevs

72 hour Berlin drugfest vs 5 hour london beerfest

both have their merits...

I was just thinking neither sound too appealing to me right now...

I mean, this stuff isn't anything mind blowingly new, but hey - anything's better than that minimal crap.

on shitty earbuds: justice > minimal
on a club system: minimal > justice

you can get 5 pairs of shitty earbuds for the price of 1 club admission so justice wins, obviously

all this stuff about compression and sound quality reminds me that one of my favourite sounds on a recent record is the "clipped" piano at the end of the Margaret Berger album. it's lovely, and when i was first listening to it on 'shitty earbuds' i thought it was just that, but played proper it sounds the same and i was so pleased and smiled v hard.

fuck me, this thread...

(album launch on monday was surprisingly enervating, if also surprisingly a bit like a f(r)atboy slim show)

the only ppl i've met irl into minimal were from, like, argentina, india and egypt. most of the europeans i met in college were into indie rock or random world beat stuff. one dude really into manu chao. but the point is, my anecdotal experience implies mnml is popular w/ lots of ppl outside the u.s. and not just europe

Justice radio 1 essential mix

Earth Wind And Fire ‘In The Stone’
Janet Jackson ‘What Have You Done For Me Lately’
Prince ‘Earthquake’
Dmx Crew ‘Unknown’
Daft Punk :’Musique’
Busy P ‘Rainbow Man’
France Gall ‘Musique’
Justice ‘Valentine’
Alan Braxe ‘In Love With You’
M83 ‘Run Into Flowers (Jackson Remix)’
Les Rythmes Digitales ‘Sometimes’
I Robot ‘Spacer Frau (Boys Noize Remix)’
Hall And Oates ‘Private Eyes’
Chromeo ‘Tenderoni’
Tepr ‘Minuit Jacuzzi (Data Remix)
Chic ‘Everybody Dance’
Midnight Juggernauts ‘Shadows’
Goose ‘Bring It On’
The Proxy ‘Destroy’
Zongamin ‘Double Dostiev’
Zombie Nation ‘Tape Me’
Boule Noire ‘Super Lady’
Chemical Brothers ‘It Doesn't Matter’
Tc Crew ‘Unknown’
Surkin ‘Unknown’
Dj Mehdi ‘Lucky Boy (Surkin Remix)’
Vamp ‘Outlander’
Fields ‘Unknown (Sebastian Remix)’
Feadz ‘Sekstyle’
Jamelia ‘Something About You (Mr Oizo Remix)’
Jesse Velez ‘Fire’
Justice ‘D.A.N.C.E’.(Live Version)
Surkin ‘Radio Fireworks’
Soundhack ‘Freakin’
Justice ‘Stress’
Zzt ‘Lower States’
Justice ‘Stress’
Scenario Rock ‘Both Gotta Move On’
Vanessa Paradis ‘Be My Baby’
The Ronettes ‘Be My Baby’
Breakbot ‘Happy Rabbit’
Jacques Dutronc ‘Les Cactus’
Justice ‘Dvno’
Kavinsky ‘Testarossa Autodrive’
LFO ‘Freak’
Mr Oizo ‘Lotus Suite Koln’
Autorepeat ‘Most Keys Are Auto Repeat’ (Soundhack)
Midnight Juggernauts ‘Into The Galaxy’
Buggles ‘Elstree’
Das Pop ‘Underground’
Gilbert O Sullivan ‘Alone Again (Naturally)’
Human League ‘Things That Dreams Are Made Of’
Savas Pascalidis ‘Defend It’
Rainbow Brothers ‘Unknown’
Chromeo ‘Ah Oui Comme Ca’
Leonard De Leonard ‘Leonizer’
Ian Pooley ‘Chord Memory –(Daft Punk Mix)’
Human League ‘Don't You Want Me’
The Prodigy ‘Girls’
Klaxons ‘Gravity’s Rainbow (Soulwax Remix)’
Paraone ‘Liege’
Daniel Balavoine ‘Vivre Ou Survivre’
Miss Kittin ‘Requiem For A Hit (Gegm Remix)’
Mr Oizo ‘Stunt’
Handycap ‘Murphy’
The Rave ‘Mother’
Fancy ‘Inside Of You’
Syreeta Wright ‘Sweet As Candy’
Modest Mussorgsky ‘Night On A Bald Mountain’
Joni Mitchell ‘California’

i feel like i was just scrolling thru someone's itunes

x-post that's absolutely true, I would guess.

http://kirradio.blogspot.com/2007/06/justice-bbc-radio-1-essential-mix.html

the only ppl i've met irl into minimal were from, like, argentina, india and egypt.

absolutely correct. theres a huge amount of this in london

huge amount of south americans out in london these days!

I will listen to this mix to see how/if it actually works. It looks pretty ridiculous, even for me! although it's more a case of weak ideas (following a song called 'Be My Baby' with a song called 'Be My Baby' LULZ) and playing the same old tracks everyone but students with crazy hair probably sick of by now (Don't You Want Me). I still like tracks like those Tepr and Surkin ones tho.