Bcm301 Week 9 Amen

BCM 301 week 9 Music History 2.0: The Amen Breakbeat

Andrew Whelan [email protected] 19.2010

Overview •  Approaching breaks, an example: Think •  Social history of the amen –  from black pride to jungle

•  Why care about breakcore? –  the amen post-Napster –  the amen, contemporary subculture, and the market

What’s a break? Breakbeats are “points of rupture in their former contexts, points at which the thematic elements of a musical piece are suspended and the underlying rhythms brought center stage” (Rose 1994: 73-74).

Rose, Tricia. 1994. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. London: Wesleyan University Press.

Think Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock: “It Takes Two” (1988, US)

Think Lynn Collins: “Think (about it)” (1972, US)

Think Various Production: “Hater” (2004, UK)

Think Dave Nada: “Where Brooklyn At” (2007, US)

Think Kid Cudi vs. Crookers: “Day‘n’Nite” (2008, US)

Breaks not addressed: Funky Drummer, Hotpants, Impeach the President, When the Levee Breaks, Apache, Give the Drummer Some, Give it Up or Turn it Loose … etc.

Why address breaks? Breakbeats as material history Breakbeats as the wiring of popular western dance musics since the birth of hip-hop Breakbeats as musemes

Amen The Winstons: “Amen, Brother” (1969, US)

Amen Roots: Jester Hairston: “Amen” (1963, US)

Amen Roots: Curtis Mayfield: “We’re a Winner” (1968, US)

So how did we get here? Bizzy B: “Calling the Amen” (2008, UK)

(Re)surfacing in hip-hop N.W.A: “Straight Outta Compton” (1988, US)

But don’t forget: 2 Live Crew: Feel Alright Y’all 3rd Bass: Wordz of Wisdom Brand Nubian: The Godz Must Be Crazy Eric B. and Rakim: Casualties of War Funky Technicians: Airtight Heavy D: MC Heavy D! Heavyweight: : Oh Gosh J. Majik: Arabian Nights Maestro Fresh Wes: Bring it On Nice & Smooth: Dope Not Hype Salt-N-Pepa: Desire Scarface: Born Killer Schoolly D: How a Black Man Feels etc., all around 88-90

In early UK breakbeat Mantronix: “King of the Beats” (1988, UK)

Rave / ‘breakbeat hardcore’ Sonz of a Loop da Loop Era: “Calm Downizm” (1993, UK)

But as rave becomes jungle it gets dark Marvellous Cain: “Dub Plate Style” (1994, UK)

Jungle Cutty Ranks: “Limb by Limb (DJ SS mix)” (1995, US)

Jungle “Jungle represents an extraordinary leap forward in popular music form and sonority. Its rich polymetre and textural syntax, together with the low salience of melody and harmony, mark a radical departure from earlier styles … The sheer speed of the successive moves from house, to rave, to jungle in the period 1988-94 is also unprecedented” (2000: 140). Toynbee, Jason. 2000. Making Popular Music: Musicians, Creativity and Institutions. London: Arnold.

Soundsystem as war machine

Back into obscurity Digital Hardcore Records (Berlin) Ambush Records (London), and Bloody Fist Records (Newcastle NSW), circa 1995-2000, keep producing ‘underground’ techno and keep using the amen Jackal & Hide: “The Jackal” (1997, UK)

Emergence of breakcore Venetian Snares: “Clearance Bin” (2001, CAN)

Bedroom producers Epsilon: “Pills” (2004, AUS)

‘Plunderphonics’ and ‘hardcorifying’ the mainstream Killjoy: “Britney Stole My Crackpipe” (2005, AUS)

Breakcore as hyperjungle, as pastiche Strog: “Paranoid Mash up” (2006, POL)

Subcultures - the big picture “The monopolies and cartels of the early years … have given way to new patterns of corporate organization … the culture industry, a branch of the communications industry, which in turn is a huge outgrowth of the military-industrial complex … whose real pay-off is in the form of new commodities for the mass market … The result is the electronification, integration and now the computerization of the production, processing and distribution of information, entertainment, education, and cultural activity in general, which washes daily over the atomized consumer from cradle to grave” (Chanan 1994: 281-282). Chanan, Michael. 1994. Musica Practica: The Social Practice of Western Music from Gregorian Chant to Postmodernism. London: Verso.

Subcultures in a disenchanted world “Subcultures emerge when the larger culture fails to meet people’s needs – for example, to provide resources or meanings – so that some people find fault with the culture and form their own identity-granting communities of meanings. Large numbers of young people today have been rendered ‘surplus’ populations with dim economic prospects. Many others find the meanings and values provided by global capital and its culture industries, shallow, empty, vacuous, or dehumanized” (Langman and Halnon 2005: 273-274). Langman, Lauren, and Karen Halnon. 2005. “Globalization and the Grotesque.” Pp. 269-279 in Critical Globalization Studies, edited by Richard Appelbaum and William Robinson.London: Routledge.

Why care about breakcore? Because breakcore is ‘cool’: “Whether it is expressed as appropriation, sampling, defacement, or hacking, there will be nothing more cool – to use the term of the nascent, everyday aesthetics of knowledge work – than committing acts of destruction against what is most valued in knowledge work–the content, form or control of information” (Liu 2004: 8).

Liu, Alan. 2004. The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information. London: University of Chicago Press.

Why care about breakcore?

“It is possible to judge the strength of political power by its legislation on noise and the effectiveness of its control over it” (Attali 1985: 122). Attali, Jacques. 1985. Noise: The Political Economy of Music. London: University of Minnesota Press.