The Null Device

2000/2/2

Insightful essay on dance music, the underground and corporate cultural strip-mining, by Giles Bowkett:

Consider what all forms of "rave" music have in common: illegal sampling, illegal substances, and illegal parties in illegal places. Dance music is fundamentally criminal music, and this, ironically, is what protects it. The corporate overlords of mainstream culture have created a structure of copyright laws to centralize their own wealth and power. This same structure makes it impossible for them to use sampling as recklessly and creatively as underground producers... The inherent criminality of the rave subculture puts it into a position similar to that occupied by suppressed black musical subcultures throughout this century, and in so doing allows it to generate a similar degree of creativity and richness.

0

After EMI/Warner: The Economist on the dim future of record companies.

0

God-Man defeated by a rather familiar-looking supervillain? (Tom the Dancing Bug)

0