Is Advertising Killing Dubstep?

Ad industry publication Adweek posted a video gallery of TV commercials  featuring dubstep as background music. Though a capitalist news outlet, the  magazine regrets the co-option of underground music by big brands, while complaining about its formulaic use in mainstream media. The Adweek article is suggestively titled "10 Ads that Killed Dubstep".

Given the variety of EDM genres, why dubstep, one can ask. Maybe sounding a bit tautological, dubstep has gained popularity in recent years by being absorbed in pop music while keeping an urban edgy hip-hop vibe. (British creators have complained that Americans have deformed dubstep with aggressive unsynch overtones, pejoratively called "brostep"). Whether in milder or edgier forms, dubstep currently is one of the most popular EDM genres among the global youth generation, termed Millennials in marketing parlance: anyone born between late 1970s and early 2000s.

Indeed, dubstep is played in commercials promoting products for this youth segment: cereals, alcohol, candies, electronics, and video games. Though people of various ages consume these products, big brands must define a “target audience” working as the core demographic segment to be courted by marketing strategies.

Check the ads featured at Adweek to assess how congruent (or dissonant) dubstep is currently used by big brands in their messages to connect with Millennials. Is advertising killing dubstep, or, maybe, the excessive play of dubstep will eventually turn off Milleanials as "uncool"?  Feel free to leave your comment.

"When DJs Ruled the World" Really?...

Leading UK newspaper The Independent recently published an interesting article about British super clubs, curiously titled "When DJs Ruled the World". The sub headline reads: "These superstars had it all – fame, money, drugs. But come the millennium, the party was over. Dom Phillips, former editor of Mixmag, tracks the boom and bust of the great mixmasters." (March 13 2009).

Despite a few rushed passages, it highlights important moments in the history of clubbing in UK, from the mid-1980s "acid house" parties, to the meteoric rise of megaclubs and superstar DJs in the mid-1990s, to the fall of corporate clubbing in the early 2000s. It is quite interesting to see the notion of "clubbing bubble", "boom and bust" resonating with the current economic recession.

Now, take a look at the title again. "When DJs Ruled the World". Given that all examples refer to a handful of British clubs and British DJs, the allusion to "rulling the world" smacks as ethnocentric and imperialistic. (Substitute "DJs" by "Great Britain" or "The Queen", and you get the picture. Well, Americans too are prone to such exaggerations...).

There is nothing wrong in picking a few selected cases. But the history of clubbing is much more than superclubs and celebrity DJs being co-opted by the big press and record industry, as described by Mr. Phillips. Not for nothing, Mixmag was actually a central player in all that, thus the heavy bias. (Think of Wall Street brokers telling the history of banks...).

We should not forget the long tradition of countercultural movements in the UK, connecting and influencing the outside world. Within this larger picture, it becomes clear that the history of clubbing is much more than the Mixmag's line subculture-becomes-corporate-and-decline-period. Maybe back to the underground in UK, yet corporate in several other countries. "The beat still goes on".

1.6 Million at Love Parade 2008

The Love Parade attracted 1.6 million people this year. With the theme "Highway to Love", it featured 37 floats and 250 DJs from 15 countries. The massive crowd crammed along a 2km road in the city of Dortmund this last July 19.

The Love Parade is the largest outdoor electronica event in the world. From a single float with 150 people in Berlin 1989, it quickly became a mega spectacle amassing 1.5 million in 1999. It also inspired like-minded parades in Paris, Sidney, San Francisco and Rio.

However, the event has recently suffered some setbacks. It didn't happen in 2004 and 2005, due to financial problems. In 2006 it reappeared in Berlin with a 600,000 crowd. But city authorities denied permission for a future edition, as organizers failed to reach an agreement over sanitation and security issues. Are you planning on attending the Love Parade? You might want to get some cheap health insurance first. All those people mean good times but also a good headache perhaps.

The Love Parade was thus moved to the Ruhr metropolitan region, near the Dutch-French border. In 2007 it took place in the city of Essen, attracting 1.2 million people. Dortmund hosted the Love Parade this year. The next edition is scheduled to take place in Bochun town. With the new geographic location, the event may benefit from an extra influx of revelers for neighboring Netherlands, France and UK.

A change in the crowd demographics has been noticed over the years. Originally, the Love Parade congregated artistic, deviant and countercultural segments of metropolitan Berlin. Gradually, it started attracting more teen, working-class and small-town strata, which now make the mainstream of the Love Parade. (Watch the video).

In comparison with North America, Techno has achieved a truly popular status throughout Europe. Its popularity creates great opportunities for electronica artists and events. It also provides a source of entertainment, escape or enlightenment for millions of aficionados. By the same measure, mega events do require a good deal of coordination with urban authorities, to secure some safety and order.

Yet, it is odd to see official mayors formally and explicitly welcoming electronica events, in the hopes of boosting local tourism and bar sales. In the case of Dortmund's Love Parade, check the city-hosted website for the event, as well as the official Dortmund city website.

Is this one example of the cooptation of electronica? What do you think?

"Rumours of Rave's Demise"

News of a 60,000-strong "rave" party in Los Angeles appeared at LA Metromix (July 15, 2008). The article opens with this paragraph:

"No one expected the onslaught of humanity that crammed in and around the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum last month for the Electric Daisy Carnival, the annual rave that has played all over the West Coast since 1997. An estimated 60,000 party people danced to such DJs as Moby, Paul van Dyk and Benny Benassi, and it seems any rumors of rave’s demise have been greatly exaggerated." The article then goes on and on, with typical catchword references to "underground", "rave culture", "positivity" and even "P.L.U.R." (article).

With all due respect, it is nice to witness successful mega events like this, but a highly structured concert, with expensive tickets, in a modern stadium, featuring famous pop artists, is anything but a rave.

To define "rave", just invert the above italicized elements. Unfortunately, even by loose countercultural criteria, most events called "rave" nowadays are transvestites of such original, wild, free parties. Watch out. Or next time, you may be raving with mom and dad.