IS IT JUST ME OR......

squarepusher has merged styles and culls from the D&B vernacular-though it's probably more of a critcism of the style, much like that of aphex twin.

Yeah - a criticism, agreed. And personally, I have little interest in or even time for post-modern, ironic piss-takes of the vitalism of Jungle for the disinterested observer. Music with no meaning = bloodless music.

this invites people from the "mainstream" into a different realm and maybe makes them realize there are other sounds out there..... It interests me what mainstream artists think about this. Do they believe in the dnb they play and produce, or do they only play it for the kids and secretely want some more challenging music?

I think some of the big d+b DJs probably do yearn a little for the days when they had more freedom and when the music was more inventive and threw surprises their way and even challenged them more... I've certainly got that buzz off one or two we've had over before, and read one or two things to that effect elsewhere.

Nonetheless, at the end of the day, it's business as usual. The collective spirit of adventure that fuelled hardcore/jungle for the first few years and produced such amazing music appeared to galvanise everybody - now the collective has allowed a narrow concept of what the music actually IS to take hold, and for a limiting set of rules to become established to govern the music. With this in place, we now witness only the downside of the scene - the 'will to mediocrity' that has a stranglehold on the collective imagination of the scene and forces it to dumb down. Humans are creatures of habit, and they also have very short memories. Plus, these guys live in a world of cut-throat business where most of what is siad to them is said simply to please. If you're Dilinja and EVERYONE in your little scene tells you you're an unqualified genius a thousand times, what's to stop you developing P Diddy syndrome and actually believing that you can do no wrong?

here's what i want to know-where is the line drawn musically? perhaps sqarepusher is the extreme end of the spectrum. perhaps someone like justice? maybe ressurrecting something like partisan records? where does one specifically say, " this is not acceptable to use an amen or a reece in any context ." does the limit reside in personal challenge, that is, going into a context that is foreign to you? i miss partisan-they did quite a bit of positive, listenable, and genre-defying beats. maybe we need something like this again.

i think it's funny you mentioned p diddy & dillinja. i made a comparison between the two the other day but not as a dis. i just think it's more his bag-he is a maverick but he's been totally uncreative. but it is a business-productivity in music (not mutually exclusive with creativity) means sales, name recognition, staying in business so to speak. that goes back to the idea of the music industry-it's hard to be innovative when you're banging out tunes (stop and smell the roses). mashing up the floor does not equate to quality.