*Twerking (sometimes twerk) – a type of erotic dance that is popular mainly among women and involves rhythmic shaking of the buttocks. Twerking probably derives from traditional African dances, and was popularized by hip-hop culture. (source: Wikipedia, of course)
One of the greatest minds of the twentieth century, philosopher, sociologist, outstanding musicologist Theodor Adorno spent most of his scientific life proving how disastrous mass culture, popular music, and above all this artificial creation, which is the United States of America, is for Culture. The result of his research ("roughly") was the conclusion that only classical music is the only "proper", the only possible musical form of artistic expression. He couldn't stand the fertile bosom of the U.S., which could release "mechanisms" to the world to make money from almost anything.Probably unfortunate, he died in this country, without history, (according to him) without Culture, and even at the end of his life "blowing in his ear" Miles Davis or Ornette Coleman did not convince him that other musical genres could also bring "something new".
(Psst! This is the moment when, irritated by the previous words, style, or "ego" of the author, you should stop reading and go back to places where they will tell you what to listen to, how to listen, why listen. Promising you that "this is something completely new", that "this has not happened yet". If, however, you like pop culture and think that few phenomena in popular music surprise you, I cordially invite you to further "reading", with the right tongue in cheek.:)
I had a dream that one day American popular music would rise and free itself from the yoke of European criticism, reproaching its poor taste, blandness and commercialism. I very much hope that Martin Luther King would agree with me that we have the best times for this. In fact, even the majestic mind of Adorno could bend over his own considerations in the twenty-first century. In the era of postmodernism, cyberculture, ease of data exchange, creative commons, "amateur worship", portals like Soundcloud, its criticism has lost the lion's share of its legitimacy. The fight against mass culture, as a "creation" treated as a business, is radically losing its value in this century. Music companies are earning less and less, trying to fight the inevitable and their days are most likely numbered. Soon, artists will not need any intermediaries in reaching their listeners. And Adorno himself, with a bit of "healthy distance" could achieve greater success as a composer (yes, he was an unfulfilled composer – an amotor, a prisoner of his own approach to "art"), using modern technology and the Internet, and he would not need the support of patrons of culture to become a musician.
Hola, hola, but what, actually happens in music made in the USA, which is not in Europe? There's a bit going on, and since it would be useful to finally go from the general to the specific, a particular phenomenon in some parts of the United States is the club scene, and I don't mean (with all due respect) Detriot techno.I would like to direct your attention to the east coast. In clubs in the state of New Jersey we will not hear in "good" clubs simply house music, dubstep, trap, juke, drumn'bass, 2step (and here follows a litany of tags with the prefix "-post", or not, describing new genres or quasi-genres describing achievements in electronic music of recent years, in which I have long since lost my way). You will hear music that sounds like it was created by Andy Warhol himself in the twenty-first century.Recently, this music was named after the state in which it was created: Jersey Club.
Jersey Club – A genre of electronic dance music with strong roots in hip hop, downtempo, R&B, and trap. See: Cashmere Cat, DJ Sliink (source: urbandictionary.com)
I treated the creation of the first dictionary record as a casus beli to share with you the most postmodern sounds that have ever accompanied the club scene. I try to avoid presenting the whole family tree, illustrating where such a genre came from (indirectly comes from the Baltimore Club), to (perhaps unprofessionally) focus on the effect, which does not quite fit only on the club dancefloor.
Jersey Club draws handfuls, tfu! … Pop shovels (r'n'b!) (OK, like any DJ work), but the mixed matter is not only music, but also famous statements, amateur YouTube stars, advertising slogans and everything that reaches us from the mass media. Everything that we hear every day and that could tire us, irritate us if we wanted to focus on the content of this "information noise".All this, served at a speed of 130-140 BPM, in the rhythm of 4/4 could lead to quite indigestion. However, the imagination of DJs (although, personally, I would not call them in the case of such "post-production" only DJs), can combine them into creations that will move not only our butts. As a result, we will hear on an average, three-minute track maintained in the spirit of jersey club about five musical styles, a dozen breakneck Mixes, and as a result it will make us (u)pa fun.
JC is becoming increasingly popular among manufacturers outside New Jersey. The most important of them, absolutely impossible to close in any other genre framework is 25-year-old Magnus August Hoiberg from Oslo, and better known under the pseudonyms Cashmere Cat, Trippy Turtle and DJ Yolo Bear. Other than this character and a few "soundcloud pretenders", he is the only character to play and produce in the jersey club style.For now (I hope).
We live in beautiful times of prosperity. Never before has it been possible to create something in such a short time and present it (potentially) to such a mass of people. And the Jersey Club is a perfect example of the fact that the "online sea of mediocrity", you can find something completely new, and at the same time based on everything that has already been. Would Theodor Adorno agree with me on this? I don't know, but he would have smiled at the "producer's flair" of New Jersey music, knowing the mixed.