I remembered something last week, something I thought I should share. Up until last year I worked for a music agency and was involved in the production of a music business intelligence publication. I was fortunate enough for them to allow me to help set up a debate on underground music and whether genres, such as DubStep, had the sustainability of modern pop and the mainstream market.

People involved were: Geeneus (RINSE), Del Dias (DRUM & BASS ARENA), Plastician (TERRORHTYM RECORDINGS), Martin Clark (BLACKDOWN), Dan Hancox (LOWER END SPASM), MJ COLE (MJ COLE).

It was hosted by a friend called Tim, another called James and myself. Another friend of mine, Arms, was also involved in the production of the film, (sadly there isn’t a copy). The writer was a guy called Eamonn and below you can read it!

UNDERGROUND PIONEERS?

The first truly digital music genre is rising up and it looks like the majors aren’t invited to the party.
Dubstep, a little-know underground scene rising from the ashes of a long line of other niche musical genres, is on the brink of mainstream acceptance. However, just what will this mean for the music industry and the future success or failure of underground scenes as a whole? With physical sales rapidly sliding off the scale and digital still to reach its peak, just where can innovative new underground music capitalise?

The balance between hanging onto authenticity and creating a viable revenue stream from underground movements is a tenuous one. A shift in the balance of power away from major labels brings greater control; but a scene so ingrained in the digital realm brings with it a new set of problems.

The Internet, which arguably is the catalyst for new music such as this, is also its worst enemy. Syndication of tracks is based mainly on revenue-less downloadable DJ sets passed from person to person. Is there a way to redress the balance between credibility and commercial success without diluting exactly what is innovative and genuinely exciting about new music? It’s time for underground music to grow up, but should this be at the expense of losing its roots?

We gathered together some of the critical players in the burgeoning new genre of dubstep for a roundtable debate in order to assess just where the lines are drawn. What are the dangers of crossover, just where do the majors fit into the picture and is this really the first truly digital genre?

Drum & bass: 1992-present
Emerging in 1992 from London club nights like Rage, hosted by Fabio and Grooverider, drum & bass evolved as an underground response to the increasingly commercial rave scene. Its critical innovation was the shift from 4/4 beats to the looped drum breaks already a foundation of hip-hop, here played at more than 120bpm. The scene saw major label releases from artists like Photek and Roni Size, who won the Mercury Prize in 1997.

2-Step: 1997-2002
A UK strain of house evolved from the chopped-up vocal sampling of US producer Todd Edwards and incorporating syncopated beats with plenty of swing. Also known as UK garage, the sound took root in the backrooms of major drum & bass club nights. 2-step enjoyed significant chart success and spawned pop acts like Artful Dodger and Craig David.

Grime: 2000-present
A natural evolution of the phenomenon of MCs rhyming over 2-step records, grime began to look like a home grown UK hip-hop when landmark releases from Dizzee Rascal and Wiley appeared in 2003. The most exciting productions have often been crudely minimal and technically naive, linking it back to the work of earlier innovators like Tricky. Dizzee Rascal won the Mercury Prize in 2003.

Dubstep: 2000-present
Again a response to the increasing commercialisation of a sound, dubstep was pioneered by producers like El-B and Zed Bias as a darker strain of 2-step. The scene was given a focus in 2001 with the launch of London club night Forward>> which remains the hub to this day. Recently championed by Radio 1 DJ Mary Anne Hobbs, the scene has enjoyed increasing attention since 2006.

The desire and danger of crossover
Scenes grow and develop in a bubble, far outside of the demands of the music industry with its eye on moving the underground across to become over ground. Inwardly focusing on authenticity initially, the temptation to make the leap outside of a niche exists simultaneously as Holy Grail and poisoned chalice.

At the heart of this is the fact that a few players within the scene have their eye on the bigger prize. As journalist Dan Hancox explains: “At the centre of dubstep are a lot of people who don’t like the idea of being confined by a scene.”

Producer and DJ Plastician (who also runs Terrorrhythm Recordings) explains this push into a more commercial incarnation of the scene: “The problems being when tracks start to get aimed at the mainstream. Artists start to look at what are hits in the chart, as happens in the US, to try and make money out of the scene.” This all means that some people within the scene take a short-term approach, using a genre as a stepping stone into transient success: “They are just looking for that one big hit and are not really looking for the longevity that would make them a decent living over 10 years,” he says. “They just want to make as much money as quickly as possible.”

Journalist Martin Clark takes the example of grime as a means of explaining how, especially with the glare of media attention, a scene can make that leap only to land on its face. “When Dizzee Rascal won the Mercury Music Prize in 2003,” he explains, “it’s an example of where the hype and enthusiasm around a scene can backfire. There was a mass of media interest around someone who was new and edgy, but it was like a rollercoaster where the interest shot up and then disappeared quite quickly. There was also no infrastructure in place to help it cross over.”

It’s this lack of infrastructure that is both a blessing and a curse for any new scene (as we’ll consider in more detail below). Acts are wary of dealing with the majors, but they offer a support system that new scenes lack (but which come at a price).

Who needs the majors?

Since MySpace went mainstream, it’s been hailed as the great leveller and a way of acts negating the traditional record label model. While all the ‘MySpace bands’ that have apparently broken online (Arctic Monkeys, Lily Allen, Kate Nash etc) all signed label deals, there is a case to argue that dubstep is the first truly ‘digital genre’ and could conceivably make the transition from niche to mainstream without going down the tried and tested label route.

There is, however, a wariness within dubstep about signing to a major label, having seen drum & bass’s Icarus-like rise and fall and how producers got sidelined by an industry still obsessed with artists and the star system. As Hancox explains of the scene seven years ago: “A lot of people got producer deals such as Alex Reece and Dillinger. Today you don’t get those sorts of deals any more. Producers provide backing tracks for artist-led deals. Around 2000 there was a sense that you could go with an act that’d put a track together with friends. But labels stopped signing acts like that which totally screwed underground music.”

Having frontloaded spending and failed to recoup on previous underground dance scenes, the majors are understandably wary of repeating the mistakes of the past. This is allowing dubstep a degree of breathing space to attempt to build its own infrastructure from the ground up without the large advances (and impossible sales expectations) that characterised the gold rushes of the past. As Plastician notes, the focus for many is a deal with independents: “I don’t think there’s anyone in the dubstep scene at the moment who is working towards trying to get signed to a major. There are a lot of good independent labels out there at the moment offering good deals to up and coming producers.”

While in the past, the emphasis was on signing acts with marketable frontmen, the focus today is on building a profile as a DJ, especially online. “It used to be about signing a deal for a large advance and using DJ-ing as a sideline,” says producer, DJ and remixer MJ Cole. “Now the onus has shifted to live performance and everything else supports that.”
So, with signing to the majors no longer being seen as the ultimate goal (or something to avoid completely), how are these scenes using digital to break away from (and break apart) the old model?

The first digital genre?
As a genre that has emerged in the digital age, dubstep is a perfect illustration of the alternative channels open to new acts and scenes.

“The Internet is really important for dubstep,” explains Clark. “The reason being there has been no institutional support for the scene in the traditional music industry sense; it’s only on the Internet.” As a trailblazer in this regard, Rinse FM is a shining beacon of all that can be achieved by embracing every opportunity that digital opens up. Shows on the station harness technology completely, especially instant messaging services, with fans communicating directly with other listeners and, crucially, the DJs themselves.
“Internet radio is incredibly important for dubstep now,” explains Plastician. “A few years ago, because the technology wasn’t there, you’d only have a few people listening. Now you’d do a show on Rinse and you’d put MSN on and, by the end of the show, you’d have 200 people on MSN making comments. And they’re only a fraction of the total audience that is listening.”

The artist Geeneus, who runs Rinse FM, suggests one of the biggest revolutions in the scene was the massive uptake of online radio with the listener base, leaping from a handful to over 100,000 in a matter of a few years. “In the early days of streamed radio you could only have about 50 people listening and it was capped,” he explains. “When we switched server, we got an upgrade and they told us that there was a cap but not to worry about it as it was unlikely we’d ever exceed it. We had to contact them early on as we were hearing from people that couldn’t get on the stream. The people at the server checked the numbers listening and couldn’t believe it – there were so many people on there. So they took the cap off completely.”

As young listeners get increasingly frustrated with ‘old’ media, this is an important wake up call to both traditional broadcasters and the recorded music industry. Plastician adds that one radio mix he posted last year was downloaded over 16,000 times and Geeneus adds that Rinse FM Podcasts are downloaded a minimum of 500 times each.

But it’s not all good news as this creates a whole new set of problems; namely that artists aren’t getting paid. As vinyl dominates, the space for a legal digital market here is extremely limited and this is partly down to licensing complications. “Digital sales are quite sizeable for us,” explains Del Dias of Drum & Bass Arena. “We’d love to sell dubstep on there but at the moment we can’t license it.” This is something that MJ Cole backs up when he says: “A lot of the dubstep scene is about download sets. The artists, however, are losing out as a result as people aren’t paying for it.”

Finally, blogs are increasingly peripheral to the scene. Seen primarily as a forum for writers, artists are looking to other outlets instead. “I used to have a blog,” states Plastician, “but I only used it to let people know when I was playing or to post pictures of the previous night’s gig. But I can do all that on MySpace. I can put a video from my phone straight up there with a push of a button. It’s much easier than writing and uploading content on a blog.”

The international sell through
Scenes, by their very nature, are initially confined to a specific geographic area (usually an overlooked or run down part of a city). Digital, however, means that they can quickly attract a global following (especially with online radio, forums and the rapid trading of mix MP3s).

But the opportunities to migrate the scene internationally can come with a degree of compromise. “DJ-based cultures can be transferred into other countries really easily,” suggests MJ Cole. The problems, however, arise for MCs, as he points out. “With grime, because it focuses on the English accent and cultural references, that’s its appeal but it’s also its barrier when you try and take it internationally.”

There is a temptation for acts to dilute their lyrics and delivery, removing some of the culturally-specific elements in order to appeal outside of the geographic confines of the scene’s incubation space. “When some grime acts go abroad, they water their lyrics down a little and act more like a host on stage,” notes Plastician. “A lot of the grime acts are definitely making an effort to become clearer when performing abroad so that fans, who don’t have English as a first language, can get a clearer understanding of what they’re saying.”

MJ Cole also warns that the hothouse effect of the media’s constant pursuit of the new means scenes and movements can suffer at the hands of someone else’s agenda. “The media are desperate to jump on things that are believed to have a real commercial edge; but fast-tracking genres like this and trying to push them internationally means that they really suffer. The reality is that what goes up quickly comes down quickly.”