DANCING WITH THE PAST
Posted by TUNETOURIST
The departure of Mary Anne Hobbs from her Radio 1 slot has prompted much gnashing of teeth from the experimental electronic music community. The Bass scene in particular is understandably concerned that the sound has lost its most visible proponent.She did a lot to popularise the music which, without her support, would surely have seen fewer column inches in broadsheet culture sections, fewer LP sales for the crossover artists, less appreciation and recognition on the wider cultural agenda.
Apparently, she’s passing up the show to devote more time to a career in education, lecturing at Sheffield Uni in practical media skills. This leaves an experimental music-sized hole in the programming of Radio 1, to add to the yawning chasm opened up when we lost John Peel.
Looking for someone to fill those shoes, John Peel is a fine reference point. Both of the DJs’ shows were about the cutting-edge but somehow you couldn’t imagine Mary Anne Hobbs pursuing her agenda for another 20 years. John Peel on the other hand seemed licensed to go on for ever, largely because underlying his confrontational approach to new music was real historical context.
That’s what electronic music needs now at the Beeb. At the ripe age of at least 40-years-old (nerds, we can argue this point in the comments) it’s time to stop treating the music like some weird, leftfield quirk that mutates hourly and has the shelf life of a bunch of flowers from your local petrol station. Can’t we see dance music accorded the historical weight of rock? And listen to the latest sounds with context?
Fetishization of ‘newness’ in dance music is a mixed blessing. Of course, we love that its nimble and challenging but there’s very little middle ground between pure pastiche of the past (say, current deep house productions) and the aggressively new. Wouldn’t we see a more complex relationship between past and present surfacing in the music if we let dance music grow up?
