what would you deffine as underground?

[Mr_Happy]

i find it quite commical when people say hardhouse is 'underground' as i know several mates who have never heard the name of a hardhouse club before, yet own atleast one hardhouse euphoria album. they even seemed to be advertised on the tele

 

i'm not sure dance music is 'underground' anymore if i'm honnest. my some of the 'angry' hardcore is underground as it doesnt seem to get any radio/tv coverage

Edited June 20, 2004 by Mr_Happy

[Aaron]

Good question, but i will make a blind stab in the dark and say that it is any genre, that doesnt even get close to becoming commercial charty bollox

[LiamStyles]

One persons definition of underground will be totally different to anothers.

 

Personally its a term i hate, and never use. Its another word like "proper" techno. Underground is always used as a prefix to suggest that a specific genre is superior in some way.

[Jimmy]

free party tekno and french hard tek and some of the shit they play there is underground.... just go to a free party and u will hear some underground shit

[Chris Hutchinson]

hard dance, funky house, hardcore, prog house, techno etc are most certainly a commercial scenes in the loosest sense of the term 'commercial scene' imo - the fact you can buy compilation cds from hmv gives that one away

 

would say chris liberator style acid techno (although not as much as say 2 years ago), psytrance etc are underground scenes as they are not readily available to delve into without a little bit of looking

[Chris Hutchinson]

QUOTE (Jimmy @ Jun 20 2004, 15:59)

free party tekno and french hard tek and some of the shit they play there is underground.... just go to a free party and u will hear some underground shit

yeah, free parties and squat raves are the best place to find underground styles I guess.... certainly dont find em played at so called "superclubs" anyway

[Phil rr]

stuff that doesn't get advertised much?

 

[Phil rr]

QUOTE (Chris Hutchinson @ Jun 20 2004, 16:03)

QUOTE (Jimmy @ Jun 20 2004, 15:59) free party tekno and french hard tek and some of the shit they play there is underground.... just go to a free party and u will hear some underground shit yeah, free parties and squat raves are the best place to find underground styles I guess.... certainly dont find em played at so called "superclubs" anyway owever....if CTW turned up in force to one of these 'underground' raves on a regular basis...would we still call it 'underground'?

[ReBirth]

Well, I'd say pretty much every genre is devided into the more commercial and underground stuff.

 

Like there's a lot of Hip-hop nstuff in the charts, but there's also a lot of "underground" hip-hop..same goes fir Hard House and any other genre.

 

My guess is that "underground" music is pretty much and music from any genre that you won't b able to find easily on the commercial market and in big retail stores...

 

But now with the internet everyone can claim to "being underground" because they'e got tracsk that's unreleased etc, while in theory it's either amateur tracks or just very upfront tracks that's gonna get commercial anyway, lol

[LTM]

I don't understand how people can call Hard House overground, sure you get the mass market Euphoria Extreme albums, but it's certainly not overground. Overground is pop and chart music, the tunes your parents know the names of, the tunes that a re A/B listed on radio. Not these Trance tunes that get released on vinyl only. The majority of Dance music is underground to me be it House or Trance because it's not it the mainstream focus of the media. There is just some forms of Dance music (Trance noticably) that is more accesible or profitable then others but then that don't really make it overground.

[LiquidEyes]

QUOTE (LTM @ Jun 20 2004, 23:10)

I don't understand how people can call Hard House overground

It's all relative. Hard house is more underground than Britney Spears. But it's not as underground as techno or drum & bass (in this country anyway).

 

In the realm of 'club' dance music (as opposed to chart-topping pseudo-dance music that you wouldn't actually hear outside of cheesy northern meat-market discos) I'd say hard house, trance and funky house are certainly the most mainstream genres.

 

Underground does not equal 'good' though ... I've been to lots of crap raves in London, and heard lots of amateurish DJs that give their 'underground' genres (psy-trance, techno, whatever) a bad name.

Edited June 21, 2004 by LiquidEyes

[LiquidEyes]

I guess that being 'underground' is a dubious acclaim. I think there's a difference between what sounds underground (i.e. doesn't sound like it's been aimed at the charts) and what is underground (i.e. nobody has heard of it).

 

You would hardly say some cheesy unknown wannabe boy-band are underground just because nobody has heard of them yet.

 

When the Prodigy became really successful, would you honestly say their music stopped sounding 'underground'? Some of their tracks like Firestarter are tough as vindaloo'd mutton, yet they got to number one and sold zillions of albums. But I still reckon they're more underground than some also-ran 'pop' act. They don't compromise the integrity of their music via a cheese-injection to get easy sales!

 

It just goes to show that quality is only one factor in popularity. I guess the implication is that one style of music is more 'credible' than another ... inherently elitist ... but I think most people are music snobs to some extent.

Edited June 21, 2004 by LiquidEyes

[Guest Kether]

Gay thread.

[Stu]

things that are below street level.

[Guest]

QUOTE (Kether @ Jun 21 2004, 13:53)

Gay thread.

¬