1.Prologue
Ever since the 1960s, pirate radio has been a popular radio medium in the U.K. Pirate radio first became widespread in the U.K. in response to a growing demand for pop and rock music imported from the U.S. As BBC Radio services did not cater to such audiences at the time, entrepreneurs and music enthusiasts set up their own stations, some of them from offshore ships or disused seaforts—which were not considered illegal because they were broadcasting from international waters. In other words, they were true “pirate" stations. In response, BBC radio was restructured in 1967, establishing BBC Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 3, and Radio 4. A number of DJs from pirate radio stations were even hired for Radio 1.
In the late 80s, a new batch of pirate radio stations emerged in reaction to the growing underground acid house scene. In London, certain pirate radio stations became “seven day rave stations". This growth would continue into the 90s, when the spread of pagers and later mobile phones would make it easier for audiences to interact with the stations and DJs.
Pirate radio was also popular among those who were ill served by mainstream radio—particularly the black community. In London and beyond, stations catering to the black community offered a mix of black music and cultural programming, with a phone-in element.
In the mid 90s, the rise of harder, edgier rave music like jungle and drum ‘n’ bass, and alternative dance like UK garage and 2-step led to the launch of more specialized pirate radio stations.
In this article I will cover alternative electronic dance music that developed out of the U.K.—music that doesn’t conform to the standard four-on-the-floor of house and techno.
2.The Rise of Trip-Hop
In my previous two entries, I wrote about big beat, a genre that is founded on the breakbeats and sampling culture of American hip hop. Trip-hop was born when DJs in Bristol, a city in South West England, decided to slow down those breakbeats to create a psychedelic, hypnotic vibe. Bristol had been home to a large Jamaican immigrant population since the 70s, and by the 80s the young generation had become well acquainted with Jamaican music like reggae and dub. The arrival of hip hop from the U.S. would spur the development of trip-hop, which also incorporates many different genres of black music, including funk, soul, jazz, psychedelic music, R&B, and house. Trip-hop is sometimes called downtempo or chill-out for its slowed down tempo.
Back in the U.S., gansta rap focused on lyrics based in the day-to-day lives and exploits of inner city youth. Trip-hop, on the other hand, is largely comprised of instrumentals, and is more about creating a mellow, melancholic vibe. Vocalists are often female singers instead of male rappers—harkening back to classic R&B and jazz. That being said, trip-hop also involved MCs, B-boys, and graffiti artists, which would foster a distinct U.K. street culture in the 90s.
Trip-hop broke into the mainstream with Massive Attack, a group comprised of two DJs and a graffiti artist/rapper. Massive Attack’s 1991 album Blue Lines is considered the first trip-hop album. Its sound blended hip hop with reggae and soul, and set the stage for a type of electronic music that was markedly different from dance music. The group’s masterpiece and best-known work is their third album, 1998’s Mezzanine, which incorporates new wave and rock elements and topped the charts in the U.K., Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand. The single “Teardrops” is one of the genre’s most beloved songs.
In 1994, a trio called Portishead was awarded the Mercury Prize for their hit debut album, Dummy. Portishead mixed jazz samples with a cinematic aesthetic inspired by movie music from the 60s and 70s. Rolling Stone magazine called their gloomy, noir-inspired sound “Gothic hip hop”. It also ranked Dummy 419th on its list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time”.
Tricky, a rapper with Jamaican roots who was a member of Massive Attack in its early days, won popular acclaim for his 1995 solo debut Maxinquaye, another seminal trip-hop album. Tricky is known for his dark musical style and whispered, stream-of-consciousness raps, which were in contrast to the braggadocio of American gangster rap. He raps about drug culture and cultural decline—the experience of growing up in the U.K. as a black man.
The Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk is also known for her work in trip-hop. Her album Debut was produced by Nellee Hooper, who had been a DJ for The Wild Bunch, the predecessor group that became Massive Attack. The album was a hit in the U.K., and Björk relocated to London. Her second album, Post, involved further collaborations with Hooper as well as Tricky; Björk and Tricky would go on to have a highly publicized relationship. Björk also established her reputation with creative music videos directed by Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze.
●Trip Hop Recommendations
3.Jungle and Drum ‘n’ Bass, UK Garage and 2 Step
While some DJs slowed breakbeats down into a hypnotic drawl, other DJs sped them up to create a type of hardcore dance music called jungle, which would evolve into drum ‘n’ bass. Jungle and drum ‘n’ bass developed out of lower class black communities, where young people were growing up in the unease of the post-Thatcher era and against the backdrop of the gang culture of the U.K.’s hip hop scene. Its broken beats reflected a desire to break down the walls and other obstacles that society was putting in front of them. In contrast to happy, ecstasy-fuelled rave music, the scene pursued a darker, moodier, more distorted sound. Albums like The Prodigy’s Experience would help pave the way for jungle and drum ‘n’ bass.
While Western popular music focused on melody, jungle and drum ‘n’ bass are focused on rhythm as melody. Like hip hop, the fundamental building blocks of these genres are drum loops taken from soul and funk records. The most widely sampled loop is the so-called Amen break, which is taken from the funk track “Amen, Brother" by The Winstons. The majority of jungle and drum ‘n’ bass tracks are built upon this iconic sample.
While the Euro disco created by Giorgio Moroder simplified funk rhythms into a four-on-the-floor beat, jungle and drum ‘n’ bass make the beat more complex. Producers have cut up drum breaks innumerable times and in innumerable ways to create new rhythms. What’s more, while disco and house music has a certain ease and comfort about its sound, jungle and drum ‘n’ bass actively disrupts and destroys that balance to create a hardcore, dangerous sound.
Jungle and drum ‘n’ bass differ in that jungle is more influenced by ragga and dancehall music, while drum ‘n’ bass excises those influences and focuses more on the editing of drum breaks. The name “jungle" is said to come from the use of the term “junglist" to refer to people from certain areas of Kingston, the capital of Jamaica. While at first glance “jungle music" sounds almost derogatory, it is in fact the opposite—the black community of the U.K. expressing pride in its roots. Conversely, the sound’s dangerous edge frightened white ravers.
A pioneering figure in jungle and drum ‘n’ bass is the Jamaican-Scottish music producer and visual artist Goldie. Put up for adoption and raised by several foster parents, Goldie began breakdancing at a young age and made his name as a graffiti artist. Graffiti projects would lead him to move for a short while to New York and then Miami, where he also started selling gold teeth jewelry (grills). After returning to the U.K. in 1988, he became fascinated with the U.K. breakbeat scene, and began producing his own tracks. In 1995, he released his debut album, Timeless, which reached No. 7 on the U.K. album chart and helped popularize drum ‘n’ bass as a genre. Goldie has also worked as an actor, appearing in the James Bond film The World is Not Enough as well as Guy Ritchie’s Snatch. He has also appeared in a number of celebrity reality shoes.
Goldie has also worked as an actor, appearing in the James Bond film The World is Not Enough as well as Guy Ritchie’s Snatch. He has also appeared in a number of celebrity reality shoes.
Jungle and drum ‘n’ bass, which is generally between 160 and 180 BPM (beats per minute), is predominantly made by male producers for a disproportionately male audience of clubgoers. More popular among female clubgoers was the genre known was UK Garage. UK Garage is based on the house music that came out of the Paradise Garage in New York, and is a mix of soul, rap, dancehall reggae, all set to breakbeats at a friendlier tempo of about 130 BPM. It was born out of the secondary rooms at jungle parties.
In the second half of the 90s, a subset of DJs would start to speed up the tempo of UK Garage to create “speed garage", but DJs seeking a less aggressive sound developed “2-step", where each bar has only two kick drum beats instead of the traditional four-on-the-floor beat. While the tempos were still fast, the removal of the kick drums means the music is perceived as being slower than it really is. UK Garage and 2-step would grown in popularity in the late 90s through pirate radio stations.
As speeding up house and soul records would result in distorted vocals, UK garage DJs preferred to use dub versions of tracks that lacked the vocals. That meant there was now space on the tracks for R&B vocalists to do their thing. Meanwhile, party organizers took notice that the 2-step parties were drawing more women and less aggressive crowds than jungle and drum ‘n’ bass.
One of the most popular vocalists in UK garage and 2-step is the half-black, half Jewish singer Craig David. David’s first album, 2000’s Born to Do It, debuted at the top of the U.K. album chart, and sold 7.5 million copies worldwide. The single “7 Days” was nominated for a Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance and became one of his signature songs.
UK garage and 2-step would reach its peak around 2000, after which it gradually declined in popularity, but it would evolve into the more rap-heavy grime and bass-heavy dubstep.
●Jungle and Drum ‘n’ Bass Recommendations
●UK Garage/2-Step Recommendations
4.Epilogue
In response to the pirate radio stations popping up in the late 80s and early 90s to cater to black audiences and the rave scene, BBC Radio 1 has gradually expanded its dance music programming since the 90s. It gave a national platform to DJs like Pete Tong, an early champion of house music in the U.K, Danny Rampling, one of the central figures in the U.K. acid house scene, and Judge Jules, a house and trance DJ from pirate radio. These DJs and their shows played a significant role in bringing dance music to the mainstream in the U.K.
Pete Tong has been especially important; his show “The Essential Selection" has been spotlighting the hottest new music in dance since 1991, and many of his weekly “Essential Tune" picks have gone on to become dance classics. Tong has also provided DJs with an invaluable platform with “The Essential Mix", where an artist puts together a two-hour mix that is aired in its entirety without any commercial breaks (BBC Radio 1 is supported by a license fee paid by British viewers for BBC TV). Some DJs put together a peaktime club mix, while others take the opportunity to play tunes they would never get to play out in the clubs. Being invited to put together a mix for the show is a badge of honor for many up-and-coming DJs.
Since the turn of the millennium, Radio 1 has also increasingly been giving airtime to DJs who spotlight alternative dance music like trip-hop and drum ‘n’ bass. For many young Brits, these programs are their way of warming up before heading out to the clubs during the weekend.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., white radio and black radio continue to be separate, despite an increase in overlap and crossover artists. And while “EDM" has overrun the mainstream, “dance music" continues to be largely underground. Pete Tong relocated to the U.S. several years ago with the goal to spread dance music, but the barriers in place—related to race, related to music—may turn out to be insurmountable.
