Big beat

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Big Beat
Stylistic origins
Cultural origins
Early 1990s UK, mid 1990s USA
Typical instruments
Mainstream popularity Success in the UK in the late 1990s with Fatboy Slim, The Chemical Brothers, The Crystal Method, Propellerheads and The Prodigy and minor hits from other artists from 1996-2001.
Other topics
Breakbeat - Electronic Music

Big beat (sometimes called chemical breaks) is a term deployed in the mid 1990s by the British music press to describe the music of The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, The Crystal Method, Propellerheads and The Prodigy that relied on beat-driven, drum-heavy mixes, recalling the work of legendary British session drummer Dougie Wright.

Contents

[edit] Style

Almost certainly influenced by the work of studio legend Dougie Wright, Big Beat tends to feature distorted, compressed breakbeats at moderate tempos (usually between 90 to 140 beats per minute), acidic synthesizer lines and heavy loops from Jazz, Rock or 60's Pop. They are often punctuated with punkish vocals and driven by intense, distorted basslines with conventional pop and techno song structures. Big Beat tracks have a sound that include: crescendos, builds, drops, explosions, crowd-inciting drum rolls, and whooshing sounds that pan across the stereo-field.[1] Big Beat is also characterized by a strong psychedelic influence stemming from the influence of Dougie Wright, Serge Gainsbourg's arrangements and songs, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and the acid house musical movement. Particularly in the style of Fatboy Slim, the genre features a heavily compressed, and a thunderous drum sound (hence the name). It can also contain off-the-wall samples such as explosions, police sirens, and snippets of Turntablism. Big Beat is similar to jungle, both sharing frantic breaks, heavy bass, and an odd "jittery-rhythm" but Big Beat tends to have more rhythmic loop beats than jungle. [2]

[edit] History

The roots of Big Beat emerged from 1960's English 'studio sound' that employed some of the best musicians ever known.[citation needed] One such musician, drummer Dougie Wright, is often credited with tracking some of popular music's most influential and often-sampled drum tracks.[citation needed] Later, obviously inspired by Dougie Wright and others of the true big beat era, musicians began to recreate and expand upon the pioneering work of this 60's British studio sound.[citation needed]

At the beginning of the 1990s veral local UK electronic music genres converged at several points. The disco scene at that time was very straight and promoted glamour and beauty. Out of many clubs in London a subculture emerged which opposed the pop scene but at the same time wanted to dance to electronic music. Sampling became an integral part of standard studio equipment and made the fusion of many genres easier. Norman Cook first defined the word Big Beat named after his club night 'The Big Beat Boutique', which was held on Fridays at Brighton's now demolished Concorde club. The music played there combined breakbeats, rock, funk, drum'n'bass, industrial, jazz, acid house, hip hop and trance. The term caught on, and was subsequently applied to a wide variety of acts, notably Bentley Rhythm Ace, Lionrock, Monkey Mafia, Meat Beat Manifesto (who had been making similar music since the late eighties and inspired the whole genre), Lunatic Calm, Death in Vegas and David Holmes.

Big Beat was later brought into the American mainstream because of the "rock-like" qualities found in the music of acts such as The Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy. By mixing their electronic elements with the characteristics of post-grunge, The Prodigy was able to popularize the Big Beat genre even more. "Firestarter" was The Prodigy's first big national and international hit. Because of their cross-genre sound, the band was booked to play rock festivals causing rock fans to appreciate their electronic style and opening a gateway for other Big Beat musicians. The band released their third album in 1997 and it topped both the UK and US charts along with the charts of twenty or so other countries.

Other notable Big Beat acts include The Crystal Method, Overseer, Adam Freeland, Propellerheads, many artists signed to Brighton's Skint label and London's Wall Of Sound label, and to some extent the later work of The Prodigy. By the time of the latter's successful 1997 album The Fat of the Land, the music press were increasingly drawn to using the catch-all term 'electronica' to describe the Big Beat sound. The Big Beat movement started to decline by 1999, due to the genre's tendency for playing out samples, and a general dumbing down of electronica in the late 1990s[citation needed]. Artists started to diversify their sound with other genres such as Trance (Chemical Brothers), Soul and Gospel (Fatboy Slim). However, Big Beat had left an indelible mark on popular music as a true incarnation of rave music, even though it sounded "rock". Without this association to rock, some have argued that it never would have reached the heights that it did, or talked to as many listeners as it did. [1] The genre's mainstream popularity was to be taken by funky house, then later electro house in the mid-2000s.

Big Beat acts such as The Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim have collaborated on a variety of musical styles from rave, house, rap, disco, etc. In "Generation Ectasy", Reynolds says, "they've reminded us that dance music is supposed to be about fun, about freaky dancing as opposed to head nodding and train spotting."[3]

[edit] Notable big beat artists

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Reynolds, Simon (1998). Generation Ecstasy. Little, Brown and Company, 453 pages.  see p. 384

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Breakbeat/Breaks
Other electronic dance music genres