The newspaper the Guardian completed an article based around the new and supposedly when emerging music genre fidget house. The article concludes with the fact the genre takes styles of big beat, creating a more updated version of electro-house. Which was identified in the initial selection of the genre itself.
Trendy Italian house duo Crookers ... their remix of Day
and Night is an unexpected party anthem.
If you're looking for a quaint, relaxing break in a
setting steeped in culture, then the holiday resort of Malia in Crete is
probably not for you. If, on the other hand, you're after downing three pints
of Sambuca a night, before stripping off and chasing a terrified hotel porter
and picking up a veritable cornucopia of STDs, it's definitely the place to go.
Better still, you'll get to hear one of this year's most unexpected party
anthems.
Along with Ayia Napa in Cyprus, Malia has established
itself as one of the mainstays of DJs, MCs and fans from the UK garage scene
(and its many offshoots) each summer. Last year, it was Leeds producer T2's bass-line track Heartbroken that gained popularity with young
holidaymakers on these islands. Then, after they returned to the UK, their
desire to own the song that had soundtracked a summer sent Heartbroken to No 2
in the charts and kickstarted the bass-line scene.
This year, tunes like the Crazy Cousinz's funky remix of
Paleface and Kyla's Do You Mind have been going down well
with the holidaying Brits, but there is one song in particular that seems to be
getting a lot of people excited in Malia. Unexpectedly, the remix by trendy
Italian house duo Crookers of American rapper Kid Cudi's Day
and Night has been a massive hit in Crete and nearby
destinations like the Greek island of Kos. Owing to its summer success, the
song, which was originally signed to small independent American label Fool's
Gold, has now been picked up by a major for release in the UK and Europe later
this year.
It's currently one of the most requested songs on digital
urban radio station 1Xtra, and if you peruse the comments beneath videos of the
song on YouTube, you will find an outpouring of holiday memories evoked by the
track. Hundreds of people have left comments like: "malia 08 u wot u
wot" and "Kos 08 babyyyyyyyyyyyyy", to the utter confusion of
long-term Crookers fans who occasionally reply with something along the lines
of: Can someone please tell me what Malia is?
Crookers are part of a crop of international producers
who have been tied in with the often frowned-upon genre fidget
house - a joke term made up a few years ago by Switch and Jesse
Rose. It's a scene that doesn't really exist beyond the internet,
and the term seems to be used so that bloggers know what to put in the genre
field in iTunes before uploading songs.
Switch is recognised as the first producer to begin
making fidget and his Dubsided label has been central in releasing the scene's
music. His productions are subtle, but subsequent producers, such as Trevor
Loveys, Herve, Fake Blood and Jack Beats, have exaggerated the initial elements
of fidget.
The sound is defined by snatched vocal snippets,
pitch-bent basslines and rave-style synth stabs over glitchy 4/4 beats. Fidget
producers like to think of themselves as global music connoisseurs,
hand-picking bits from genres such as Chicago house, rave, UK garage, US
hip-hop, Baltimore club, Kuduro and other "authentic" world music
genres. In reality, at its worst, the genre is basically an updated,
ever-so-slightly less cheesy take on big beat - with its annoying rap vocal
loops and ridiculous Fatboy Slim-style builds. The more annoying songs sound
like the theme to Fun House if there were a new series. And if I hadn't have
had the misfortune of seeing Pat Sharpe play records at my friend's Christmas
party last year, I would be convinced that this is the kind of music he plays
at his DJ gigs. (If you were wondering, he played stuff like Urban Cookie
Collective's The Key, The Secret, No Limit by 2 Unlimited, and a Fun House mega
mix, while repeatedly shouting, "Scream if you wanna go faster".)
It's not all bad though. The Crookers remix of Day and
Night is a genuinely great club song, and its popularity is rightly deserved.
What I find slightly ironic, though, is that it's essentially an appropriated
bassline song made to appeal to people outside this scene. But it seems to be
the bassline and UK garage fans that have latched on to it the most. Crookers
have done such a good job at "pinching" the best bits from bassline
that they've managed to win over many of the scene's fans.
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