what is the difference between bigroom house and house?

[do_androids_dream]

oh, kvr...

[Morgaxx]

Witch House

Baba Yabas Hut.jpeg

[Frantz]

House music is all about dancing:

[ghettosynth]

I think what pains the dance music cognoscenti about bigroom is that it has more in common with the beginnings of house than the trainspotting-grade stuff that currently passes for deep house and its supposedly better spinoffs.

Disco was about lots of people in a room having fun. House became its successor, later supplanted by the sub genres that drove raves. Bigroom – clue's in the name – is its current successor, albeit without the underground connotations.

All valid, but, my lament is with respect to what's defined as fun and that is very closely linked to what defines the music. I still have fun at underground events. I don't stand at the back of the room trying to out trainspot the labels with the other has beens. I still wear clothes that are comfortable to dance in and I dance for hours and socialize with other people on the dance floor. That's why I go, and that's why it's still important to me that it exists in a form that is useful for that goal.

Disco was also about dancing and that fact is reflected in the closeness beetween disco and house and the distance between disco and current "big room" sounds.

The kind of "fun" that happens at festivals is essentially concert culture and the music promotes that culture. It's much less about how the DJ can create a long and full experience for the dancers/participants and much more about each "song." To that end, the songs have been more in your face, more extreme, and IMNSHO, more annoying.

This isn't new. This trend has been visible to some degree or another along with rave's path out of the underground. I found the epic trance and bigbeat rooms almost as annoying in the late 90s. At least then we still had chicago hard house, disco house, french house, really good hard techno, minimal, etc. For me, it never recovered well after the big rave scare around Y2K. The new laws, and increased awareness of authorities to "raves" pushed events into clubs and homogenized music to some degree.

Now you could argue that the dancing has become progressively less important (anyone remember disco lessons? You don't need those for house) and how that's a bad thing. But people are at least having a good time.

Right, if you think that staring at the DJ while he tosses a rubber raft into the audience and pops champaign is a good time. Good DJs didn't do that back in the day and people still had a good time. I don't think that I'll ever forget "f**king Rawkus" which was a Seattle party featuring Bam Bam and some local Chicago hard house veterans. That party was off the chain. Everyone was having a fantastic time. I danced my ass off and the DJs were paying attention to what they were doing because, well, that's necessary if you're going to fast mix hard house with vinyl.

The good time today isn't much different than a boat party at spring break where the DJ is somebodies MP3 player and some chick bouncing her tits and waving her hands in the air on the bow of the biggest boat is pretending to play the music.

Which is more than I can say for some of the recent performances of the more pure 'underground' form I've been to. That's descending into jazz club comedy beard-stroking and is desperately in need of a shakeup. Bigroom will get its shakeup when it's finally played out and the masses get bored, and that cannot be long now.

It isn't a good time to me precisely because it isn't good DJing, and it isn't good music, not because I'm jaded and want to stand in the corner trainspotting labels. Those guys were as annoying back then as they are today.

I don't care even how most of the crowd wants to have fun. I'll find a speaker at the back of the event and dance with a small crowed of others who feel the same way. I'll enjoy the plastic commercialism of the giant festivals even, so long as I can hear good music played on a really big sound system. That's what I miss and that's why I hate big house. It sounds like shit and you can't get away from it.

I get my fix at outdoor events these days, in so far as I'm able. I'm missing Burning Man this year unfortunately and most likely will have to miss it next year as well.

[kbaccki]

Brick house

[kbaccki]

Too much compression

[Guest231427]

Old School House

[robogone]

Acid house