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UK Garage - All about the music What goes around comes around again and again. UKGarage has taken the dance music world by storm throughout the year 2000. With artists like Artful Dodger, Craig David, Robbie Craig, DJ Luck and MC Neat, the previously underground street sound of UKGarage has made large noises in the crossover dance music scene. Radio One, Capital Radio and Kiss 100 have moved previously "Specialist" UKGarage shows to a prime time audience, propelling the likes of the DreemTeem, DJ EZ, DJ Luck and MC Neat into radio super stardom. Moving into November 2000, the surge continues with the Ayia Napa favourite "Something In your eyes by ED Case, attempting to follow the previous successes to the top of the commercial popular music charts. But is the sound still fresh, is the identity still there. Many of the UKGarage stalwarts are now trying to evolve the sound of UKGarage. The current musical crop, with the exception of a cherry picked few, has lost the vocal and melodic sound originally the hallmark of UKGarage (London Style). Some blame the heavy basslines, and cut up vocal free sounds championed by many pirate radio stations, some blame the arrival of a "Dancehall" flavour, some blame lazy inexperienced producers trying to cash in on the current financial riches (and who can blame them), in fact more and more reasons seem to appear daily. It doesn't matter who takes the blame, it is clear to see by all who really care about the music that it has to change. It's already started. More and more record shops are already experiencing increased sales of USGarage records. With a more soulful sound, quality vocals, and classy production, the US flavour is being used by some of the old school DJ's to inject a different mood into today's UKGarage dancefloors. The usual suspects are rising to the top again, with Todd Edwards, Grant Nelson, MJ Cole, DJ Disciple, and a multitude of others providing music with feeling for intelligent DJ's. Lets take the best elements of everything we have learned over the last five years and deliver a framework or springboard to take the music forward. UKGarage was never originally about one type of sound - it was a feeling. With all of the recent successes, we seem to have lost sight of that. Watch this space. The latter months of 2000 will start the re-engineering of UKGarage for 2001. As one of the first DJ's in Ayia Napa back in 1995, I would like to promote a new happier face to UKGarage in summer 2001. Remember happy music breeds happy people, surely that's what its all about. Colin Williams - webman@ukgarage.com |
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