sherburne on underworld

[dubman]

er yeah.
i absolutely love underworld live and all, but hearing a collage for every snare roll they pull would be as funny as the caruso one-liners for CSI miami.
they're all over the place and a pretty definitive part of their live shows.

[stimpee]

Originally Posted by kid cue

you don't think UW live performances use piled-up snare rolls and endless ascents? are you kidding??

i certainly dont... ive seen them almost 20 times live and as a contributor to rtsr i've heard a lot of bootlegs too. they go through lots of musical styles, sometimes with long improvised jams and other times with short and punchy singles. It depends on whether youre seeing them at a festival or not I suppose.

Its possible to criticise a band for making all their songs sounding too samey on an album or and also criticise them for too many musical styles. These are Sherburne's opinions and he's entitled to them. I disagree with them as is my wont. I would say that we have heard the albums and the songs more than Sherburne has and we know them better than he does.

I'm wondering why he has chosen now to write about Underworld. Since AHDO they have diversified a lot and experimented much more. If you thought AHDO was Underworld going through the motions then what has happened since is a backlash to that. Now that UW are free agents they have been able to explore what they want to do, releasing 4 online EPs, a live album and (soon to be) 2 soundtracks.

Originally Posted by kid cue

given that the releases are only made available on underworldlive.com (and publicized on dirty's front page), which is a fairly esoteric website that only long-term / die-hard UW fans are going to check with any regularity, and that their premise is for Rick to experiment wildly with production & structure, it seems like sort of a critic-proof outlet.

I can see where youre coming from with this, but the releases have been given a big online push and every online dance music website and print magazine have given these releases column inches. Also, the releases were not only made available via Underworldlive.com but remixed on 12" available in the shops internationally and via iTunes/beatport etc.

Obviously this wont get the coverage that a CD album would get because they are not available on CD in your average shop but things are changing and its hard for dance artists to get shelf space in the big CD stores and small independents are feeling the squeeze due to the purchasing power of giants like Wal-Mart.

Anyway, just my tuppence worth, for what its worth.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by kid cue

you don't think UW live performances use piled-up snare rolls and endless ascents? are you kidding??

There's REZ, but generally speaking, they've pretty successfully avoided the Norman Cooke school of music, and instead deliver a pretty broad variety of approaches to their tracks, both on their albums and live. Certainly nothing I'd ever define as "piled-up snare rolls and endless ascents". Do you have specific examples in mind that I could check out?

[kid cue]

maybe i'm just projecting, but i remember hearing a lot of snare rolls (in the background, at the very least) the one time i saw UW live, and it did feel like a series of endless ascents. i always assumed that snare rolls were just another way that Rick would improvise. i think this is getting beside the original point, though, which was that the raveyness in UW music draws on a certain prog-house feel, which i can buy. (on the other hand, i wasn't on drugs at that show, so maybe the argument falls flat, since it was distinctly better than anything prog.)

[dubman]

i dont keeps a lot of bootlegs on this thing because theres about 40 of them and they would take a LOT of room, but they're fairly frequent so i just popped on KOS from creamfields and found that they use it four times in the space opf a minute, along with the requisite cymbal crashing.
dude come on. its in every concert if not every other song and it's there in EE.

[kid cue]

Originally Posted by stimpee

I would say that we have heard the albums and the songs more than Sherburne has and we know them better than he does.

this is the only thing that really irks me, this idea that anyone can have the last word because they, ultimately, can pull more knowledge out about the band than the harried critic. not that you're doing this, but i have this image of an UW fan skeptically reading Sherburne's complaints about STITI's awkwardly pieced together-ness or BF's lack of restraint, being instantly able to pull out two examples in which STITI flows quite smoothly and three in which BF shows distinct restraint, each example referenced down to the minute and second ... and for that reason instantly, systematically being able to discount every one of his negative statements about Underworld. the idea that anything bad can be quickly disproved by a true UW expert's infinite knowledge database.
it's just a subtext that i'm reading in a lot of posts.

[dubman]

wait, do you mean that they use these examples to assert themselves as a better authority to discount the rest of the article? or is your issue with people using that method to disprove that particular point?

because it seems like a valid way to directly contradict those particular points.

[kid cue]

i guess i'm saying that when people posit themselves as experts who 'know more' about the music/subject in question than the critic, then the critic will never ever be able to say anything convincing (unless they allow themselves to be convinced). the people who 'know more' will always be able to unearth some esoteric facts that will somehow disprove each individual point making up the critic's argument, thus dismantling the argument--even if the complete thesis broadly makes sense. forest vs. trees, etc. look at this little debate about the snare rolls, which in dialogue form would be

PS: "UW draw from prog house's big room excesses, what with their uplifting snare rolls and buildups. at the height of their popularity, this chasing of rave mentalism sounded increasingly contrived on the albums"

dirty: "WRONG!!!!11 only one track in UW's entire oeuvre uses snare rolls"

also, tribal duckie does not spell kid lubricant

[Sean]

Originally Posted by dubman

i dont keeps a lot of bootlegs on this thing because theres about 40 of them and they would take a LOT of room, but they're fairly frequent so i just popped on KOS from creamfields and found that they use it four times in the space opf a minute, along with the requisite cymbal crashing.
dude come on. its in every concert if not every other song and it's there in EE.

I should be more specific. The particular comment made in the article, saying that Underworld uses "piled up snare rolls and endless ascents" implies to me that this Sherburne fella is saying they depend on these techniques to successfully deliver their music. I find that to be inaccurate. I'm listening to live stuff as I write this, and the outstanding elements of their music to me are the melodies, complex and/or driving drum beats, vocals, and overall energy. Yes, there are snare rolls in certain songs, and others reach a notable crescendo, but what live show of just about any style doesn't utilize similar techniques to bring more energy to the performance? "Goddam Led Zeppelin with their endless guitar and drum solos" . Yeah, they used guitar and drum solos, but they were there to support an already awesome song, not there for a mediocre song to lean on in order to be successful. I think that for it to be a valid criticism, they would need to be using it on the level of a Fatboy Slim or something. Criticising Underworld for snare rolls and ascents, to me, is like saying "they're flailing around up there because they insist on doing all their shows to a 'dance' beat". "Um...okay. You do know they make dance music, right?" If you listen to any Underworld show, you hear an impressively diverse array of feels and musical approaches from song to song, yet all deliver that unique Underworld sound and energy....but the success of the shows has never seemed to be dependent on simplistic tricks like "piled up snare rolls and endless ascents", it's always been dependent on well made and performed music. So overall, I'd say again that Sherburne's critique is primarily dependent on subjective tastes rather than any kind of objective facts. There is some literal accuracy to the specific comment, but the intended point of the it seems to be pretty far off base to me.

[kid cue]

the exact quote is "At Underworld's worst, it seems to be aping the noxious monotony of the burgeoning progressive house scene — piled-up snare rolls and endless ascents, the music in lockstep with the crowd's drug experience". this says nothing about a complete dependence on the technique, or the band's capacity for "well made and performed music"; merely that sometimes, they get too PROG house.

believe me, i still adore Underworld and seeing them live that one time made me cry. but i do think you're overrating their diversity, and your counter-argument to the 'snare rolls' comment, that UW simply make really good music, hardly puts them above any of the criticisms in the article.