Big beat

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For other uses, see Big beat (disambiguation).
Big beat
Stylistic origins
Cultural origins1989, London, England[1]
Typical instruments

Big beat is an electronic music genre that usually uses heavy breakbeats and synthesizer-generated loops and patterns - common to acid house. The term has been used since the mid-1990s by the British music press to describe music by artists such as The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, The Crystal Method, Propellerheads, Cut La Roc, Basement Jaxx and Groove Armada.[2]

History

Origins (Late 1980s and early 1990s)

In 1989, Iain Williams from the English electronic duo Big Bang coined the musical term big beat to describe the band's musical style. Williams explained the concept during an interview with the journalist Alex Gerry in an article published in the London magazine Metropolitan (issue 132, page 9, 6 June 1989) under the heading, Big Bang in Clubland - Could Big Beat be the 1989 answer to Acid House?[3] The band were promoting their first record, an Arabic-inspired dance version of ABBA's "Voulez-Vous" and their instrumental track "Cold Nights in Cairo"[4] that had just been released on Swanyard Records. The single was produced by Big Bang and Steev Toth. Big Bang are Laurence Malice (Trade nightclub founder) and Iain Williams (writer). The band's sound consisted of various experimental musical elements, including heavy drum beats and synthesizer-generated loops as well as an added suggestion of European influences that at times had a trance-like quality. The band used session vocalists on all their recordings. The concept of the big beat sound was later picked up on and adapted by many club DJs and went on to become widely used by many successful musicians throughout the 1990s.

The name came from our club, the Big Beat Boutique, which I'm tremendously proud of. I always thought the formula of big beat was the breakbeats of hip-hop, the energy of acid house, and the pop sensibilities of the Beatles, with a little bit of punk sensibility, all rolled into one. People like the Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers – we saw it as very similar to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, who grew up listening to soul records and blues records and then sold an English version of it back to America.

—Norman Cook, a.k.a. Fatboy Slim[5]

In the early 1990s, in the midst of several popular musical subcultures, including the English rave scene, British hip hop, chillout or ambient, gestating subgenres such as trip hop and breakbeat, along with the emerging Britpop movement – a process of hybridisation and a taste for eclecticism was developing within English dance music generally.[6] Early purveyors of this approach include influential artists such as The Orb, Depth Charge, Meat Beat Manifesto, Transglobal Underground, and Andrew Weatherall's Sabres of Paradise. Sampling had become an integral part of dance music production and the fusion of genres appealed to DJs, producers, and fans keen on continued experimentalism within dance music. Record labels such as Junior Boy's Own and Heavenly Records demonstrated this broader-minded approach, releasing slower breakbeat-based music alongside house and acid house singles, introducing DJ-turned-artists such as The Chemical Brothers (known then as The Dust Brothers[7]) and Monkey Mafia in 1994. Norman Cook and Damien Harris first became associated with the term "big beat" through Harris's label Skint Records and club night The Big Beat Boutique,[6] held on Fridays at Brighton's Concorde club between 1995 and 2001. The Heavenly label's London club The Sunday Social had adopted a similar philosophy with resident DJs The Chemical Brothers and their eclectic approach.[8] The term caught on, and was subsequently applied to a wide variety of acts, including Bentley Rhythm Ace, Lionrock, The Crystal Method, Lunatic Calm, the Lo Fidelity Allstars, Death in Vegas, and the Propellerheads, among others.

Mainstream success (1990s)

Big beat group The Prodigy

Big beat achieved mainstream success in the 1990s. During the 1990s, The Prodigy had several songs in the top ten of the UK Singles Chart and two of those songs went to number 1 on the chart.[9] The Prodigy also had a lot of popularity in the United States during the 1990s. The Prodigy's album The Fat of the Land went to number 1 on the Billboard 200.[10] The Prodigy performed at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards[11] won the Viewer's Choice Award there.[12] The Prodigy's song "Firestarter" went to number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100.The Prodigy's song "Smack My Bitch Up" went to number 89 on the Billboard Hot 100.[13] The Fat of the Land by the Prodigy sold 2,600,000 copies in the United States[14] and was certified 2x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).[15] The Prodigy's single "Firestarter" was certified gold by the RIAA.[16] Fatboy Slim also achieved mainstream success in the 1990s. His 1998 album You've Come a Long Way, Baby was certified platinum in September 1999.[17] In August 1998, the Crystal Method's song "Comin' Back" went to number 1 on the Dance Club Songs chart.[18]

The big beat scene had started to gradually decline in popularity by 2001, due to the novelty of the genre's formula fading.[19] The genre's most successful acts would alter their sound further, for example, The Chemical Brothers releasing more material with direct house and trance characteristics (including "4 to the floor" beats which resemble those of house and synthesizer sweeps and noises, marking a departure from their big beat sound consisting of syncopated breakbeats & hip hop samples) inspired by the success of the Gatecrasher club and the trance movement, which would reach a commercial peak between 1999 and 2002. However, big beat had left an indelible mark on popular music as an indigenous progression from rave music, bridging a divide between clubbers and indie rock fans. Without this connection, some have reasoned that it would not have reached the heights that it did, or resonated with as many listeners as it did.[20]

Style

Big beat features heavy and distorted drum beats at tempos between 120 and 140 beats per minute, TB-303 synthesizer lines resembling those of acid house, and heavy loops from 60s and 70s funk, soul, jazz, rock, and pop songs. They are often punctuated with punk-style vocals and driven by intense, distorted synthesizer basslines with conventional pop, house and techno song structures. Big beat tracks have a sound that includes crescendos, builds, drops, extended drum rolls, and sounds such as spoken word samples, dialogues from film and TV, additional instruments such as Middle Eastern or Asian strings, explosions, air horns, sirens (usually police sirens) and gunshots. As with several other dance genres at the time, the use of effects such as filters, phasing, and flanging was common in the genre.

Celebrated pioneers of the genre such as Fatboy Slim tend to feature heavily compressed loud breakbeats in his songs, which are used to define the music as much as any melodic hooks and sampled sounds. Based on the primary use of loud, heavy breakbeats and basslines, big beat shares attributes with jungle and drum and bass, but has a significantly slower tempo.

List of big beat artists

References

  1. ^ Gerry, Alex (9 June 1989). "Big Bang in Clubland: Could big beat be the 1989 answer to acid house?". Metropolitan (132): 9. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  2. ^ "Old Hit Won't Outgun Prodigy Disc". Miami Herald. 10 September 2004.
  3. ^ Gerry, Alex (9 June 1989). "Big Bang in Clubland: Could big beat be the 1989 answer to acid house?". Metropolitan (132): 9. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  4. ^ Arabic Circus // The Dawn Rising by Big Bang - The EP contains Voulez-Vous and Cold Nights In Cairo' (retrieved 18 October 2014) https://itunes.apple.com/gb/artist/big-bang/id689952525'
  5. ^ "How The Major Labels Sold 'Electronica' To America". NPR.
  6. ^ a b "Big Beat". Allmusic. Retrieved 26 September 2011.
  7. ^ "Big Beat/Chemical Beats". NciMusic. Retrieved 13 January 2014.
  8. ^ "Newsday". Newsday. 19 July 1998.
  9. ^ "Official Charts Company (The Prodigy)". Official Charts Company. Retrieved May 4, 2017.
  10. ^ "The Prodigy - Chart history (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved May 4, 2017.
  11. ^ Kangas, Chaz (September 6, 2012). "The 1997 Edition Was the Best MTV Video Music Awards". LA Weekly. Retrieved May 4, 2017.
  12. ^ "VMA 1997 - MTV Video Music Awards". MTV. Retrieved May 4, 2017.
  13. ^ "The Prodigy - Chart history (The Hot 100)". Billboard. Retrieved May 4, 2017.
  14. ^ "36ask". Billboard. Retrieved May 4, 2017.
  15. ^ "American album certifications – The Prodigy – The Fat of the Land". Recording Industry Association of America.
  16. ^ "American single certifications – The Prodigy – Firestarter". Recording Industry Association of America.
  17. ^ "American album certifications – Fatboy Slim – You've Come a Long Way, Baby". Recording Industry Association of America.
  18. ^ "The Crystal Method - Chart history (Dance Club Songs)". Billboard. Retrieved May 4, 2017.
  19. ^ Damian Harris (9 April 2008). "Big beat: creating a dancefloor monster". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 September 2011.
  20. ^ Reynolds, Simon (1998). Generation Ecstasy. Little, Brown and Company. p. 384. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  21. ^ id:Garasi (grup musik)
  22. ^ The Sables (electronica band) https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-sables-vol.-1/id1152310856

External links

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