Your thoughts??

exactamundo MJ!

 Yep, agree 100%

too much take take take from the scene!!!

Thats very true. I reckon once all the new hard rock/ emo all dies down a bit things might pick up. The students ain't into clubbing like they used to be. 

I also think that lately everyone has been disecting the scene too much.It doesn't need scientific backing. Lets just enjoy whats left of this pitiful excuse for a summer

Far too much negativity regarding the scene at the moment.

Doesnt seem like such a big ask to me.. And what self respecting artist really gives a fuck about getting every tune they done signed either!

negativity in what way guys??

Yeah people moan but people have always moaned lol

too much pidgeon holing too!!
If it sounds good mix/play it!! current rule book should go out of the window!!
Rewrite the rules

It may very well just be on this board, but the amount of threads lately with people saying the scenes gone stale and needs summat new is silly, plenty of people are moaning about, but not many people are doing anything about it.

Just going off the subject of Vinyl sales, I reckon more people need to get out there and put on their own nights, theres are so many pubs, bars and clubs around the country, that every single town and city should have a hard house night, this would benefit the scene so much because it would introduce the sound to so many different places.

So get off your lazy, moaning arses and make a difference!!!

 

 

As a Digital DJ CD's are ideal for me. I don't download tracks from anywhere these days and pretty much own every track I use. I've never bought an mp3 yet but will probably do so in the future. I'd definitely think about CD's. You don't even need to bother with label designs either. Jon Doe just sells his in blank cases with the track name on the disc and that does me fine plus CD's must be loads cheaper to produce than vinyl resulting in cheaper overheads for you and cheaper tunes for the masses. Only problem is they're a little to easy to copy. You'd have to try it out and weigh up the pros and cons.

I think rewriting the rules is definitely the way to go.
As for too much pigeon-holing, I'm not sure you're quite right. Despite being an obvious marketing ploy, the "Hard Dance" label did well for the genre imo. It let in techno and freeform etc, even breaks, and Hard Dance DJ's are generally open minded to throwing different genres in there sets. Remember, 5 years ago, when a few DJ's were ending their sets with D'n'B? This obviously wasn't going to work, but its a step in the right direction imo.
Secondly, I think that the business aspect of hard dance is in dire need of proper marketing. And by this I don't mean melding the music to fit the status quo, but the otherway around. The hard dance crowd don't seem to have much of an individual identity, and as a scene, i think it should have one. The junglists have an identity, as do the gabber crowd, and the industrial crowd, and the goth crowd, and this helps form a core audience of supporting punters, because it reflects a lifestyle and a state of mind. So, what does our music say about us? Contrarily, it can't get out of hand like the aforementioned genres, where now things seem to be more about image, than music. Personally, as a promoter, my events have a strong cyberpunk theme (not cyberkid, mind you). I've been heavily criticized for this locally, but the many people that show up love it, and it draws a large crowd, and even better a large following. I've had people come up to me and say "Dude, its like being in that scene from the matrix, or hackers, or blade." Point being, it restores and enhances the escapist mentality that the rave scene was all about when it started, and people LOVE it.
Lastly, fresh talent, with fresh ideas. Yes, Glazby, Sweeten, Oz, Farley are all great and outstanding producers, but then what? How can it be expected that so much variety come out of these producers at a constant rate, and for how long?  As an example, I close to worship OD404, but it is just me or has their sound tended to be quite repetitive lately? Now, I'm not indicating that the label and agencies should go out and just higher a completely new stable of "up and coming DJ's" who as it usually turns out, aren't that great. But what if something like an apprentice system is established? If you're a great producer/DJ, and you come across someone who's starting out and you're impressed by something they have or they're direction or drive. Perhaps taking them under your wing is a good idea. Not only are you training future producers who'll have their own sound and style, but you as a producer will have people you can bounce ideas off of and can help you freshen things up from time to time. Music is art afterall.
The remix comp tactic doesn't hurt either from time to time. More remixes you could potentially sell, more remixers you could sign, AND the little kiddies will make all their friends by the record because its their remix.

lately some DJ's (no, lots!) have taken "going in a single direction" to extremes, i don't know if this is down to what promoters tell them to play or what?  I tend to like sets with a bit of variety in them rather than just sticking to one or two specific sounds within a genre, i.e. thrap that sounds similar ALL the way through.  sounds better to me when its broken up just a little

we've tried in our town but most of the bars are part of big chains that won't deviate from their townie shite music policy.  The clubs, which are full of chavscum for most of the week, don't want to know because they say they dont want druggy elements in their clubs.  The only event to get off the ground was Charlotte Birch's dropzone and i think that was because she's got previous success to back her up.  But even thats not on for half the year because they piss off to Ibiza all summer  I suppose there's always Brum

some good point in there

Sharkey has recently done exactly that, AMS was his trainee and now look at him!! He's now part of the NEC! And he recently advertised on a website for a new trainee, the way he did it and what he was asking for was spot on, we need more people doing things like that.

Spot on

To Improve Vinyl sales the last thing you should do is put the price down, people moan about the standards of some tunes released now, putting the price down will just lead to companies releasing more tunes of lesser quality to make their money. 

 

Some very good points in there!   (re: marketing, my cv is available)  

  

Vinyl prices won't drop, that's a fact. There's too many links in the chain to take into consideration for it to work..Studio costs, promotion, Mastering, manufacturing, design, delivery, distribution, shops. Even if you were able to get the first 6 down, the next 2 would be the hardest to make concistent. Each shop charges what they want, there's no R.R.P.

Direction wise....labels should do what they want & not worry about who's doing what. If it's good strong music people will support it either way. Anyone who is a "Bandwagon Jumper" is doing it for the money & no other reason than that. That's not an artist IMO. Of course it's a business at the end of the day, but it shouldn't always dictate what you should be making all of the time. Like Marc said, they will go & make other music & then come back when that has dipped again & so on & so on.

P2P networks will be taken down not so long from now & then things will get back on track in terms of illegal downloads. Most labels are cautious with who gets copies of forthcoming material anyway, so some lessons have been learnt. It may even be better if all labels only handed out TP's just before official release. It can give tunes a longer lifespan if it's still fresh which is my view.

There's definately not enough new people setting themselves up either. Since the demise of Alpha Magic distribution a lot of artists have fallen by the wayside. All their labels were owned by them & they backed & supported more up & coming artists than anyone else by releasing their music or setting up labels for them to help get them recognition. In fact a lot of their artists only did work for their labels, so after they closed so did a lot of artists musically. It doesn't take much to put 2 & 2 together really.

Check other forums of different genres, you'll see the same questions as on here. "Is the scene dipping?", "This tune is shit" etc etc.

I think there's too much talk about what should be done next or who's going to make the next best thing. It doesn't matter, just get on with it. If everyone is doing something slightly different to each other then I think all this will stop very quickly.

Originality is the key

What makes you think that?

It's the service providers that have the power on this, once they have the addy's they can disable or mess with your connection to whatever they want. Best way would be to make the connection completely screwy & slow everytime you logged onto one of these sites. Would definately put a stop to it. Maybe they'll be the one's who get legal action brought against them in the future for being the link to these sites & that's how they will deal with it, who knows.

Don't think it's going to be to far off tho'.

I THINK WE NEED A FEW HARD TRACKS IN THE CHARTS AGAIN, OR HAVE A FEW HARD TRACKS IN FILMS, LOOK AT BORN SLIPPY, MAYBE SOME MORE RADIO SUPPORT, RATHER THEN THIS RNB SHITE.

 

" I want dark, souless, electric, energy driven hardness"

thats what good nrg is and the only way it should be narc your tracks are fuckin awesome

didnt read the whole thread so not sure if this applies, but thats my 2 cents