It really suprised me to hear Reynolds piping up in favour of Ragga. He's usually so self-conciously "off-the-money".
I'm not going to go into a historical protestation of who got there first, for one you've heard quite enough of the pathetic justifications of my own suavity, but also because in this instance not looking down the barrell of history (Back to Ragga in 1991) is more illuminating. Truth is someone who was tuned into Ragga two or three years ago (which as his luck would have it Simon was....you can relax big man) would stand a better chance of convincing me they were down with the programme than someone who was tuned in in the early nineties (scoffs-who wasn't!)
If you were buying Ragga two years ago, in my opinion, you would have been wasting your cash. Lloyd Bradley was on pretty safe turf in sticking the knife in it at the end of Bass Culture (no Basslines, Tut! Tut!) Though he changed his tune in time for that three part BBC Documentary on Reggae, with Elephant Man embodying the carnival-esque. Moi, at the time I was heartily sick of the lack of anything to hum along to in Dancehall, and retreated to the perfectly respectable but unadventurous habit of picking up snapshot comps, then wondering why the hell I bothered. Mo Wax's brave Ragga Dub comp fell on stony ground (yeah I'm gonna stick up for Lavelle! SO WHAT! Back off you gits!) However now, pretty suddenly, we've got loads of great tunes. A whole Bashy Culture crying out for Ragga and even Steve 'Roots' Barrow chastising us for not being hip to Lenky's Diwali. Me, I've been back at the coalface for a couple of months hewing out 7"s which I like the sound of (screw other people's reccomendations). It's bloody marvellous.
As for being self-conciously "off-the-money", this I want to explore. I'm currently so sickened by the wall of Good/Bad taste which has been erected here at the blogs that I've come *this* close to shutting down. Good/Bad taste? What's that? Good/Bad taste was Lester Bang's invention and Reynold's took the ball and ran with it. Good/Bad taste is GENUINELY liking things which infuriate your bohemian mates, half enjoying the fact that it pisses them off. Thing is, online all the disparate practioners of Good/Bad taste are able to hang-out together. Who is there to annoy! Only eachother in an ever escalating war of Good/Bad taste. I actually set out on the way to work this morning to find a copy of Smash Hits with the idea of scouring it for the most hateful looking boy-band with the express intention of scanning in their picture and writing non-ironically about how much I liked them, without recourse to comparing their lesser known B-side to The Pop Group and Jimmy Cauty's Brilliant. Just to fuck everyone off and wilfully destroy my tiny audience. In fact I would do it (threatens readers) were it not for the fact that it would just be the most arch example of Good/Bad taste ever (see Marcello on Girls Aloud!) I dunno. Where next eh! Any of the assembled masses up for a match of BrokenBeat-vs-Microhouse, bagsy be extra-long leg!
Posted by Woebot at May 23, 2003 10:42 AM