The OFFICIAL Trip Hop Thread

[jackhammer]

Originally Posted by Jester

Okay, why should DJ Shadow be labeled trip hop?

Massive Attack is the original trip hop group like My Bloody Valentine is the original shoegaze group. Sure, the idea and elements existed before, but Massive Attack is THE trip hop group, and My Bloody Valentine is THE shoegaze group.

You said in an earlier post that Massive Attack didn't create Trip Hop but now you are saying they are the original trip Hop band? DJ Shadow followed the accepted Trip Hop sound of fusing hip Hop electronic beats with other influences to create a certain ambience. Trip Hop is not defined by it's vocals or lack of. The whole sound is about a certain ambience and melding of genres of which DJ Shadow is a major proponent with his debut.

How the hell is this NOT Trip Hop?:

[sidewinder]

Originally Posted by Jester

Okay, why should DJ Shadow be labeled trip hop?

Because genres evolve. And what Jackhammer said above.

Originally Posted by SATCHMO

I went through my itunes yesterday and simplified my genre classification system by taking all electronic music that isn't hip hop and labeling it "BEATS". The genre snobbery is really giving me a migraine.

I keep my electronic stuff categorized VERY simply...

Electronic - All electronic music that's not that danceable, like IDM for example. Head music.
Electronica/Dance (one of the default tags) - The more accessible, popular, and dancey stuff (includes house, breaks, DnB, etc basically anything you could dance to)
Trip-Hop - Basically everything described in this thread...from Massive Attack to DJ Shadow and Prefuse 73 (though I'm reconsidering the stuff like Prefuse...with the increased popularity of the term "glitch hop" I may have to create a new tag for that style)
Hip-Hop - Instrumental hip-hop (basically electronic beats) that doesn't quite fit under the trip-hop umbrella (I use the "Hip-Hop/Rap" tag for vocal hip-hop)

[Jester]

Originally Posted by jackhammer

You said in an earlier post that Massive Attack didn't create Trip Hop but now you are saying they are the original trip Hop band?

What? I said "Massive Attack, like, created trip hop." Then I said that they were the original trip hop group. How am I being inconsistent?

DJ Shadow followed the accepted Trip Hop sound of fusing hip Hop electronic beats with other influences to create a certain ambience. Trip Hop is not defined by it's vocals or lack of. The whole sound is about a certain ambience and melding of genres of which DJ Shadow is a major proponent with his debut.

How the hell is this NOT Trip Hop?:

If anything, Endtroducing... is hip hop, it's hip hop production. It's made almost entirely out of sampling. That's what hip hop started as, that's what instrumental hip hop is. Why can't Endtroducing... be hip hop? Is it too good to be, so we have to call it something new like "trip hop"? Why do so many people need to devalue unique hip hop?

Endtroducing... wasn't intended to be categorized in a genre, though. It's a deep, deep world where genre isn't meant to exist; it's the crushing of classification.

[Grotesque Head]

When did Trip Hop start then? Not as a term or a genre, but the actual style of music? Obviously it's before the likes of Massive Attack and Tricky arrived on the music scene. I don't have a clue, but I'm curious. I know there were Trip Hop-style elements to songs like Manchild by Neneh Cherry - which was 1989 (and was co-written by 3D from Massive Attack) - and I know that Massive Attack started in '88 - but the style of music must've been about for a while before then I imagine.

[Jester]

Originally Posted by Grotesque Head

When did Trip Hop start then? Not as a term or a genre, but the actual style of music? Obviously it's before the likes of Massive Attack and Tricky arrived on the music scene. I don't have a clue, but I'm curious. I know there were Trip Hop-style elements to songs like Manchild by Neneh Cherry - which was 1989 (and was co-written by 3D from Massive Attack) - and I know that Massive Attack started in '88 - but the style of music must've been about for a while before then I imagine.

Technically, it began as a spin-off of hip hop in England by different DJs - a fad type of thing. It was a mixture between acid jazz, dub and hip hop, mostly. The term was coined in 1993 by a music journalist for some DJ Shadow tape, because it was "trippy." Wee, how creative.

Trip hop technically manifested itself on Massive Attack's Blue Lines. It's more of a gimmick than a music genre, it's attached to so many different styles that nobody really knows what it's supposed to be.

[jackhammer]

Originally Posted by Jester

What? I said "Massive Attack, like, created hip hop." Then I said that they were the original trip hop group. How am I being inconsistent?



If anything, Endtroducing... is hip hop, it's hip hop production. It's made almost entirely out of sampling. That's what hip hop started as, that's what instrumental hip hop is. Why can't Endtroducing... be hip hop? Is it too good to be, so we have to call it something new like "trip hop"? Why do so many people need to devalue unique hip hop?

Endtroducing... wasn't intended to be categorized in a genre, though. It's a deep, deep world where genre isn't meant to exist; it's the crushing of classification.

I misread your post then as it seemed like you were asking for validation for Massive Attack being a trip hop band.

As for 'devaluing Hip Hop' I think it's more that a downtempo Hip Hop sound is not always indicative of the genre and it's easier to put it into trip Hop. Not neccessarily correct but inevitable a lot of the time. You certainly couldn't class someone such as RJD2 as Trip Hop but the sound is admittedly a lot different to Endrotucing.

As I pointed out earlier in the thread, so much music is pigeon holed into a Trip Hop label that the genre is ridiculously splintered.

[Jester]

I dunno, I've never really liked "trip hop" as a genre, and I still don't feel like it's really one. I understand the relation between something sounding downtempo and calling it trip hop, but (being a hip hop kid), I guess I don't like seeing something as incredible as Endtroducing... being introduced as something else, and hip hop not getting the credit it deserves.

The songs are hip hop instrumentals, just more developed; more ideas are being expressed. They are more complex than your average hip hop beat. Plus, the clashing of genres is inherently hip hop. Endtroducing... just chose to take the main focus off of soul/funk samples for vocals and gather from different genres of music.

[willum]

i love trip hop its so deep!!

check , Dusty Speakers, burial, four tet,

[dac]

<3 this thread...

Some of my favs that haven't been talked about yet:

Sunday Munich - Dent



Archive - Bastardized Ink



Elsiane - Across the Stream



Yeah, a lot of it can be classified as ambient electronica, but I think that's just because Trip Hop in general has moved in that direction. It's often very hard to differentiate the two.

[Astronomer]

Originally Posted by dac

<3 this thread...

Some of my favs that haven't been talked about yet:

Sunday Munich - Dent

That was awesome, I liked it a lot. Especially the strings towards the end.