Don't get me wrong, I love Hip Hop/Rap music. But I can't help but wonder if it had a negative affect on club/dance culture. From what I've heard from older relatives is that "back in the day" (mid to late 70s) that going out on a Friday/Saturday night was all about dancing and having a good time. My dad siad everybody would get down on the dancefloor, not only the girls. It was simple. But Hip Hop became more widespread and popular glorifying violence or whatever. Now the "black" clubs only play rap music and the girls basically shake their asses while all the dudes just stand around frowning at eachother, trying to look "hard" or like a "thug." Plus you have to worry about being shot if you step on somebody's shoe.

I know for a fact that if you're really into dancing, you have to go a Rave or a gay club where they play that acid/techno shit. From the few times I've been to the club there really isn't a lot of dancing going on. Then I look at old documentaries and music videos and the dancefloor would stay packed with everybody. I know there's also been "gay" clubs, but during the Disco era everybody kinda danced to the same kind of music. There wasn't the separation there is today.

So, is this correct? Did Hip Hop cause an adverse affect on club culture?

Don't have an answer because I was too young to remember but vainandy's rant is coming in at 5, 4, 3, 2...

Hip hop didn't ruin anything. Shit hop did.

You might be goin to the wrong clubs. Those clubs you described existed in the 60s' and 70s' too. Every seen those Blaxploitatin films, bad clubs scenes all up and down those movies.

The clubs I go to that play hip-hop (and shit-hop) are nice venues. I do know where the clubs you are talking about are located at, I went to one before.

In hindsight I think it was a combination of many things... I would be slow to say it started with Hip Hop culture. I think things started to change after the death of Dr. King. Drugs and dealing at the clubs had a lot to do with ruining club scene also, plus people not raising their kids. Straight up.

Even so men coming to the club standing against the damn wall started before hip hop came in full blast and I don't know what that shit was and is about. It seems some folks went clubbing to score, get high, drunk or flex. Paradigm shift of club/ dance etiquette... if women doesn't have a date or isn't dancing available men are suppose to ask them to dance. At the same token when a guy ask you to dance (unless he's an asshole) ladies should say yes, what the hell did you come to the club for. As my daughter was telling me dancing with someone elses man is a no no and vice versa. Good grief.

--------------------------------------

[Edited 5/1/12 23:15pm]

Well, hip-hop is not the problem. BAD Hip-hop (as Andy calls it) is the probleme.

I'm 26 and i wasn't old enough to go to the clubs in the early 90s. But thanks to funk (which was actually 'dying') and New Jack, music was still very rythmic, high BPM and those bass lines were groovy as hell... I still can see my brother dancing to MC Hammers "Can't Touch This", Bel Biv Devoe, Guy, House f pain, De La Soul, stuff... The music was still funky. And indeed as my big brother recalls, clubbing out was much moree fun, it was all about the latest dance moves you could show on the dancefloor, dance battle and people wre really not giving a fuck about who's doing what.

But then appeared "mainstream" hip-hop. Don't get me wrong, I love hip-hop, but THIS (especially gangsta rap) ruined the whole thing: This shit wasn't made for clubs, but DJ played it anyway (it was on MTV, so it was cool, it was "hype"). Not only was the music slower (thank U Dr Dre and your Morons With Attitude among others) and lyrics dumbed down (except for some MCs), but the whole 'atittude' thing was a disaster : Mainstream 90s hip-hop brought that fake-ass poseurism, homothug and 'Angry Negro' clichés... The worst part? Stating "Real Gangstas don't dance".

Of course I think even back in the days, some people were still standing against the wall, just shaking their head (One thing I don't get still.. What's the point of going to a club then? ) but it has become worse, worse, worse and worse since the mid 2000s, when than even slower dirty South took over. Now people just DONT dance anymore! I still do dance, though a guy dancing his ass out (I mean DANCING, SWEATING, SHAKING not those slow ass moves) is perceived today as "effeminate", attention-whore and poseur. And that is sad. You enter a hip-hop cleb, all you see is people standing agains the wall, checking each other looks, (or 'swag' ... God I hate this word!). From midnite to 6 in the morning? The only time you hear something upbeat is that electro 'boom-boom-boom-boom' garbage and people just jump around like drunken fools...

The club scene is dead. Fuck shit hop, fuck eurodance. Fuck thug imagery, fuck swag. Fuck the radio.

mainstream clubs are pretty much ruined, yes; reaggeton, shit-hop, shit-dance and the aholes who, out of the blue, decided to play mainstream POP songs in dance clubs ( , BSB, Take That, Britney, Christina, etc) ruined the whole mainstream club scene...so the decline ALREADY started in the late '90s...

but there are still many "concept" clubs, where you can still dance to "Working Day and Night"...

[Edited 5/2/12 9:43am]

JoeTyler said:

mainstream clubs are pretty much ruined, yes; reaggeton, shit-hop, shit-dance and the aholes who, out of the blue, decided to play mainstream POP songs in dance clubs ( , BSB, Take That, Britney, Christina, etc) ruined the whole mainstream club scene...so the decline ALREADY started in the late '90s...

but there are still many "concept" clubs, where you can still dance to "Working Day and Night"...

[Edited 5/2/12 9:43am]

Unfortunatly, they are quite hard to find and most of the time, I'm surrounded by 40+ years old people, not my demographic (no young lady to hit on... )

Workin Day and Night is my JAM. Easily one of MJ's best songs.

FrenchGuy said:

Well, hip-hop is not the problem. BAD Hip-hop (as Andy calls it) is the probleme.

I'm 26 and i wasn't old enough to go to the clubs in the early 90s. But thanks to funk (which was actually 'dying') and New Jack, music was still very rythmic, high BPM and those bass lines were groovy as hell... I still can see my brother dancing to MC Hammers "Can't Touch This", Bel Biv Devoe, Guy, House f pain, De La Soul, stuff... The music was still funky. And indeed as my big brother recalls, clubbing out was much moree fun, it was all about the latest dance moves you could show on the dancefloor, dance battle and people wre really not giving a fuck about who's doing what.

But then appeared "mainstream" hip-hop. Don't get me wrong, I love hip-hop, but THIS (especially gangsta rap) ruined the whole thing: This shit wasn't made for clubs, but DJ played it anyway (it was on MTV, so it was cool, it was "hype"). Not only was the music slower (thank U Dr Dre and your Morons With Attitude among others) and lyrics dumbed down (except for some MCs), but the whole 'atittude' thing was a disaster : Mainstream 90s hip-hop brought that fake-ass poseurism, homothug and 'Angry Negro' clichés... The worst part? Stating "Real Gangstas don't dance".

Of course I think even back in the days, some people were still standing against the wall, just shaking their head (One thing I don't get still.. What's the point of going to a club then? ) but it has become worse, worse, worse and worse since the mid 2000s, when than even slower dirty South took over. Now people just DONT dance anymore! I still do dance, though a guy dancing his ass out (I mean DANCING, SWEATING, SHAKING not those slow ass moves) is perceived today as "effeminate", attention-whore and poseur. And that is sad. You enter a hip-hop cleb, all you see is people standing agains the wall, checking each other looks, (or 'swag' ... God I hate this word!). From midnite to 6 in the morning? The only time you hear something upbeat is that electro 'boom-boom-boom-boom' garbage and people just jump around like drunken fools...

The club scene is dead. Fuck shit hop, fuck eurodance. Fuck thug imagery, fuck swag. Fuck the radio.

For someone so young, you definitely know what time it is. As for MC Hammer, those fool rappers that came after him were stupid as hell talking about him. Hammer's jams were much more suitable for the clubs than their Lawrence Welk tempoed stuff and he didn't carry himself like a piece of trash like they did. They played many a Hammer jam in the clubs, especially the "U Can't Touch This" ultimix version that had the 12 Inch version of "Super Freak" mixed into it in various areas of the song. His stuff was fun and theirs wasn't. But then again, they'll tell you they didn't make theirs for the clubs. Well, my answer to that is, if you don't make something suitable for a club, you don't deserve a recording contract.

JoeTyler said:

mainstream clubs are pretty much ruined, yes; reaggeton, shit-hop, shit-dance and the aholes who, out of the blue, decided to play mainstream POP songs in dance clubs ( , BSB, Take That, Britney, Christina, etc) ruined the whole mainstream club scene...so the decline ALREADY started in the late '90s...

but there are still many "concept" clubs, where you can still dance to "Working Day and Night"...

[Edited 5/2/12 9:43am]

The mainstream clubs have been dull since the early 1990s. Thank God for the gay clubs which were absolutely slammin' back then. But since the late 1990s, the gay clubs have become just as dull as the straight clubs. And they have the nerve to call themselves gay. Please, they don't deserve that honor because gay people have always jammed harder than straight people until recent years. In the 1990s, it wasn't uncommon at all to see lots of people in their 40s in the clubs right alongside the newcomers in their 20s. That's because those same folks had been out since the disco era and house music ruled the gay scene in the early 1990s and it was simply a reincarnation of disco so naturally they loved it. Also, unlike straight people, we don't have wives, kids, families, etc. so our lives have always been party lives until the day we die (for those of us who don't live in a closet). That's probably why we've always had our own style of music to continue entertaining us because we love to party and our party never ends. That is until recent years. You go in a gay club now and it looks like the cast of "Barney" being filmed live on location from a prison yard.

As for those concept clubs, I don't quite understand what you mean by those. I'm assuming clubs that play nothing but old music. We don't have anything like that down here other than "juke joints" or "pool halls" where some older people frequent and the focus really isn't on music anyway and it's simply something that just played in the background while they shoot pool or play cards or something. They mainly play blues and are full of old codgers with gold teeth who still sport jheri curls and try to pick up women who will sleep with them if they "help them pay their light bill". Every blue moon, I hear commercials on the radio about a particular club that will be having an "old school night" where they play nothing but old music for that night only. First of all, they are always straight clubs so that does me no good, and second, they do stupid stuff like dress up in afro wigs, bellbottoms, etc. like a damn Halloween costume party. It's more like a retro night rather than going to enjoy the music and have a good time.

.

.

.

[Edited 5/3/12 1:27am]

Never thought I'd see the day MC Hammer and his corny bullshit got praised on the org. Please. That was an awful phase of music.

I haven't been to straight clubs in about 10 yrs. When I did, though, I never had issues like the OP speaks about. It helps if you stay away from clubs known to be frequented by criminals.

But seriously... dance-offs and shit? What is this, the set of Breakin' 2?

vainandy said:

JoeTyler said:

mainstream clubs are pretty much ruined, yes; reaggeton, shit-hop, shit-dance and the aholes who, out of the blue, decided to play mainstream POP songs in dance clubs ( , BSB, Take That, Britney, Christina, etc) ruined the whole mainstream club scene...so the decline ALREADY started in the late '90s...

but there are still many "concept" clubs, where you can still dance to "Working Day and Night"...

[Edited 5/2/12 9:43am]

The mainstream clubs have been dull since the early 1990s. Thank God for the gay clubs which were absolutely slammin' back then. But since the late 1990s, the gay clubs have become just as dull as the straight clubs. And they have the nerve to call themselves gay. Please, they don't deserve that honor because gay people have always jammed harder than straight people until recent years. In the 1990s, it wasn't uncommon at all to see lots of people in their 40s in the clubs right alongside the newcomers in their 20s. That's because those same folks had been out since the disco era and house music ruled the gay scene in the early 1990s and it was simply a reincarnation of disco so naturally they loved it. Also, unlike straight people, we don't have wives, kids, families, etc. so our lives have always been party lives until the day we die (for those of us who don't live in a closet). That's probably why we've always had our own style of music to continue entertaining us because we love to party and our party never ends. That is until recent years. You go in a gay club now and it looks like the cast of "Barney" being filmed live on location from a prison yard.

As for those concept clubs, I don't quite understand what you mean by those. I'm assuming clubs that play nothing but old music. We don't have anything like that down here other than "juke joints" or "pool halls" where some older people frequent and the focus really isn't on music anyway and it's simply something that just played in the background while they shoot pool or play cards or something. They mainly play blues and are full of old codgers with gold teeth who still sport jheri curls and try to pick up women who will sleep with them if they "help them pay their light bill". Every blue moon, I hear commercials on the radio about a particular club that will be having an "old school night" where they play nothing but old music for that night only. First of all, they are always straight clubs so that does me no good, and second, they do stupid stuff like dress up in afro wigs, bellbottoms, etc. like a damn Halloween costume party. It's more like a retro night rather than going to enjoy the music and have a good time.

.

.

.

[Edited 5/3/12 1:27am]

humm, the straight early-90's clubs were probably a bit duller than in 80's and in the golden age of the late 70's, but c'mon, there was still some great stuff to dance to, thanks to the then still recent Chigaco/Manchester scene, plus the "electronica/rave" revolution. I was just a kid during those years, but I remember my sisters having a blast and telling me about it, lol. When we left the States in the mid-90's, clubs and music in general got duller, but I still remember the "no alcohol + heavy security" clubs for 14-17 years old teenagers, clubs that played jungle/hardcore/late-rave electronic music, which was a plus. By late 90s, as I've said, things started to get VERY dull, with clubs full of sellout/crappy DJs playing pop music which was very hard to dance to (by hard I mean pointless/boring), but you could still hear pure dance acts like Basement Jaxx, Daft Punk, Goldie or similar stuff...

but by 2003-2006, ironically when I was 19-22 and ready to enjoy the "adult" club world, DAMN, that was when things went to hell WORLDWIDE: that was when the dull reaggeton (dullest "dance" genre ever) and shit-hop took ova, and that was when people basically accepted (only God knows why) those new genres but at the same time refused to dance, focusing instead on "problems" like "What should I drink?", "Is this/that a hip topic for a cool conversation?" , "Will I score tonight?", "Do I look good?", "Which cool outfit should I wear tonight?" , "Do I look cheap with all this makeup?" etc; the kind of "problems" that turned straight dance clubs into a boring, sterile, predictable giant jukebox; clubs that played Non-club genres like Britpop, dance-pop, pop oldies, shit-hop, reaggeton, etc. which was as bad as it sounds, a crappy/impossible mixture made in hell, turning the straight people into boring twits which only wanted to drink, talk, and who knows? score...They basically stopped giving a damn about the music the DJs were playing.

Now, even in 2011-12, the current straight "dance" clubs are basically giant bars with a loud sound system blasting old and new pop songs, and some shit-hop/shit-dance acts; no more and no less...

So yes, lol, I can understand why gay people have been mocking the straight clubs since, at least, the late 90s...

and by "concept" clubs I mean some clubs that ONLY play modern/old funk-disco, or old-school/current electronic music. These clubs are normally small and expensive, but at least there you can dance to the music you really want to dance to...and the "sex" is not a problem since those clubs are normally the place for people who want to have interracial sex, "different age" sex or even "gay/lesbian" sex if you look for it long enough, lol...But that doesn't mean they don't care about the music. The people there would NOT accept a Christina Aguilera song, lol, not even a dance remix. It's quite a paradise, really. I've find a couple of these clubs in SA but also (specially) in Europe. I bet cities like NY, SF or LA are also full of these of clubs...

But you can bet your ass that I haven't been in a "mainstream" straight dance club since 2007, at least...well, no, I was forced to go to a mainstream club in 2009, and I remember the DJ playing Blur, Duffy, Celine Dion, Britney, U2, Madonna (and the motherfucker played a pop song, Material Girl, not even one of her legendary dance remixes) and other "pure club" artists (pun intented). I was this close to smash his head against the wall damn I had to drink like a mf to endure the whole experience...

FrenchGuy said:

But then appeared "mainstream" hip-hop. Don't get me wrong, I love hip-hop, but THIS (especially gangsta rap) ruined the whole thing: This shit wasn't made for clubs, but DJ played it anyway (it was on MTV, so it was cool, it was "hype"). Not only was the music slower (thank U Dr Dre and your Morons With Attitude among others) and lyrics dumbed down (except for some MCs), but the whole 'atittude' thing was a disaster : Mainstream 90s hip-hop brought that fake-ass poseurism, homothug and 'Angry Negro' clichés... The worst part? Stating "Real Gangstas don't dance".

The club scene is dead. Fuck shit hop, fuck eurodance. Fuck thug imagery, fuck swag. Fuck the radio.

I agree with this. In the 80s, people would try to out-dance each other at the clubs. In the 90s, everybody became wallflowers trying to look cool. The pace of the music slowed down. Music changed. It got simpler and more repetitive.

I hate to sound like a broken record but none of that is coincidence.

Hammer was trying to keep the up-tempo dance movement going. He was actually fighting the change in the midst of it but people didn't know what was going on at the time. An example of how pace affected the club scene was DMX's "Party Up". Musically, it was a huge change in pace from what was being played at the time while lyrically, it was in step with what was being promoted. It became a club it because of the tempo of the track and its danceability. If you put those lyrics on another slower track, it would have been just another "shit-hop" song as Andy puts it. There were a few songs throughout the era that stood out for this same reason; they were faster than what was being played in the clubs otherwise.

Being "club age" in the 80's and 90's, i think that there were a couple of things that happened on the club scene that for me kind of ruined club culture. To understand, I think a context has to be set to understand what my favorite clubs were like. Within the space of an hour you could hear everything from Prince to Enigma to Working day and night to The groove is in the heart" and it all just blended together while still providing a variety of beats to dance to. It was awesome.

When I stopped going to clubs two musical trends had seized control, hip hop and techno. It seemed in the late 90's clubs kind of settled into ruts and became locked into one style of music and sound in what ever club you went to would just become monotonous.

Part of the issue is the question "what makes a good DJ?" A friend of mine one said that a great DJ makes it where it all feels like one song, and he is wrong, a great DJ takes different songs and stays true to their differences all while making them feel like they belong played next to each other.

I think it was the monotony of the mixing that killed the clubs regardless of the DJ's were favoring techno or hip hop.

Just one former club junkys view.

Peace and lovesexy.

vainandy said:

FrenchGuy said:

Well, hip-hop is not the problem. BAD Hip-hop (as Andy calls it) is the probleme.

I'm 26 and i wasn't old enough to go to the clubs in the early 90s. But thanks to funk (which was actually 'dying') and New Jack, music was still very rythmic, high BPM and those bass lines were groovy as hell... I still can see my brother dancing to MC Hammers "Can't Touch This", Bel Biv Devoe, Guy, House f pain, De La Soul, stuff... The music was still funky. And indeed as my big brother recalls, clubbing out was much moree fun, it was all about the latest dance moves you could show on the dancefloor, dance battle and people wre really not giving a fuck about who's doing what.

But then appeared "mainstream" hip-hop. Don't get me wrong, I love hip-hop, but THIS (especially gangsta rap) ruined the whole thing: This shit wasn't made for clubs, but DJ played it anyway (it was on MTV, so it was cool, it was "hype"). Not only was the music slower (thank U Dr Dre and your Morons With Attitude among others) and lyrics dumbed down (except for some MCs), but the whole 'atittude' thing was a disaster : Mainstream 90s hip-hop brought that fake-ass poseurism, homothug and 'Angry Negro' clichés... The worst part? Stating "Real Gangstas don't dance".

Of course I think even back in the days, some people were still standing against the wall, just shaking their head (One thing I don't get still.. What's the point of going to a club then? ) but it has become worse, worse, worse and worse since the mid 2000s, when than even slower dirty South took over. Now people just DONT dance anymore! I still do dance, though a guy dancing his ass out (I mean DANCING, SWEATING, SHAKING not those slow ass moves) is perceived today as "effeminate", attention-whore and poseur. And that is sad. You enter a hip-hop cleb, all you see is people standing agains the wall, checking each other looks, (or 'swag' ... God I hate this word!). From midnite to 6 in the morning? The only time you hear something upbeat is that electro 'boom-boom-boom-boom' garbage and people just jump around like drunken fools...

The club scene is dead. Fuck shit hop, fuck eurodance. Fuck thug imagery, fuck swag. Fuck the radio.

For someone so young, you definitely know what time it is. As for MC Hammer, those fool rappers that came after him were stupid as hell talking about him. Hammer's jams were much more suitable for the clubs than their Lawrence Welk tempoed stuff and he didn't carry himself like a piece of trash like they did. They played many a Hammer jam in the clubs, especially the "U Can't Touch This" ultimix version that had the 12 Inch version of "Super Freak" mixed into it in various areas of the song. His stuff was fun and theirs wasn't. But then again, they'll tell you they didn't make theirs for the clubs. Well, my answer to that is, if you don't make something suitable for a club, you don't deserve a recording contract.

'Member how this would blow the place up?

SavonOsco said:.... There are plenty of uptempo songs around,"why" they aren't featured?...That's a whole another story....

I alluded to this very topic in my earlier post. If we go there, people think you are a conspiracy theorist.

The conditioning of a culture takes a combined effort but when you add up all of the things that woked (and still work) in tandem to create a certin cultural climate it all more than makes sense.

The problem is people have been socially conditioned to think that analytical thinking outside of political correctness is wrong and therefore must be "crazy" and immediately dismissed.

Its like giving someone a disease and then convincing them that looking for a cure is idiotic but its okay to find a treatment.

BlaqueKnight said:

Jo

but by 2003-2006, ironically when I was 19-22 and ready to enjoy the "adult" club world, DAMN, that was when things went to hell WORLDWIDE: that was when the dull reaggeton (dullest "dance" genre ever) and shit-hop took ova, and that was when people basically accepted (only God knows why) those new genres but at the same time refused to dance, focusing instead on "problems" like "What should I drink?", "Is this/that a hip topic for a cool conversation?" , "Will I score tonight?", "Do I look good?", "Which cool outfit should I wear tonight?" , "Do I look cheap with all this makeup?" etc;

Now, even in 2011-12, the current straight "dance" clubs are basically giant bars with a loud sound system blasting old and new pop songs, and some shit-hop/shit-dance acts; no more and no less...

FrenchGuy said:

Jo

but by 2003-2006, ironically when I was 19-22 and ready to enjoy the "adult" club world, DAMN, that was when things went to hell WORLDWIDE: that was when the dull reaggeton (dullest "dance" genre ever) and shit-hop took ova, and that was when people basically accepted (only God knows why) those new genres but at the same time refused to dance, focusing instead on "problems" like "What should I drink?", "Is this/that a hip topic for a cool conversation?" , "Will I score tonight?", "Do I look good?", "Which cool outfit should I wear tonight?" , "Do I look cheap with all this makeup?" etc;

Now, even in 2011-12, the current straight "dance" clubs are basically giant bars with a loud sound system blasting old and new pop songs, and some shit-hop/shit-dance acts; no more and no less...

Great Post!

I can remember back in the 80's, poeple were at the clubs for one thing only, to have a great time and dance the night away. I remember having to throw away shirts after a night clubbing, because I was drentched with sweat from non-stop partying. I feel bad for you that you will never get to experience that. Try an old fashioned HOUSE PARTY! At least you know everyone and you're all there for one reason.

[Edited 5/4/12 10:04am]

JoeTyler said:

vainandy said:

The mainstream clubs have been dull since the early 1990s. Thank God for the gay clubs which were absolutely slammin' back then. But since the late 1990s, the gay clubs have become just as dull as the straight clubs. And they have the nerve to call themselves gay. Please, they don't deserve that honor because gay people have always jammed harder than straight people until recent years. In the 1990s, it wasn't uncommon at all to see lots of people in their 40s in the clubs right alongside the newcomers in their 20s. That's because those same folks had been out since the disco era and house music ruled the gay scene in the early 1990s and it was simply a reincarnation of disco so naturally they loved it. Also, unlike straight people, we don't have wives, kids, families, etc. so our lives have always been party lives until the day we die (for those of us who don't live in a closet). That's probably why we've always had our own style of music to continue entertaining us because we love to party and our party never ends. That is until recent years. You go in a gay club now and it looks like the cast of "Barney" being filmed live on location from a prison yard.

As for those concept clubs, I don't quite understand what you mean by those. I'm assuming clubs that play nothing but old music. We don't have anything like that down here other than "juke joints" or "pool halls" where some older people frequent and the focus really isn't on music anyway and it's simply something that just played in the background while they shoot pool or play cards or something. They mainly play blues and are full of old codgers with gold teeth who still sport jheri curls and try to pick up women who will sleep with them if they "help them pay their light bill". Every blue moon, I hear commercials on the radio about a particular club that will be having an "old school night" where they play nothing but old music for that night only. First of all, they are always straight clubs so that does me no good, and second, they do stupid stuff like dress up in afro wigs, bellbottoms, etc. like a damn Halloween costume party. It's more like a retro night rather than going to enjoy the music and have a good time.

.

.

.

[Edited 5/3/12 1:27am]

humm, the straight early-90's clubs were probably a bit duller than in 80's and in the golden age of the late 70's, but c'mon, there was still some great stuff to dance to, thanks to the then still recent Chigaco/Manchester scene, plus the "electronica/rave" revolution. I was just a kid during those years, but I remember my sisters having a blast and telling me about it, lol. When we left the States in the mid-90's, clubs and music in general got duller, but I still remember the "no alcohol + heavy security" clubs for 14-17 years old teenagers, clubs that played jungle/hardcore/late-rave electronic music, which was a plus. By late 90s, as I've said, things started to get VERY dull, with clubs full of sellout/crappy DJs playing pop music which was very hard to dance to (by hard I mean pointless/boring), but you could still hear pure dance acts like Basement Jaxx, Daft Punk, Goldie or similar stuff...

but by 2003-2006, ironically when I was 19-22 and ready to enjoy the "adult" club world, DAMN, that was when things went to hell WORLDWIDE: that was when the dull reaggeton (dullest "dance" genre ever) and shit-hop took ova, and that was when people basically accepted (only God knows why) those new genres but at the same time refused to dance, focusing instead on "problems" like "What should I drink?", "Is this/that a hip topic for a cool conversation?" , "Will I score tonight?", "Do I look good?", "Which cool outfit should I wear tonight?" , "Do I look cheap with all this makeup?" etc; the kind of "problems" that turned straight dance clubs into a boring, sterile, predictable giant jukebox; clubs that played Non-club genres like Britpop, dance-pop, pop oldies, shit-hop, reaggeton, etc. which was as bad as it sounds, a crappy/impossible mixture made in hell, turning the straight people into boring twits which only wanted to drink, talk, and who knows? score...They basically stopped giving a damn about the music the DJs were playing.

Now, even in 2011-12, the current straight "dance" clubs are basically giant bars with a loud sound system blasting old and new pop songs, and some shit-hop/shit-dance acts; no more and no less...

So yes, lol, I can understand why gay people have been mocking the straight clubs since, at least, the late 90s...

and by "concept" clubs I mean some clubs that ONLY play modern/old funk-disco, or old-school/current electronic music. These clubs are normally small and expensive, but at least there you can dance to the music you really want to dance to...and the "sex" is not a problem since those clubs are normally the place for people who want to have interracial sex, "different age" sex or even "gay/lesbian" sex if you look for it long enough, lol...But that doesn't mean they don't care about the music. The people there would NOT accept a Christina Aguilera song, lol, not even a dance remix. It's quite a paradise, really. I've find a couple of these clubs in SA but also (specially) in Europe. I bet cities like NY, SF or LA are also full of these of clubs...

But you can bet your ass that I haven't been in a "mainstream" straight dance club since 2007, at least...well, no, I was forced to go to a mainstream club in 2009, and I remember the DJ playing Blur, Duffy, Celine Dion, Britney, U2, Madonna (and the motherfucker played a pop song, Material Girl, not even one of her legendary dance remixes) and other "pure club" artists (pun intented). I was this close to smash his head against the wall damn I had to drink like a mf to endure the whole experience...

Never EVER thought i would see the day Blur & U2 where called club artists

I never in my life straight, gay, lesbian, animal, whatever clubs. Have EVER heard a U2 Or a Blur song i mean that would be cool but i have never seen that.

Gunsnhalen said:

JoeTyler said:

humm, the straight early-90's clubs were probably a bit duller than in 80's and in the golden age of the late 70's, but c'mon, there was still some great stuff to dance to, thanks to the then still recent Chigaco/Manchester scene, plus the "electronica/rave" revolution. I was just a kid during those years, but I remember my sisters having a blast and telling me about it, lol. When we left the States in the mid-90's, clubs and music in general got duller, but I still remember the "no alcohol + heavy security" clubs for 14-17 years old teenagers, clubs that played jungle/hardcore/late-rave electronic music, which was a plus. By late 90s, as I've said, things started to get VERY dull, with clubs full of sellout/crappy DJs playing pop music which was very hard to dance to (by hard I mean pointless/boring), but you could still hear pure dance acts like Basement Jaxx, Daft Punk, Goldie or similar stuff...

but by 2003-2006, ironically when I was 19-22 and ready to enjoy the "adult" club world, DAMN, that was when things went to hell WORLDWIDE: that was when the dull reaggeton (dullest "dance" genre ever) and shit-hop took ova, and that was when people basically accepted (only God knows why) those new genres but at the same time refused to dance, focusing instead on "problems" like "What should I drink?", "Is this/that a hip topic for a cool conversation?" , "Will I score tonight?", "Do I look good?", "Which cool outfit should I wear tonight?" , "Do I look cheap with all this makeup?" etc; the kind of "problems" that turned straight dance clubs into a boring, sterile, predictable giant jukebox; clubs that played Non-club genres like Britpop, dance-pop, pop oldies, shit-hop, reaggeton, etc. which was as bad as it sounds, a crappy/impossible mixture made in hell, turning the straight people into boring twits which only wanted to drink, talk, and who knows? score...They basically stopped giving a damn about the music the DJs were playing.

Now, even in 2011-12, the current straight "dance" clubs are basically giant bars with a loud sound system blasting old and new pop songs, and some shit-hop/shit-dance acts; no more and no less...

So yes, lol, I can understand why gay people have been mocking the straight clubs since, at least, the late 90s...

and by "concept" clubs I mean some clubs that ONLY play modern/old funk-disco, or old-school/current electronic music. These clubs are normally small and expensive, but at least there you can dance to the music you really want to dance to...and the "sex" is not a problem since those clubs are normally the place for people who want to have interracial sex, "different age" sex or even "gay/lesbian" sex if you look for it long enough, lol...But that doesn't mean they don't care about the music. The people there would NOT accept a Christina Aguilera song, lol, not even a dance remix. It's quite a paradise, really. I've find a couple of these clubs in SA but also (specially) in Europe. I bet cities like NY, SF or LA are also full of these of clubs...

But you can bet your ass that I haven't been in a "mainstream" straight dance club since 2007, at least...well, no, I was forced to go to a mainstream club in 2009, and I remember the DJ playing Blur, Duffy, Celine Dion, Britney, U2, Madonna (and the motherfucker played a pop song, Material Girl, not even one of her legendary dance remixes) and other "pure club" artists (pun intented). I was this close to smash his head against the wall damn I had to drink like a mf to endure the whole experience...

Never EVER thought i would see the day Blur & U2 where called club artists

I never in my life straight, gay, lesbian, animal, whatever clubs. Have EVER heard a U2 Or a Blur song i mean that would be cool but i have never seen that.

I've seen/heard some sellout DJs playing Mysterious Ways, Vertigo, Boys&Girls and Song 2 in 00s straight dance clubs... and no, it wasn't cool... U2/Blur in a small bar with a couple of friends/beers? Sure. U2/Blur in a dance club?

kalelvisj said:

Being "club age" in the 80's and 90's, i think that there were a couple of things that happened on the club scene that for me kind of ruined club culture. To understand, I think a context has to be set to understand what my favorite clubs were like. Within the space of an hour you could hear everything from Prince to Enigma to Working day and night to The groove is in the heart" and it all just blended together while still providing a variety of beats to dance to. It was awesome.

When I stopped going to clubs two musical trends had seized control, hip hop and techno. It seemed in the late 90's clubs kind of settled into ruts and became locked into one style of music and sound in what ever club you went to would just become monotonous.

Part of the issue is the question "what makes a good DJ?" A friend of mine one said that a great DJ makes it where it all feels like one song, and he is wrong, a great DJ takes different songs and stays true to their differences all while making them feel like they belong played next to each other.

I think it was the monotony of the mixing that killed the clubs regardless of the DJ's were favoring techno or hip hop.

Just one former club junkys view.

Peace and lovesexy.

I agree with both of you. I think a mix should blend so well that it almost feels like the same song but not quite. For example, mixing Egyptian Lover's "Egypt Egypt" with Twilight 22's "Electric Kingdom" would mix really well together being similar tempos and would keep kind of an overseas "forgeign" sound going for a little while kinda like a theme. If blended well, the two could sound sort of like one song but the good thing with both songs being popular back on R&B radio back in the day, is that people know they are two different songs because they have heard them before. With the acid/trance thing that has been going on since the late 1990s, the only people that have heard the songs are the club regulars who are in there every week and even they think the songs are all one long song because a lot of it has no vocals and the music itself is very repetitive on damn near every single song and the instruments used on all the songs are the same to the point that it all sounds alike so you could easily mistake a whole block of songs for one long song. I like a mix where the songs are similar in tempo and sound but you can still tell that there are various different songs being blended one after the other. It's not like that with acid/trance....plus the genre itself is so repetitive that it is dull.

I agree with you also in liking a lot of variety but I don't believe in playing a variety of songs all in a row. I like themes too but only if they are similar tempos or genres to where they feel like they belong together. Such as "Egypt, Egypt" and "Electric Kingdom" which I think belong together like chocolate and peanut butter in a Reese's cup but not "Egypt, Egypt" and The Bangles' "Walk Like An Egyptian" which both have an Egyptian theme but sound completely different to the point that one would spoil the mood of the mix if played after the other.

I like songs played in blocks all from the same genre with similar tempos that flow well into each other. If the tempo changes, then change the block to either a slower or faster tempo for a while. If I want to hear rock rather than funk, disco, or house, I want to hear rock and rock only for a little while, same with slow jams. Back and forth between tempos and genres changes a good mood I'm feeling and if I'm feeling a particular mood, I don't want it to end for a while. Also, folks on a dance floor would be constantly getting on and getting off the dancefloor rather than steadily dancing feeling one mood for a while.

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[Edited 5/4/12 12:26pm]

Genesia said:

vainandy said:

For someone so young, you definitely know what time it is. As for MC Hammer, those fool rappers that came after him were stupid as hell talking about him. Hammer's jams were much more suitable for the clubs than their Lawrence Welk tempoed stuff and he didn't carry himself like a piece of trash like they did. They played many a Hammer jam in the clubs, especially the "U Can't Touch This" ultimix version that had the 12 Inch version of "Super Freak" mixed into it in various areas of the song. His stuff was fun and theirs wasn't. But then again, they'll tell you they didn't make theirs for the clubs. Well, my answer to that is, if you don't make something suitable for a club, you don't deserve a recording contract.

'Member how this would blow the place up?

I remember it well. It was pretty good until everyone else started recording songs with the "yeah, wooo" all over them.

JoeTyler said:

vainandy said:

The mainstream clubs have been dull since the early 1990s. Thank God for the gay clubs which were absolutely slammin' back then. But since the late 1990s, the gay clubs have become just as dull as the straight clubs. And they have the nerve to call themselves gay. Please, they don't deserve that honor because gay people have always jammed harder than straight people until recent years. In the 1990s, it wasn't uncommon at all to see lots of people in their 40s in the clubs right alongside the newcomers in their 20s. That's because those same folks had been out since the disco era and house music ruled the gay scene in the early 1990s and it was simply a reincarnation of disco so naturally they loved it. Also, unlike straight people, we don't have wives, kids, families, etc. so our lives have always been party lives until the day we die (for those of us who don't live in a closet). That's probably why we've always had our own style of music to continue entertaining us because we love to party and our party never ends. That is until recent years. You go in a gay club now and it looks like the cast of "Barney" being filmed live on location from a prison yard.

As for those concept clubs, I don't quite understand what you mean by those. I'm assuming clubs that play nothing but old music. We don't have anything like that down here other than "juke joints" or "pool halls" where some older people frequent and the focus really isn't on music anyway and it's simply something that just played in the background while they shoot pool or play cards or something. They mainly play blues and are full of old codgers with gold teeth who still sport jheri curls and try to pick up women who will sleep with them if they "help them pay their light bill". Every blue moon, I hear commercials on the radio about a particular club that will be having an "old school night" where they play nothing but old music for that night only. First of all, they are always straight clubs so that does me no good, and second, they do stupid stuff like dress up in afro wigs, bellbottoms, etc. like a damn Halloween costume party. It's more like a retro night rather than going to enjoy the music and have a good time.

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[Edited 5/3/12 1:27am]

dull reaggeton (dullest "dance" genre ever)

it might not have dug a hole in the club culture but it sure has done sum major damage 2 the black culture and the rappers and their lyrics dont wanna take responsiblity 4 the filt they create

vainandy said:

Genesia said:

'Member how this would blow the place up?

I remember it well. It was pretty good until everyone else started recording songs with the "yeah, wooo" all over them.

Good point.