August 5, 2009

I read a New York Times article last week that described what exactly is going down on 2009’s Warped Tour. I mentioned briefly some months ago that the tour was a bit of an abomination of synthesisers and bad hair (and girls in bikinis, did I mention that the ladies really love airing their norks in the US?), but the Times article read:

“2009 will be remembered as the year the Warped Tour transmogrified into a rave. Jay-Z may complain about the creeping influence of Auto-Tune on hip-hop, but on the cyborg scale, punk’s next wave has hip-hop beat, easy. The several thousand in attendance were diverse …and the youngest among them gravitated to the new, hybridized bands”.

It got me thinking how punk and hip-hop ever became two genres that could ever be intertwined ala BrokenCYDE and Deez Nuts. The correlation is so unapparent that fans of the latter two bands are often hard pressed identifying whether they take the hybridisation seriously or are in it for the freakish entertainment.

In the case of Deez Nuts, the rumours that JJ Peters started the project as a joke, still circle despite their massive success. You’ll find many people who pledge their allegiance to hardcore will share a soft spot for at least a selection of Death Row albums and I know if I ever creep my way towards Bang, you’ll find me in the crunk room, sweating up a hip-thrusting storm and trying not to slosh my $2 vodkas down my shirt.

Yet most of us will never share an appreciation for house or indie, two genres that for all intents and purposes should be just as likely to attract our affections. Go figure. PS The Omen killed at the Arty on Saturday. Look them up and thank me later.