zane

zane zane zane zane! in july i was cautiously optimistic that zane's giddy rap love would make the evening session hot - well, he still can't make terrible guitar music sound good but a few months later i am still listening. he still rhymes along with every rap song and makes scratching noises and stuff. i think it must be more than just zane though, it feels good to be into a show where i'm not predisposed to like almost all of it (semtex on 1xtra, coming from a fresh ukg mental-beat perspective, probably has the best hiphop show in the uk but it gets boring when you know he's never going to drop some awful dm and jemini clanger to laugh at). it's a nice, safe test of what i can actually stomach hearing right now, and it allows me to lamely theorize on music i don't have a clue about ("yeah man, shuffletech kinda fell off!") by citing one song. so here's the breakdown on zane lowe type music:

guitar stuff- seems to have got even less memorable since i last regularly listened to the session in about 99; the best songs are normally the ones that cross over to daytime radio or mtv anyway, like that muse one with the big synth bassline. or that pretty coral song ("pass it on" ) which was bizzarely the best thing on daytime radio one for a while. the new strokes song is good. the less popular stuff seems more interested in drum patterns and making people dance nowadays but they are terrible at it. i miss when everything was nu metal and punk pop.

dance stuff- new drum+bass is secretly the best thing in music right now! haha fooled you! no, it's aight though, all the dnb played is absolutely huge-sounding and really powerful for the first minute, like it has learnt some kind of lesson from nu metal about being overwhelming and brash and immediate. however, from the point of view of sitting on my fat ass at home, it is completely useless after that one minute (more so than old dnb which had rap samples and nice patterns). i bet new dnb converts are having mental fun in the clubs.

most of the grey area electroclash/house/indie dance songs are really fun, especially the new felix da housekat featuring amazing metal riff and little else.

rap stuff - i mean evening session style rap music! to be fair, this encompasses pretty much everything now, as long as it has something which makes it slightly lame: "milkshake" (evening session dudes love geisha girl r'n'b and funny sounds), "ghetto muzik" (evening session dudes love pretend electro and funny sounds), "cameltoe" (evening session dudes love geisha girl pretend electro and funny sounds), everything by mark ronson (evening session dudes love mop and funny sounds). if you love all that stuff it means you can be an evening session dude like me. there's uk stuff like ty as well, he's always shocking me by being decent. sometimes i suspect that if zane had the chance he would only play the beatnuts because he is plainly one of those dudes who likes them way too much.

he has also dropped "never scared" a few times, i think it's getting a uk release - this is very important and good for anyone selling old dirty south 12s on ebay. it is very important and bad for anyone buying old dirty south 12s on ebay.

there are other kinds of music, some of them even played by zane, but i can't be bothered with them.