Dance Culture's Death Greatly Exaggerated (Again)

The Guardian's decision to publish yet another "dance music is dead' feature by their music expert Alexis Petridis last week, prompted a dismayed response from Defected Records boss Simon Dunmore this week, who told Skrufff he found the piece to be highly flawed.

The former Mixmag scribe turned Dido loving pop critic angled his polemic around the Brit Awards' decision to cancel their Best Dance act category and went on to cite the commercial failure of recent albums by the Prodigy and Fatboy Slim and magazines like Muzik as proof that dance music is "dead'. He also suggested club culture had failed because it was "entirely bound up with drugs' and suggested over-commercialisation and superclubs meant it "lost its all-important cachet of cool.'

"My opinion is that the article was written by somebody that is looking at his youth and does not realise that people of his former age can still feel the same way that he did," said Simon.

"He bemoans the Brits Awards then tries to justify their decision, he complains that dance became commercial and "sponsored' but then decries it going back to its roots," he continued.

"He also misses the point of how the internet has not only changed the way that music is consumed but magazines as well and also misses the point of the growth in bar culture and late licences granted to these "mini' clubs; that's why the so called superclubs have suffered, not because people have stopped going out."

The Defected don was also dismissive of the Guardian hack's claim that clubbing is no longer "cool' pointing out "nothing has changed here. There are still cool clubs and there are still not so cool venues; I guess Alex frequents the latter."

The only club Petridis has actually admitted to going to in his Guardian columns in recent years is Nag, Nag, Nag ("the music is fantastic- in fact, it's almost too cutting edge', he said several months ago) while musically he confessed last year to being a huge fan of Dido.

"At it's best No Angel (Dido's first album) did what it did incredibly well, as evinced by the fantastic singles Thank You and Here With Me," Petridis raved.

"The single and opening track, White Flag (from her latest album Life For Rent), is a superb, confidently written pop song, possessed of a chorus that is impossible to dislodge from your memory without the aid of hypnotherapy," he suggested.

Radio 1's Executive dance producer Matt Priest also weighed into the "dance is/ isn't dead' debate this week, addressing the relevance of the Brit Awards' decision to dump of their dance category.

"The Brit Awards is a very mainstream event, The Sugababes won it one year; That's not real dance music," Matt told Skrufff.

"I can understand why they've dropped the category, it doesn't fit into their awards anymore but similarly, the dance music that we're interested in at Radio 1 isn't mainstream award type music anyway. I don't think it's a bad thing at all, if dance music is no longer used as a theme tune to Match Of The Day or whatever sports show," he added.

"If it's gone a little underground and is re-inventing itself and becoming a little more credible then that's a good thing," he said.
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