Soul Strut 100: # 31 - DJ Shadow - Endtroducing

[batmon]

yuichi said:You guys still talking that nonsense? This is a White America/Euroman (with an Asian or two) digging in the obscure crates stylez. If you don't get it, you don't get it. Same way, I don't get 90% of the syrup-drinkin', pistol whippin, indo-smoking teenage music that harvey and others gets off on. I think the first time, dudes were sweating this was precisely around when dudes were in their late teens. Same shit. Different genre. Let it go, HarvMON. If dudes wanna praise this as one of the top 10 electronica albums in URB magazine, then it is what it is. Why yall madd?







So your admitting that it has made an impression on a certain demographic and isnt canonized by another, whether its by age or cultural background.





The Pistol Whippin demographic isnt seein this shit the way your "OMG I cant find the time do my laundry" Brown sneaker wearin' cats.





I'd play this shit at house parties and ladies would be on some WTF shit.





Do You Party?





Its not that hard to understand that as great & influential this album was it wasnt touching certain demographics.





And get my entire shit right.....

I enjoy PPress here and there. Its got some joints on there, but Endtro was a game shifter.





PP has actually "aged" better. I tried listening to Endtro recently and it was hard to get through

 

[james]

HarveyCanal said:I'm actually the exception from the norm within my own demographic.

I don't think this is true.





This archetype you're talking about--the white dude holding up DJ Shadow as the end-all be-all--might have been for real in the first several years after Endtroducing, back when white rap nerds were more desperate and more information-poor, but we are now are in post-internet, post-random-rap-vogue, post-regional-rap-vogue, post-ego-trip, post-Cocaine-Blunts, post-Fader, post-Pitchfork, post-everything days and times, we are information-saturated to the gills, the obscure has become commonplace, and that archetype hasn't had any real currency for at least five years, maybe closer to ten.





I mean, really--which sounds more like a white music nerd trying to get cool points in 2013:





"DJ Shadow is the king of crate-digging, man! Best that ever did it! Endtroducing is a masterpiece!"





or





"Pfft--fuck DJ Shadow, man. I actually prefer the work of the criminally slept-upon Mike Dean."





?





I of course support your right to dislike and be unimpressed by Endtroducing, but your contextual justifications for doing so are sounding awfully mechanical here. And trying to cast yourself as some kind of rebel for disliking what is such an unfashionable record is kind of a weird look, and makes it seem as if your perspective has less to do with the record and more to do with the image you have of yourself as Not The Kind Of Guy Who Likes Endtroducing.

 

[Guzzo]

HarveyCanal said:





And as far as race goes, white people are the ones still hanging onto Endtroducing as their mythical hero. I'm actually the exception from the norm within my own demographic. .




"The lady doth protest too much methinks"

 

[Duderonomy]

batmon said:yuichi said:batmon said:yuichi said:Harvey and Batmon, yall need to realize this wasn't catered toward the "hood", it was a nerd making beats for nerds. and a lot more nerds started looking for obscure records as a result. A BIG record and cultural impact it had are undebatable. The sole fact that a TON of people have listened to this record says a lot about the influence/impact it had.

Neither is this.





Get back to the Sade thread dawgs.

Not sure why you've posted liner notes from Entroducing to justify the idea that The Outsider is trying to appeal to the hood? Different albums, mang.

 

[Duderonomy]

St. Cornelius said:LOL Harvey is white? Man I thought I had the whole white librul guilt thing down pat, but it looks like I need to step my game up!










http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2rxy0xeRA8&t=24m27s

 

[DocMcCoy]

The key thing about Endtroducing is this; it isn't rap music. Therefore it makes little sense to claim that it doesn't stand up against Boxcar Sessions or Somethin' Serious or whatever as rap music - why should it? If Endtroducing succeeds, it does so on its own terms; informed by hip-hop (obviously), very clearly the product of one rap super-nerd's singular obsession, and ultimately just as individual an expression as any rapper's lyrics.





I have my theories about why both the non-specialist music media and audiences beyond the usual demographic for rap music were so enthusiastic in their embrace of "trip-hop", but I'm not going to spend any time on them here. I will say, though, that holding an artist responsible for who or what their audience happens to be is for mugs. It's snobbish and elitist, and it has nothing to do with the music on any meaningful level. As far as I can see, Shadow made the record he wanted to make - quite possibly the exact record he wanted to make - for no-one but himself, and the fact it ended up as hip stoner muzak or a soundtrack to help sell chinos and pocket tees or whatever is no fault of his. It's like Kurt Cobain bitching about how infuriated he was once he realised that Nevermind was selling to precisely the sort of people who used to beat him up in high school, and how it wasn't made for people like them. Well, too bad - once it's out there, where it lands and who embraces it are things completely beyond your control. You can make music with a certain audience in mind, or you can try, but attempting to second-guess the market is a risky business. For every copy of Endtroducing that hasn't been played in years by somebody on here, there are hundreds of albums that shamelessly aped its aesthetic which have probably languished unplayed for a fucksight longer. Those that didn't end up as landfill, that is.





Another flaw with some of the counter-arguments here is the idea that classic status and broad appeal (and, it seems, a very rigid idea of what those things mean at that) go hand-in-hand. I don't know that this is the case, nor even that it matters. I've no particular enthusiasm for making an "Endtroducing = Certified Classic" argument, but I don't think it'd be difficult. Much easier to assert, as well as harder to argue against, is that it is/was a very significant record - it made an impact in a way that broadly similar records hadn't previously managed to do, and its enduring influence is probably most easily detected in genres other than hip-hop (this is equally true of Nation Of Millions, btw). Certainly, it opened up certain areas of music to people whose awareness of them might previously have been somewhat limited. These are important, worthwhile functions for music to perform, and Endtroducing performs them well enough to be judged on those terms, equally as much as how well it satisfies some arbitrary definition of "classic".

 

[Flomotion]

Entroducing got a double whammy what with it being the first diggers record to hit the mainstream b/w being released on Mo Wax when it was briefly the hippest label on the planet. Shadow probably did more for the perception of the DJ as original musician than any other artist in that decade and totally deserves a top spot on the Soulstrut GOAT list That said, I've always wanted to like this more but generally it just makes me reach for my Muro mixtapes.

 

[Mr. Attention]

james said:I mean, really--which sounds more like a white music nerd trying to get cool points in 2013:





"DJ Shadow is the king of crate-digging, man! Best that ever did it! Endtroducing is a masterpiece!"





or





"Pfft--fuck DJ Shadow, man. I actually prefer the work of the criminally slept-upon Mike Dean."





?





I of course support your right to dislike and be unimpressed by Endtroducing, but your contextual justifications for doing so are sounding awfully mechanical here. And trying to cast yourself as some kind of rebel for disliking what is such an unfashionable record is kind of a weird look, and makes it seem as if your perspective has less to do with the record and more to do with the image you have of yourself as Not The Kind Of Guy Who Likes Endtroducing.




The whole "white nerd"-argument holds very little water for the reasons you mentioned. If someone doesn't like the album, fine - explain why on terms of its content....you know, talk about the music.

 

[HarveyCanal]

james said:HarveyCanal said:I'm actually the exception from the norm within my own demographic.

I don't think this is true.





This archetype you're talking about--the white dude holding up DJ Shadow as the end-all be-all--might have been for real in the first several years after Endtroducing, back when white rap nerds were more desperate and more information-poor, but we are now are in post-internet, post-random-rap-vogue, post-regional-rap-vogue, post-ego-trip, post-Cocaine-Blunts, post-Fader, post-Pitchfork, post-everything days and times, we are information-saturated to the gills, the obscure has become commonplace, and that archetype hasn't had any real currency for at least five years, maybe closer to ten.





I mean, really--which sounds more like a white music nerd trying to get cool points in 2013:





"DJ Shadow is the king of crate-digging, man! Best that ever did it! Endtroducing is a masterpiece!"





or





"Pfft--fuck DJ Shadow, man. I actually prefer the work of the criminally slept-upon Mike Dean."





?





I of course support your right to dislike and be unimpressed by Endtroducing, but your contextual justifications for doing so are sounding awfully mechanical here. And trying to cast yourself as some kind of rebel for disliking what is such an unfashionable record is kind of a weird look, and makes it seem as if your perspective has less to do with the record and more to do with the image you have of yourself as Not The Kind Of Guy Who Likes Endtroducing.




Average white dude I know still loves DJ Shadow and wouldn't know Mike Dean from a hole in the wall.





Maybe among critics, or members of the digging "community" or whatever, Shadow has gone out of favor. But for causal listener and historical fan of A Tribe Called Quest and the Pharcyde and all the other typical whatnot from those days, Endtroducing is welcomed as ever.





I'm constantly amazed going out on boats on Lake Travis here in Austin during the summer and hearing how that generic breaks, cross-breed of acid jazz and trip-hop styled, sometimes-rap music is still championed like the water itself. You literally can't go 15 minutes without hearing Charlie 2na, I swear.





I don't really put too much stock in what the internet is saying in comparison to real life. My bad, I guess.

 

[kala]

I still think the number song and midnight in a perfect world are rockin' as well as a lot of preemptive strike and various singles and tracks on his other albums.


I also agree with whoever said that dude's career trajectory was in reverse and it's really only been downhill from endroducing with brainfreeze and product placement being the exceptions.


I don't look at this stuff as "traditional hip hop"[whatever that means] and lumping it in with anything but steinski's lessons is kind of unrealistic and short sighted.I remember the goth crowd embracing shadow because of the dark vibes.


As for it being"hood" or "black enough" for Harvey,who really gives a fuck what he or anyone else thinks,the choice is yours and yours alone.

 

[HarveyCanal]

As far as the music itself, I don't care that it's not catered to the hood or whatever. I was going nuts to an old REM tape in my truck this morning. The whole idea that I'm coming from a stance of deliberately trying to make myself look hip with my opinions is false. I'm too old for that bs.





The album is just kinda boring...which is why you no longer ever listen to it.

 

[sticky_dojah]

I listened to it today for the 1st time in years. Some has aged well, some did not. Shadow's sound was a huge part of my musical socialisation, and yes, the loner aspect played a big part in that. For the 1st time in my late teens, there was this soundtrack to hanging out on green field mountains and blazing up heavily in more rural places while still feeling really attached to a so called HipHop culture. All that sound actually was still embraced as HipHop by us. It was just closer to home, even the press photo of him against this lonely sky (I can recall a similar pic by P.U.T.S. from a couple of years later that I really liked as well). It was just really closer to what we did in our tiny town. But I've hated the name triphop from the beginning and never made any difference between a Shadow record and the 1st CMW for example. It was all the same to me, just a different story. That said, I sold my minty promo of Boxcar Sessions a year ago. Hate me now. And yes, I'm white. And Euroman.

 

[white_tea]

HarveyCanal said: I'm constantly amazed going out on boats on Lake Travis here in Austin during the summer and hearing how that generic breaks, cross-breed of acid jazz and trip-hop styled, sometimes-rap music is still championed like the water itself. You literally can't go 15 minutes without hearing Charlie 2na, I swear.




Recreational watercraftin' dudes rarely intersect with the hip-hop vanguard, at least not on the waves of Lake Travis, or any body of fresh water. And I'm no fan of tubin' but J5 and its ilk seems like a fine soundtrack for such excursions, if you're into that.





Rhetorical question: Who takes Shadow's music more seriously, Harvey or Josh himself?

 

[james]

HarveyCanal said:I don't really put too much stock in what the internet is saying in comparison to real life. My bad, I guess.

Our mileages definitely vary, then. My record friends notwithstanding, I don't think I know a single person in real life--no "average white dude," no "casual listener"--who knows who the fuck Shadow is. Because of that, I guess it never occurred to me that in-depth appraisals of Shadow were happening anywhere except the internet. You honestly hear this shit booming out of boats where you are? And Charlie motherfucking 2na?! In 2013?! Oh, the humanity.





I was finna come down for that Macklemore SXSW showcase, but man, now I'm not so sure.

 

[HarveyCanal]

white_tea said:HarveyCanal said: I'm constantly amazed going out on boats on Lake Travis here in Austin during the summer and hearing how that generic breaks, cross-breed of acid jazz and trip-hop styled, sometimes-rap music is still championed like the water itself. You literally can't go 15 minutes without hearing Charlie 2na, I swear.




Recreational watercraftin' dudes rarely intersect with the hip-hop vanguard, at least not on the waves of Lake Travis, or any body of fresh water. And I'm no fan of tubin' but J5 and its ilk seems like a fine soundtrack for such excursions, if you're into that.





Rhetorical question: Who takes Shadow's music more seriously, Harvey or Josh himself?




It's hardly just on the water. I just cited that because it's a place where you get to hear what 1,000 different dudes in a day have blaring from their boat speakers. House parties, in dude's cars, on their iPods, etc. Shadow is definitely still in there as far as being looked upon favorably. I mean, I'm not hearing Endtroducing played in its entirety ever, or really all that often when it comes to its individual tracks. I'm just saying that white hip-hop fans at large aren't making it their practice to dismiss Shadow.

 

[HarveyCanal]

james said:HarveyCanal said:I don't really put too much stock in what the internet is saying in comparison to real life. My bad, I guess.

Our mileages definitely vary, then. My record friends notwithstanding, I don't think I know a single person in real life--no "average white dude," no "casual listener"--who knows who the fuck Shadow is. Because of that, I guess it never occurred to me that in-depth appraisals of Shadow were happening anywhere except the internet. You honestly hear this shit booming out of boats where you are? And Charlie motherfucking 2na?! In 2013?! Oh, the humanity.





I was finna come down for that Macklemore SXSW showcase, but man, now I'm not so sure.




Seriously, J5 is like what y'all would probably consider Lynard Skynard to be down here.





Austin is hipster central, so even the frat boys down here know a little bit more about music than they do elsewhere.





My stock comment all last summer in defense of having to listen to safe-hop everywhere I went was: For the love of God, can't you please just throw on Led Zeppelin III?

 

[HarveyCanal]

And beyond SXSW, I think I'm going to have to go full on pirate this summer, raiding any boat playing Thrift Shop on repeat...because I already know how often I'm going to have to hear that damned song along with dudes saying it's the only rap they've liked since Latyrx.





And I swear I'm not just making this shit up.

 

[james]

white_tea said:HarveyCanal said: I'm constantly amazed going out on boats on Lake Travis here in Austin during the summer and hearing how that generic breaks, cross-breed of acid jazz and trip-hop styled, sometimes-rap music is still championed like the water itself. You literally can't go 15 minutes without hearing Charlie 2na, I swear.




Recreational watercraftin' dudes rarely intersect with the hip-hop vanguard, at least not on the waves of Lake Travis, or any body of fresh water. And I'm no fan of tubin' but J5 and its ilk seems like a fine soundtrack for such excursions, if you're into that.

I'm saying. 1996 james would have been all over that shit, though.





"What Does Your Igloo Cooler Look Like?"





b/w





"Picnic Lunch In A Perfect World"

 

[james]

HarveyCanal said:dudes saying it's the only rap they've liked since Latryx

You have got to be fucking kidding me. There are dudes like this actually walking around? Like, out in the carbon-based world? Talking like this where people can hear them?





You gotta straight Ahab these fools, Harvey. This cannot stand.

 

[BallzDeep]

Shadow is not a nerd.


And I like his Diminishing Returns psych mix the best.