Dubstep, the voice of a generation

One of the many things I have to apologise for in New Zealand is my lack of enthusiasm for dubstep. For the uninitiated, dubstep is one of the millions of subgenres of electronic music. Since the classification of electronic music is slightly more complicated than sequencing the human genome, I have no idea where it fits into the scheme of noises that come from a laptop. It tends to follow the pattern of rambling along like generic electronic music for a bit, then turning into a mix of whooping and grinding noises (reminiscent of holding your car key in the “start” position for too long and having the starter motor start stripping the thread off whatever connects it to the engine). I suspect that the first part is dub, so that would make the whooping bit step.

Anyway, regardless of what dubstep actually is or sounds like, it’s very popular among the kids here in New Zealand. You can bet that any person under 25 who hooks their MP3 player up to a sound system will soon have the room whooping and crunching like a fire alarm being stomped on by Optimus Prime. Like all aficionados of electronic music, young dubsteppers are always pretty sensitive about their chosen genre and keen to defend it from people who reckon music should only come from appropriately certified musical instruments.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not opposed to dubstep. If I had to choose between Bindi Irwin’s latest orchestral prog-rock side project and dubstep, I’d be whooping and crunching along like a 17 year old updating their facebook status about their latest adventure in fruity loops. The thing is, if I had to choose between dubstep and something good, I’d probably choose the good thing. Among young folk in New Zealand, this is a serious offense. It’s like mentioning that time I went to a Shihad concert to see the support act (Cog, back when they were good) and left before the-greatest-band-that-New-Zealand-has-ever-produced-that-hasn’t-been-claimed-by-Australia finished their first song.

Unfortunately, indifference is not enough for the people here. I’ve taken to hiding my MP3 player, so that no one can look through my music and discover that I don’t have anything whoopy or crunchy enough for their tastes. God help me if they work out that Rage Against the Machine isn’t the name of some experimental electronic outfit that records the sound of mechanical goods being ground into a fine powder.