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A Year In Review--2007
In my opinion dance music is increasing in popularity and there are arguably more dance fans now than there ever has been before. Since 2006 the dance scene has been given a huge boost with the emerging sounds of electro. David Guetta - Love Don't let me go and Bodyrox - Yeah Yeah were among the first songs to sky-rocket the dance scene back to mainstream popularity. That being said, 2007 saw new artists, both good and bad, also sky-rocket to a higher status including Mason, Deadmau5 and David Guetta.
Where there's good points and highlights of years gone by in the music industry, there are also the lows and downright awful. Once David Guetta's song hit the charts, producers rushed to the next big electro tracks and slapped horrific vocals over them, hoping to try and score an easy sum of money from the charts. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, hardly any of these "remixes" managed to achieve higher than 6th in the top 40 chart and many are best left to 2007 and will hardly be touched in the years to come!
By the end of 2007 the dance scene has taken a dramatic leap forward, pushing the boundaries of electro and trance and fused them together into the new style of music I've dubbed as 'Electric Trance'. Examples being This World Is Watching Me - Armin Van Buuren and the more well-known and popular collaboration between Maxi Jazz and Tiesto; Dance 4 Life. Electro's presence is everywhere and has influenced and changed the face of different music types.
Where music types change, new ones appear. By the end of 2007 we saw the new music type dubbed as 'bassline house' emerge, with Heartbroken-T2 leading the fight for this new genre to gain public recognition. Unfortunately, the music itself that's been produced under this tagline is nothing short of boring; trust me you'd have more fun watching paint dry! The music itself sticks to a simple 16 bar formula but combines garage and house together to fuse something that really doesn't go anywhere but instead causes bleeding ears and horrendous 'whoomp, whoomp' beats used to accompany equally appauling MC artists to "rap" over. Not the best end to 2007!
With 2008 well and truly underway, we've seen the dance scene growing more and more with a lot of artists trying to push the bar and rise in popularity. Fingers crossed that 2008 will be a year to remember!
Who to look out for in 2008
2007 saw many talented DJs emerging from seemingly nowhere and 2008, in my opinion, will follow the same suit. It's difficult to predict what will happen this year but if the top 100 DJ poll is anything to go by, expect Armin Van Buuren to grow in public recognition and possibly retain his well-deserved crown of best DJ in 2008.
DJ Tiesto has lost his spark slightly with a string of disappointing album releases, less than decent live performances and some awful song choices but due to Tiesto being dubbed 'King Of Trance', expect this guy to once again remain in the top 5 DJs in the year, undeserving or not, it remains a fact that Tiesto is one of the most well-known DJs in the world.
Deadmau5 had an amazing year in 2007, releasing a number of bouncy electro house tunes and some equally fantastic remixes of tunes including Bigger, Better, Harder, Faster-Daft Punk that's been a huge hit round the world. Expect this guy to rise in the DJ charts and release another string of fantastic tunes in 2008.
Genres to look out for in 2008
2008 will also see either the death or rise of 'Bassline House'. UK Garage died out for a reason but yet certain clubs have rushed to this new phenomenon hoping to spark public attention and increase the popularity of the new sub-genre of house music. 2008 will either be the defining year where bassline house gains recognition or the year it dies out and remains dead and buried. Only time will tell.
Trance Music remained relatively quiet throughout 2007 in the charts with only a few tunes cropping up here and there but dance music tends to go through a repetitive circle with electro house a harder and dirtier version of the acid house era in the 80s which was followed by trance music. If this is any indication of the future, expect trance music to slowly crop up through the sub-genre of 'electric trance'. It's difficult to tell what will happen with the dance scene but I predict trance will slowly crop up towards the end of the year in the charts which, if it does, expect 2009 to be the year electro loses its crown of the predominant genre of dance music and trance takes over.
Hip Hop has taken a turn for the worse with some awful lyrics and lyrical content thrown over a good beat. Expect 2008 to be full of more washed-down hip hop music and the year where the repetition of a sentence or word is blown up everywhere. The end of 2007 saw the Herbel Essences advert take the idea from Umbrella-Rihanna, repeating the phrase H20...0....0 over again until the advert faded out. The end of the year also saw the disgusting disgrace to hip hop music rise in the charts 'Soljur Boi' and was played all over the UK. Expect more of this washed-down 'rap' to plague the charts in 2008!
In A Nutshell
-Electric Trance to rise in popularity
-Bassline House to either fade away or rise in popularity
-Armin Van Buuren to possibly remain top DJ in the world
-Deadmau5 to be the one to watch in 2008
-Hip Hop to continue its depressing state of plaguing the charts with awful songs.
