What the hell is post-dubstep?

[pulkpull]

Post-dubstep is just an invented genre tag like any other. It has no real basis in reality, it merely serves to allow the categorisation of various artists who may exist in the same kind of space. The space that post-dubstep appears to occupy is rather large and, like future garage, this means it isn't necessarily very successful in those aims. However, in general terms it seeks to define (and place into a neat little box) the music of various producers who would probably associate themselves - or have at least been associated in the past - with the dubstep scene, but whose current productions don't really bear the hallmarks of dubstep. The obvious examples I guess would be Blake and Mount Kimbie, amongst others. But it also seems to be a pigeonhole for anything that falls under 140bpm but retains some of the dubstep ethos.

I guess it's comes about because those producers are making tunes that strictly speaking fall under different genre tags, but people want to be able to lump the entire artist under one tag.

All in all, a pretty useless genre tag since hardly any of the music contained within it sounds alike (and because no one can agree on what it means), but it can come in handy occasionally. The mention of post-punk earlier in the thread is to my mind the best analogy I've heard for it.

[dat1]

I don't get people's hype about not labeling things.
"It's all just music" is a stupid, almost authoritarian things to say, in that it's anti-thinking, it kills conversation and debate. When you go to an event with a friend, you're gonna want to talk about it after. You're not going to say "It's all just music" or, "I enjoyed that event". I mean you could say that, but it'd be meaningless and boring. You're gonna say "It was sick when Ben UFO started dropping all of that amazing 2-step, and the way Mala ended on all those classic Hardcore tracks".

Of course on the other side people get ridiculous and start describing genres to specific songs or artists, or claiming that there's some massively clearly defined difference between two genres when often the lines are blurry (In Fine Style - UKG, Dark Garage, proto-dubstep, early dubstep, dubstep?) There are times to give the labels a rest, but our limits define us, and knowing what dubstep is or isn't makes talking about it interesting, you need to know what the conventions of a genre are for it to be exciting when those conversions are played with.

Around 2005-2008 dubstep had been solidifying around a template of 140bpm, half step beat, dark vibes, massive sub-bass, some wobble. Obviously everyone had there own style within that, there's no such thing as a 'pure dubstep song', which only has dubstep elements and nothing at all else, and saying there was a 'template' doesn't mean to deny people creativity: templates are what make genre's exciting, you go to a dubstep night to hear what nuts things people are gonna do with massive subbass at 140, how they're gonna push those boundaries and play with them.

Post-dubstep is a term to describe a lot of the music which, though coming from dubstep, from the dubstep forums, from the dubstep clubs, from dubstep producers, no longer fit to the 'dubstep' template. Tracks like Joy Orbison's Hyph Mngo which brought the treble back to dubstep, and gave dubstep a euphoric side (diva vox) that it hadn't had before started stretching the meaning of what 'dubstep' could be. Increasingly the sounds coming /from/ dubstep are moving further away from each other, with no single unified center of 140/dark/subbass sound anymore. It's difficult to see what Pariah and Jam City have to do with each other sonically, but to see both as post-dubstep, coming out of dubstep, ties them together.

I don't think it's a great name, hopefully as some more unified sounds start coming out of the scene we'll get so better names, but I do think it's a useful and accurate one. I'm not saying dubstep is dead, there's still a lot of amazing dark stuff happening at 140bpm, but rather than 'post-dubstep' being an evil idea trying to kill dubstep, it's better to think of it as a liberation for people like Joy Orbison, Ramadanman etc who's sounds can't be defined by the old limits of what 'dubstep' was, but gives them a link to an amazing british bass culture

[Jake Daniel]

[JLA]

Hmmm...

Hey...what's up....I just joined....


Think my track in my sig is this so-call ''post-dubstep'', then?

[prisoner]

http://postdubstep.tumblr.com/

[Wildcard]

Thanks to everyone for the help

[kingGhost]

Thanks to everyone for the help

lol

[sigbowls]

no post bubdud

[fractal]

tru dat

[nousd]

post means after
some producers have finished doing dubstep
and are making whatever it has lead them to
some revert to dnb or house ...
some make more complex beats whilst others make beatless ambience
but the point is that it's after being immersed in dubstep
imo, you can't be post-ds if you never did ds
and it's not a genre, it's a state of artistic evolution.

[Wildcard]

Bump

[seckle]

i'm have a post-chili soup today. its so sad that chili is dead now. tabasco tears....

[cloud capture]

if you're from the 90's you'd call it idm or experimental electronic music.

[Wildcard]

i'm have a post-chili soup today. its so sad that chili is dead now. tabasco tears....

Tabasco tears sounds like a punk band

[sayssimon]

as stated by several, labeling isn't pigeonholing, but rather offering a loose set of reference points to make conversing on the subject for the non-hardcore achievable. dont let it frighten!

[xdeletiax]

Soundcloud

[limbo]

Post-dubstep is such a stupid name. The first time I heard that term it was coined by Boomkat.

I might as well start a genre called post-dnb and make the tempo 115bpm!

[Dosva]

...and it's not a genre, it's a state of artistic evolution.

^ Very true.

Overall I'm glad that a 'Post-Dubstep' genre has sprung up. This only shows more diversity to the music that is already around. Even though it probably could more accurately just be called experimental. Some of the ideas that I have heard in so called "Post-Dubstep" are relatively cool. So I'm not going to hate on something that is just starting, I look forward to see where this goes.

[scspkr99]

Still think this is the best article on the subject from one of the very best music writers around

http://pitchfork.com/features/grime-dub ... e-dubstep/

[cosmic_surgeon]

Kind of a stupid name considering Dubstep is still (in the wider music world) a relativly new genre.

Almost ten years now.