Radio 1 late to the party (again)

Spearheaded by Matt Fincham and excitable, wannabe fanboy Zane Lowe, Radio 1 are finally jumping on the DubStep bandwagon with both feet and claiming they’re the pioneers of new music.

They’ve proclaimed this week DubStep week and it kicked off last night with an intensely mediocre performance that Mr Fincham has spent the last month being all hot and bothered about. The spectacle in question was the fusion of the BBC philharmonic orchestra with plodding dubsters Nero (probably the only DubStep outfit Radio 1 know). And he claimed it was the first time classical and DubStep had been combined.

Aside from the fact they’re tarring all orchestral music with the ‘classical’ brush, which irks me no end, I’ve got news for the station: DubStep ain’t new. And nor’s an orchestra.

As for the mashup of the two genres, well, feel free to check out the following excerpt by Riotakt called Breaking Ground. I first heard it in 2003 and went on to engineer this version two years later for their album Lyrikal Warfare. That’s light-years before Radio 1 had even heard of DubStep and — while this is not a true DubStep record, as it’s primarily a rap — the backing track beneath 4star’s fiery flow has undeniable DubStep roots.

So I say to Radio 1: give it up and listen to Indies and di.fm instead. You might learn something about music. And fashion.

EDIT: forgot to mention that I do like the fact the volume control on their music player goes up to 11 :-)