Retro-Contaminating Memetic Transfer

Crazytown, "Butterfly"

You can try it yourself. Go ahead, ask someone,

“Remember that song – You my buttafly, shuga, baby…?”

They will say one of two things:

1. Yeah, who was that, Linkin Park?
2. Yeah, that band that sounds like Linkin Park?

Actually, it’s Crazytown, “Butterfly” (2001).

Linkin Park wasn’t that bad. But then there was Crazytown. They came after, but they influenced what came before. (Not the thing-in-itself, but our idea of the thing, enough such that the thing might as well have changed.)

This is also known as the DnB/Dubstep effect. Dubstep came almost directly from Drum n Bass. Those who had found in Drum n Bass a surging, forcibly punctuated rhythm, would have certainly seen contrast in Dubstep’s disjointed, seemingly arhythmical quality (or meta-rhythmic, as it could be called). It is this particularly unusual rhythm that draws its strongest criticism. Its other dominant element – wobble-squashing bass modulation – ties, and for some people camouflages Dubstep as Drum n Bass.

As overheard recently by some teenagers as Digital’s Dubzilla played in the background:

-What is this?

-Idk, some crappy Dubstep song.

A case of retro-contaminating memetic transfer, indeed.

Incestual Ideation:

The Map's Gone

AUGUST 17, 2012

Notes:

Crazytown

Linkin Park

Dubstep

Drum n Bass

Retrocausality

More MusicologicalSynchronicity

OCTOBER 6, 2012