Is drum bass burning out?
FEBRUARY 2, 1998: You know there’s something wrong with a genre whose “old school” tunes were released just three or four years ago. But that’s true of jungle, where DJs often speak wistfully of the glory days of 1994 and 1995, and worry that drum ‘n’ bass is on the verge of extinction. In part this fear is a natural side effect of the relentless pressure for club-world artists to be on the cutting edge of cool. But it’s also a function of excessive hype: at least in the US, drum ‘n’ bass has yet to live up to its much-vaunted billing as the ultimate pre-millennial funk. In the jungle scene, with its aggressive release schedule for singles, even the flavor of the week may not be up-to-date enough. So just as jungle is getting a foothold in the American mainstream, insiders have been predicting its demise. Jungle isn’t dead, but it may be killing itself. Jungle feeds on the break, whether it’s the artists’ reassembly of broken beats or the stop/start tension of a well-timed breakdown, o
