Being that the economic “Housing Bubble” is at the forefront of our minds here in the States, I couldn’t help but bring this comparison into the EDM world.  An economic bubble is described as ”trade in high volumes at prices that are considerably at variance with intrinsic values.” It could also be described as a “trade in products or assets with inflated values.”

The most obvious genre to compare this to at the time of writing this is dubstep, but really, it happens in every genre.  Someone finds a new sound/methodology/gimmick, it sees a sudden large spike in popularity, and everyone jumps on the bandwagon… raping the original concept and over-inflating it to the point that one might consider it self-parody.  It has recently happened to dubstep, and not long before this, it happened with the whole Auto-Tune trend.  Back at the end of the 90s/beginning of the millennium, it happened to trance: suddenly a genre that was built around the idea of being repetitive, cold, trippy, hypnotic, and danceable club music  became overrun with overblown, exaggerated 3-minute-long breakdowns filled with twinkles and supersaws.

“Okay, this track is pretty neat, but I can only hold my hands in the air for so long!”

Now, let’s be fair, no comparison is perfect.  The housing bubble didn’t occur because it suddenly became popular and trendy to own a home.  This is only one man’s opinion, but the “value” that I am placing on dubstep relates to its musical quality and trueness to its roots.  Pro-tip: the first dubstep tunes I heard did not sound like a pile of power tools raping each other.  They were deep, gritty, brooding, reggae-influenced groove tunes.  Somewhere along the line, people decided to start adding LFO to their basslines (which is where the wobbling effect starts to happen).  This added a pretty unique, rolling, subwoofer-blasting (NOT tweeter-blasting) effect to the tracks.  This became a trend.  Then it got exaggerated.  Then it got exaggerated more.  Then it got exaggerated more.  Then people started adding midrange and high-pitched sounds to it.  Then, it just became one huge, testosterone-infused pissing contest on who could make the “dirtiest”, wobbliest, crunchiest sounds… musicality be damned!   Somewhere along the line, this turned into this.  Embarrassing.

Of course, everyone is entitled to like what they like.  You’re just as welcome to like that last track as I am welcome to hate it.  All I’m saying is that I feel like the Dubstep Bubble is about to crash, and I welcome it.  My local scene, small as it is, has already caned these screaming, macho-man wobble sounds to death.  Finally, people are starting to get tired of it.  Once the bubble pops, perhaps I can start enjoying the genre again.  Just like every style, there are gems out there.  I’m just ready to get this garbage to disappear from my nights out.

I’m not trying to trash dubstep.  In fact, I consider me celebrating the impending “crash” as doing dubstep a favor, because it also happens to be the EDM genre with the most innovation and uniqueness.  You just can’t hear it amongst the sea of noise.

For reference, the kind of dubstep I personally like is often dark, sorrowful, chill.  It’s listening music, not the kind of stuff you’ll want to go clubbing to.  Some examples (click to listen):

• Lojik – Lovin’ You
• Breakage – Untitled (referenced above)
• Late – Bittersweet
• Late – Losing You
• Burial – Fostercare
• L-wiz – Girl From Codeine City (just to show I’m not simply inherently opposed to warbling basslines).