Right now, we're told, step foot in any town in America and within seconds, literally seconds you'll be bombarded by Disclosure tunes, assaulted by Jamie xx remixes, clubbed round the head by clubs blasting out dance music from the UK.Why though? What is it about British sounds that are sending molly-cuddled young ravers wild stateside? We slipped on our Stetsons, swaddled ourselves in the stars and stripes and had a long hard think. Oh, and we sent Jess Glynne over to America too and she came back with this film:We sat here in gloomy little England dreaming of wide open Texan skies and the falling leaves of Maine and tried to work out just what it is about UK dance music that's sent the Americans doolally. Here's what we found.I mean, this is probably the real reason as to why youngsters from Denver to Detroit have sacked off Kaskade in favour of Calvin Harris. We've got better accents, that's the simple truth. You can stick your Woody Harrelson in True Detective for all we care, mate. It's why Hugh Grant used to have a career and if it's good enough for bumbling old Hugh, it's good enough for us.Now, I'm sure there are some alright clubs lurking in a country of America's size, but from what we've seen — thanks YouTube — it's a nation of 'ravers' doused in glitter and face paint mechanistically fist-fucking the air in enormodomes in the middle of nowhere, venues where a paper cup of flat beer costs more than the gun you can buy in a supermarket. Over here in dismal little England we do things properly: dark rooms, no frills, no fuss, a can of warm lager and a rancid kebab on the way home. Bliss.Come on, it is. It's the worst music ever ever made: pure fizz and no substance. Even Americans, with their total lack of attention spans, had to tire of the drop eventually. Luckily for our swathes of bedroom bound producers, they did, and now we get flown over there first class, drink them under the table — we have these things called 'pints' over here lads, you should try them sometime — steal their girlfriends and take over their clubs. It's like the Beatles and all that lot in the 60s except we've got slightly better haircuts now.Being British means, basically at least, that your born to a life of endless low-level moaning and sublimated sadness that's quelled only by a rapacious desire to do away with the aches and pains of life as lived in the only way we know how — by getting very, very pissed. We drink at home and in the park. We drink on the beach and on the bus. Crucially we drink in pubs and clubs and that sets us up for a life time of wanting to go to clubs because they open later than pubs and because we spend so much time drinking in them, we come to learn more about club culture. We embrace it. We become enamoured and obsessed with it. Americans are too cheery to do this. You smile too much. Sorry, but you do.We still love you though, America. We do. Honestly.The Brit Invasion was made possible by Bench.
Advertisement