The Big Opinions

Joni Roome, Circulation Magazine Editor

I don’t care about house. I don’t hate it, I can respect other people’s choices, but for me a repetitive and minimal genre doesn’t cut it for personal listening. On the other hand, it is a genre very well suited to the club setting and whatever else may come with such a combination. I’d choose a Bangers & Mash over Kuda any day of the week; but I still think ‘Rude Boy’ by Rihanna is a better song than Julio Bashmore’s ‘Au Seve’. What surprises me is the number of club nights that have sprung up, and even more so, the number of people attending. There is absolutely nothing wrong with going to a house night and not knowing a single song, but the amount of money being poured into ‘New House Night 56’ is worrying. I’m all for student run nights and appreciating less Radio 1 selected music, but the “I-love-house” bandwagon is surely heading into a brick wall. Hopefully this means that the York-based nights will have to compete with each other and force the best night to stand tall.

Olivia Head, the face of Bangers and Mash

Rather than call it an ‘invasion’, I think a more apt word would be recolonisation. House used to be huge in York, we’ve got Freakin which has been running for 15 years. All that is happening is that house is being restored to its rightful place. If the Aborigines took back Australia, would you call that an invasion? No, you wouldn’t, you’d call it justice, and that’s what’s happening with house music in York; it is reclaiming the sound systems, the clubs, the city, that it created. People who aren’t enjoying it need to turn around; modernity has arrived and is waiting to be embraced.  I actually think that, give it 5-10 years, house music will even have infiltrated the likes of Willow. I mean, my friend told me that the Kuda DJ dropped ‘Oh Baby’ by Julie Bashmore… who could have imagined that Julie Bashmore would be playing in Kuda a year ago? No one, and not only because Kuda didn’t exist, but because no one knew who Julie Bashmore was then. I’m telling you, the future’s here, so get used to it or get out.

Tom Beetham, Lacrosse Social Secretary

The main impact of house music on my life has not been a profound realisation of the path to musical perfection. Instead, it has merely drawn many of my old chums to its edgy and vintage events, and away from the proven grounds of a good old Ziggy’s Wednesdays. I have since joined the crowd and been to a York house night; a place in which brands are visibly frowned upon and everybody who classes themselves as ‘someone’ can be found in a flat-cap discussing to a woollen-hat-sporting girl how many pills his mate has taken. As someone better-used to cries of “down it fresher”, and measuring my level of intoxication in Kryptonites, this was a novel mode of interaction.  Discerning snobbery aside, I by no means had a bad time. The DJs were actual DJs and not just running an iTunes playlist and the bass was enough to rattle my internal organs. Regardless, I did find myself yearning for the easy sing-alongs, Taylor Swift and the camaraderie that comes with less obviously cool music.

Steven Rowan Jeram, Second Year Student

House music started in the 1980s and has continued to grow and develop throughout its relatively small tenure as a genre. On first listening one could be forgiven for thinking house music was boring in its repetitive and minimalist nature. But the constant underlying beat will soon get under your skin and refuse to let you sit still. At first glance the music all seems the same, but whilst the beat is often identical, the artistry of the build is intricately formed for maximum thrill when it drops. The only stipulation to house music is that it has a 4/4 beat making house arguably one of the most versatile genres today and diverging into many strands; Jazz House, Deep House, Micro House, to name but a few. I therefore welcome the resurgence of house nights in York brought to us by Milli Vanilli and Insomnia, and am yet to be disappointed. Ladies and gentlemen, house music is here and is here to stay; I challenge you to not pump your fist in the air for three hours straight.