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UK newspaper The Guardian published a ‘what is fidget house’ guide recently, and name-checked Switch and Jesse Rose as the inventors of dance floor-filling genre of the moment. Somewhat ambivalently, Guardian hack (and NME/Sun contributor) John McDonnell conceded that the duo made up the term as a joke several years ago, and also said the ‘scene doesn’t really exist beyond the internet’, before launching into a scathing assault on the genre.
“Fidget producers like to think of themselves as global music connoisseurs, hand-picking bits from genres such as Chicago house, rave, UK garage, US hip-hop, Baltimore club, Kuduro and other “authentic” world music genres,” he said. “In reality, at its worst, the genre is basically an updated, ever-so-slightly less cheesy take on big beat – with its annoying rap vocal loops and ridiculous Fatboy Slim-style builds,” said McDonnell. “But it has produced great club songs,” he conceded.
Fidget house superstar Sinden was distinctly unimpressed, however, though agreed that the term refers to ‘a dance music genre that was designed as a joke by a couple of friends of mine a few years back’. “We kicked that sound off, but I don’t identify with it, the genre is deadout! (sic) It died years ago,” he said. “I’m not really a fidgety person, either, I keep my cool,” Sinden added. “Slow walkers make me impatient.”
Sinden also distanced himself from scratching and itching generally, pointing out ‘mosquitoes rarely bite me either, except in Jamaica this year, they got ugly on me,’ and said he’d never ever gone through a Fatboy Slim phase. “As Barbara Streisand and Barry Gibb said, “We got nothing to be guilty of,” he quipped, when asked about his guiltiest of guilty pleasures. “That’s my jam! I was never into big beat.”
Meanwhile in the States, Fatboy Slim received a velvet gloved critical mauling, courtesy of the Boston Globe’s music critic Christopher Muther. “Fatboy Slim’s brand of sonic dumpster diving may be considered as au courant as three-button suits and dial-up Internet access,” he sniffed. “But there is a certain charm to his cut-and-paste aesthetic.”
SA_spec says...
ha@ couldnt agree more, there have been some great tunes created but generally anymore then a ew tunes starts to grate on me, ah well, kudos to the Sin for holding his ground.
cheechvda says...
true.... i am a fan of fidget...but i find alot of it (like minimal)...sounds the same... there are only a handful of standout tracks and the rest are pretty average,,,,,,but it is good to see another genre of dance music evolve.....................trance..electro...house...minimal,,fidget...depp tech......its all beautiful if you have a musical ear