Hey, how old are you? Yes, you! I reckon I can guess pretty accurately. I’m going to ask you one question, and that question is this: “What does the term ‘big beat’ mean to you?”
If you’re sat there looking at me blankly, sweating slightly, twitching a bit, and immediately trying to reach for the phone I took off you when you entered the laboratory, then congratulations, you are a young millennial who has no conception of what ‘big beat’ was or is. Enjoy your youth!
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If, on the other hand, you’ve just said, “Great question, thanks for asking. Big beat was a genre of electronic music that typically used heavy breakbeats and synthesiser-generated loops common to acid house,” then congratulations, you’re probably about 37, or you have access to Wikipedia.
Following on from a fantastic essay published last month by THUMP US—Jonny Coleman’s rousing In Defence of Big Beat, the Annoying 90s Music Genre That Snobs Love to Hate—we’ve found ourselves thinking about the genre quite a lot recently. I mean, if I’m being honest, I barely remember it ever existing, primarily because when it was a big deal, I was seven or eight years old and more interested in catching fish and worrying about the weather than Bentley Rhythm Ace. The closest I came to experiencing big beat in its natural home would have been when my parents took me and my brothers to a holiday camp for a mid-term mini-break. As we sat in a Pinewood Studios themed restaurant, eating cheeseburgers with a knife and fork—such decadence!—the Propellerheads’ Shirley Bassey featuring “History Repeating” blared away. 18 years on, nearly to the day, I remember it with total clarity. Sometimes, one memory, a snapshot from another life, isn’t enough.
The reason we’ve been harassing blokes nearly old enough to be our fathers for the last few weeks via email is simple: this weekend coming they’ll all be raving under one big top roof at the Shiiine On Weekender. Taking place at the Butlin’s in Minehead, and featuring acts like Shed Seven, Black Grape, and Cast, it’s sure to be the kind of party stuffed to the gills with Samba-clad 40-somethings ready to roll back the years. With their eyes shut, hands clasped round a plastic pint pot filled to the brim with premium strength continental lager, they’ll be taken back to Euro 96, back to when life had only just begun, before Blair and Brexit and Brendon Cole.
But it won’t just be Pretty Green aficionados shaking their feather cuts to Echo and the Bunnymen, no. As the evening drifts on, and the knees begin to creek, there’ll be a load of DJs—including Utah Saints and Phil Hartnoll from Orbital—smashing through the kind of tunes they used to play back when Toblerones were the right shape. Which brings us back to big beat.
All the big beat boys are in town, and we decided to track a few down to explain what it actually was, and why it’s worth remembering. So, let’s let Freestylers, Bentley Rhythm Ace, and Cut La Roc take you back to the land time’s (nearly) forgotten.
Freestylers
THUMP: Let’s start with the big one—what exactly was big beat?
Freestylers: Big beat was the fun element of club music that broke the mould and fashions of what club music was meant to sound and be like, towards the end of the 90’s. It was an open-minded type of music that knew no boundaries and wasn’t afraid to experiment, drawing inspirations from breakbeats, house, old school hip hop, soul, funk, rare groove, ska, and reggae.
Can you place it in the context of UK club culture?
It came about at a time when some producers who were making house got a bit bored of the monotony and wanted to experiment a bit more, utilising their skills by going back into their record collections and doing a bit of crate digging for some exciting samples. It was around ’97 that people like the Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim, and nights at the Heavenly Social and Big Beat Boutique brought around a change in style. There was a new generation of clubbers blown away by the sound.
Did it change your life?
Yes, it did as Freestylers was born from that era and have been on our journey ever since
What was its legacy?
Maybe the breakbeat thing, which I think is due a revival any time soon.
Finally, what was the best big beat record ever?
“Ooh La La” by Wise Guys.
Richard March, Bentley Rhythm Ace
THUMP: What was big beat all about, then?
Richard March: Who knows? The first time we were aware of the phrase was when we heard about the “Big Beat Boutique” night at the Concorde in Brighton. I guess it came to represent a loose collective of people working in a similar field—dance music without any real stylistic boundaries. A melting pot of 60s funk, breaks, hip hop, and whatever else was to hand thrown in for good measure. It was certainly a lot of fun and liberating artistically to be able to mix and match any elements without upsetting the “purists”. I think, for the audience, the idea that a DJ or live act could switch from genre to genre during a set rather than playing the same for hours on end was refreshing as well.
Did it fit alongside whatever else was going on UK clubs at the time?
In terms of the big clubs, I guess it was more of a “room 2” kind of vibe. But there were (still are) some great promoters working in smaller spaces that the vibe worked perfectly for.
Was big beat a genuine life changer for you?
Not especially, I certainly had a great time for a couple of years playing gigs all over the world though.
When we write the history of what clubbing was, and is, here in Britain, what will big beat be remembered for?
The open minded approach to DJing and making electronic music generally that it offered.
You’re DJing for God, up in heaven, and the big man himself has asked for one big beat record. What are you going to play?
Obviously, “Bentley’s Gonna Sort You Out”! Other than that, “Everybody Needs a 303” by Fatboy Slim, which was a huge record which kind of defined the scene for me.
Cut La Roc
THUMP: Go on, you were there…what was big beat?
Cut La Roc: Big beat (to me) was an “anything goes” musical movement whereby in an evening at a club you could expect to hear pretty much anything, no holds barred. A kind of “all back to mine” approach to the music policy, that’s how it started, after establishing itself as a musical genre it became very breakbeat/acid orientated dance music but still had that “anything goes” mentality.
Can you place it in the context of UK club culture?
Big beat certainly carved itself a chunk of club culture history, a lot of the artists involved are still in the industry now so whilst it’s died a mainstream death it’s still lingering.
When you look back on your life, is it possible to say that big beat changed it?
Certainly did, I was making what I thought was nondescript kinda random music in the studio because of my love for hip hop, acid-house and my passion for beat digging/breakbeats, when the big beat scene erupted I had an instant home for all of the tracks I’d been working on and was lucky enough to have previously been working with the guys who started Skint. I released my first EP, Mad Skills, in 1996 and after that I was probably gigging three to four days a week, every week for about five or six years.
How will it be remembered?
Big beat has left a great legacy, lots of artists are still working hard in the industry, just not really making big beat anymore. It opened up the music scene in quite a big way really, intermixing lots of genres and people.
Pick one: best big beat record ever?
In a commercial completely crossover sense I think something like Norman’s (Fatboy Slim) remix of Cornershop “Brimful of Asha” was quite a pivotal record, it opened up the floodgates to the pop charts and is a cracking track. On a similar vein but slightly less commercial (but still very successful) I’d say probably “Block Rockin’ Beats” by The Chemical Brothers pretty much sums up big beat and contains all of the key elements to a great BB track.
All the acts above appear at the Shiiine On Weekender this weekend. More information can be found here.
