Anti-algorithm, anti-perfection – the rise of a music counter-cultureToday’s music landscape is one defined by abundance and immediacy. In a chronically-online world, everything is overground immediately. Scenes have to work really hard to stay underground and even then, some eagle-eyed A+R or marketing person is going to see the buzz and try to bottle its essence for wider consumption. Underground never stays ‘under’ for long. Yet, at the same time, we are seeing a blossoming of scenes, both on and offline. While the former are shaped by platforms’ algorithms, the latter are inherently more human in nature and form part of a growing analogue revival. It is not quite a choice between ‘power to the people’ or ‘power to the platform’ but it is not far off. And it is from this cultural dichotomy that a truly unique counter-culture phenomenon is happening: the return of bootleg and remix culture.

The music business has spent the last half a decade or so grappling with the rise of the creator economy. While the long tail is facing endless hurdles (cutting through the clutter, earning thresholds, not to mention UMG’s proposed acquisition of Downtown), it is not going anywhere, but instead creating a bifurcation of the music business. The rise of the consumer creator has resulted in three tiers of music creation:

1.    Consumer creators

2.    Music creators

3.    Traditional professionals

But there is, in fact, a fourth tier: DJs. 

The role of DJs in music’s counter-culture movement

Generative AI and tools like speeding up and slowing down have enabled more people to create, while playlists have empowered people to curate. DJing channels both of those creative lanes, and it is booming. In 2023, DJ equipment was the only major music hardware category to see strong growth (most other categories declined). Meanwhile YouTube is abuzz with DJ sets from a new crop of young, often female, DJs. DJs are an alternative to the algorithm: pure, human curation. 

While much of the DJ boom has, unsurprisingly, been absorbed into the mainstream (e.g., Boiler Room now boasts 4.5 million YouTube subscribers) there is a thriving underground that both looks and feels different.  Its home is SoundCloud.

The problem with everyone having access to everything is that, well, everyone has access to everything. It is really hard to sound different. If you are an established DJ you have the advantage of getting sent promos ahead of release so you avoid just sounding like the Beatport Top 10. However, if you are in the long tail of DJs you do not have that advantage. Your alternative? Bootlegs. SoundCloud has become the home of unofficial bootlegs and remixes. The place where underground DJs source their sets with tracks that are not part of the dance mainstream.

Why Gen Z and millennials are reviving ‘90s dance music classics

Bootlegs and unofficial remixes are by no means something new. What is new, however, is that the fragmented, scenes-based nature of SoundCloud is enabling bootlegs to power underground dance scenes. And what is particularly interesting, is that much of this is being done by young producers and DJs, reimagining ‘90s classics. The ‘90s were, in many people’s eyes, the heyday for many dance music genres, or at the very least, the defining decade. And there are three very important defining qualities of ‘90s dance music:

1.    Production techniques were much more rudimentary than today. As a consequence, the tracks can sound much more raw  and organic than the highly polished electronic music of today

2.    Most ideas, sounds, melodies and chord progressions were being done for the first time, so they had a purer and simpler feel. Electronic tracks since then have had to embellish and modify to be different, putting sonic distance between idea and output

3.    Less music was being made and was being played by fewer DJs, so big tracks became really big. Big enough to still be well known today (a dynamic true of all music genres pre-streaming)

The result is that SoundCloud is awash with Gen Z and millennial producers and DJs remaking ‘90s classics for today’s genres. Whether that be ‘90s trance revival or classic garage tracks being beefed up into UKG bangers. I will refrain from dropping any  links to these creators to avoid putting a  big takedown target on their backs, but there are many who are almost exclusively releasing bootlegs on SoundCloud, each with tens of thousands of followers that eagerly listen to and comment on their tracks. Many of the productions are ‘rough around the edges’, but that is often the point. It is meant to sound different to the over-produced mainstream. It is electronic music’s punk / garage rock moment, where idea matters more than form. 

This is bifurcation in action. These creators are opting not to play in the traditional music business lane (largely because they would struggle to get the rights cleared). So, instead they are operating in the music business’ ‘grey market’ – not quite a black market but not the formal market either. Because this is by its very nature, below the radar, it means these scenes each have a soundtrack of their own, one that you simply cannot find on Beatport or Spotify.

How SoundCloud’s scenes are different from the rest

Crucially, what marks these music scenes as being different from the very-online scenes that prosper in places like TikTok, Reddit, and Discord, is that online is only a link in the chain. The music comes to life in the DJ sets, at parties, small clubs, and raves. Online is where the music is sourced and where people go to relive memories, but offline is where the fun is being had and where the culture lives. There is also a creative virtuous circle at play: the bootlegs are the kicking-off point for scenes but they also respond to the scene, the sound evolving quickly in response to what moves the dance floors.

There are ways in which the traditional business can play in remix culture. Armada’s BEAT Music fund is acquiring rights to classic tracks and getting producers to create modern remixes. This is a smart strategy but it is something different, because those remixes flow into the traditional industry structure. Labels could also tap into (and monetise) the opportunity by creating stem sandboxes with a subscription fee. Though many labels would likely worry about quality control of the output and tracking royalties and plays.

But there is a more fundamental problem / opportunity with trying to assimilate the underground: as soon as you start trying to place formal structures around it and elevate its profile it is no longer underground. Perhaps instead, the best thing the traditional music industry can do is observe and admire from afar. To let these new, anti-algorithm, anti-perfection scenes flourish and wait to see what they create.