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Originally Posted by louder
There's no such thing as underground/mainstream anymore, really.. the Internet fucked everything up.
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Lost my initial response, but here's the bare bones of it in bullet point form:
• Yup, pretty much. Some would say the Internet "opened things up," and in many cases they're right, but largely yes, the Internet had killles underground culture.
• This effect has been better for hip-hop than it has for most genres though. Kanye "happened" just as the digital/MP3 age was really taking off in earnest. A Tribe Called Quest have a #1 album. Artist like Chance (and even Thug) have used the Internet to bring a decidedly outsider perspective to "mainstream" hip-hop, and you no longer have to be "underground" to be conscious, or "mainstream" to make crazy depraved butthole bangers.
• I think indie, rock, punk have all had worse luck with the death of the underground than hip-hop has.
• Underground culture still seems to thrive in certain regions of techno, house, and electronic music in general. Footwork had been a massive underground phenomenon, largely, I think, in response to to ultra-mainstramization of dub step... but from the perspective of an avid electronic music fan, that genre seems to be holding up a measure the culture. Otherwise, people would know about DJ Koze, KidKanevil... Yeah, Daft Punk won a Grammy, but I think there's a thriving "below-the-radar" scene in electronic music.
But yeah, the underground is largely super dead. Too bad.