inane in the membrane

two takes on the strange return to the mainstream charts of "so-called house music" (as the LA Times reporter phrases it, as if house music were not a two-decades-plus established term)

all these sounds from Euro and club music and the more commercial end of techno, it's almost like a second B-Boys on E moment, except i doubt E has anything to do with it... it's not a trend driven by the streets, it's coming from producers, from their lack of imagination and their desire/need for international sales... so it's more like a second Hip House moment... rapping figures as part of the hit-maker's arsenal in the same way as it did for C+C Music Factory