music

Sucks that the drummer died in obscurity nearly penniless

Sometime last year or earlier this year, someone in the Jungle subreddit posted a section of a ~~1992/93~~ 1993 issue of some underground rave music magazine from the UK, specifically a section that contained an interview with Pascal & Sponge (who were producing Breakbeat Hardcore/Jungle songs together as Johnny Jungle at the time). The interview was pretty short and not that interesting in the grand scheme of things, but the one thing that stuck with me from it was a brief line from Pascal complaining that the Amen Break was overused lol.

Which is pretty incredible when you consider the historical context. IIRC the first breakbeat to be sampled & used in a song was the Apache Break all the way back in 1980. By contrast, the Amen break wasn't first used until 1986, and only 6-7 years later it had exploded in popularity to the point that some people were already starting to get tired of it. And in the 30 years since then, it's continued to grow in popularity to the point that most casual fans of Breakbeat, old skool Hip-Hop, Jungle, DnB, Breakcore, IDM, etc. are at least somewhat familiar with it & it's history. The Apache Break is still easily within the top 5 when it comes to most sampled breakbeats of all time, and it has nowhere near the same level of casual recognition. Even second most sampled breakbeat, the Think Break, doesn't come close to the Amen on that front.

Edit: Here's the interview, and the relevant quote:

Q: Do you prefer the music of today or the stuff that was around a year ago and what do you see as the future of rave music?

A: I do prefer the music of today. I'm not sure about what the way ahead is though. I do think that everyone should stop using that Amen break because if anything is going to kill hardcore it will be that. People are going to get very tired of it. There are loads of breaks out there, it's just that most people are too lazy to look and find them. Havibg [sic] said that I do think that the Amen breakbeat is the same for Hardcore as the bass drum is to House.