Anyone seen this? Absolutely hilarious garbage from RA, apparently written by toddlers.
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Jesus Christ - thatâs quite a video. âThe rarefied world of diggingâ more like the Ladybird book of crap dance music takes
So much to hate about that, I wish I hadnât seen it.
Couldnât finish that. Surreally awkward.
Sunwaves isnât in Bucharest.
Yeah, I saw this yesterday. Utter bollocks from RA, once again. The funniest thing about it is that none of the people interviewed really seem to share the view that is presented in the story.
The whole thing is a flimsy confection put together by someone who has absolutely no clue about any of the culture.
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Misread the title as âThe Complex World of Doggingâ
Probably a better watch in hindsight.
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Younger and less knowledgeable guy here, I need some help understanding what makes it so bad. Iâm not a fan of the video either but I didnât have the visceral reaction others here did, what makes it particularly shit?
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Hi there. In around the first minute, the narrator talks about early 90s house music as though itâs incredibly rare and very collectible when, in fact, very little of it is that rare (not that I give a shit about whether itâs rare or not). Second, she starts justifying its importance by denouncing the âcheeseâ of the 1980s, when the 1980s gave us most of Larry Levanâs best mixes, Prelude, West End and Salsoul were all killing it, boogie, electro, early hip hop, early house and techno and all kinds of anomalous but brilliant electronic oddities. Cheese?!
The voiceover sounds like it was written by someone pretty young without any authority on the subject. If they seriously wanted to do a doc on digging, it would feature people like DJ Shadow, Keb Darge, Kon, Sean P, Dave Lee, Cosmo and many others that I could name.
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This is how to make a documentary about digging:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375702/
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If you really wanna know about digging, read this, absolutely brilliant book about record obsessives.
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In addition to points Bill outlines I think for me secrecy about tracks, as well as rarity and expense have all largely been barriers to enjoyment of music rather than things which have augmented it! So I find this romanticism tedious in a way. The best diggers should (and mostly do) happily share IDs, ultimately giving credit to the talented people who made it. And the whole thing about 90s records was just a nonsense - bonkers nostalgic fetishisation focusing on the tastes of a few (often very good) djs going after old tech house and electro records - but such a tiny part of the culture the narrator purports to describe
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Anyone who refuses to share or is secretive about other peopleâs music is missing the point.
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Hiding IDâs feels unethical to me, especially when so much of the music DJs play is made by local and independent artists. My friends in bands work so hard to make what they make and it would be ridiculous if people loved one of their tracks, and I refused to tell them who it was.
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At least now little culture vultures will think that âdiggingâ is exclusively for 90âs house and techno records and overlook all the other good shit kicking about!! Hilarious! The RA IG had so many butt hurt millennialâs crying about gatekeeping when a clip from this was posted. Good lordâŚâŚ
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Itâs just really naff and feels like the nuts and bolts of DJing is being explained to someone whoâs just arrived from Mars. And the writing and delivery is quite clunky and some of it is wrong.
The footage of proper record stores was nice though.
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A digger writesâŚ
Further to other comments above - I donât know the exact process involved in commissioning a short doc like this one but i suspect the writer/producer was vaguely aware of attitudes surrounding the âauthenticityâ (or otherwise) of reissues and simply pitched a vague premise for a short around which they retrofitted a âstoryâ linked to a fetishized buzz-word (âdiggingâ).
The notion of music that can straddle genres being of special interest to DJâs is long established - since the earliest days of Disco at the very least.
Regardless of genre or sub-genre, âdiggingâ is simply the process of looking for stuff (whether to play out or mine for samples or beats, or whatever). Thereâs very little that I recognize about âdiggingâ or its supposed âcomplexitiesâ in this video. âThe Complex World of Diggingâ, might more plausibly have been titled âA Short Intro to Collecting Desirable 90s Tech-House Recordsâ. But that wouldnât have attracted much interest.
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Digging should be done with a shovel - or spade, if you prefer.
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FUCKING HELL! 
That was bloody awful!
This book is amazing. I bought it last night and I canât stop reading it during my work day right now.
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