Goldie Overview

It is a raw, rebellious, decadent, and modern sound. Extremely hot and sweaty, it's enough to take your body to extreme levels of manic disorder and back again. You jump, flip, and fall, transported by the electrifying sounds of apocalyptic vibrations.... [more]

It is a raw, rebellious, decadent, and modern sound. Extremely hot and sweaty, it's enough to take your body to extreme levels of manic disorder and back again. You jump, flip, and fall, transported by the electrifying sounds of apocalyptic vibrations. You panic because the larger-than-life beat seems to be tearing your heart out, but then you realize that you like it, you love it. What is this intense musical cyclone? Welcome to the world of jungle music -- your host for the century is Goldie. Goldie is jungle's first celebrity, a star who caught the world's attention with his over-the-top persona, B-boy attitude, in-your-face beats, and a dazzling set of gold teeth. He gave the media what it was looking for: a photogenic face that would represent this British musical subculture and translate it to the world. Some say the flashy producer was Britain's answer to the enormously popular American hip-hop scene. Goldie, a foster child born to a Scottish mother and an absentee Jamaican father, grew up under brutal conditions. In the early 1980s Goldie was seduced by hip-hop and break dancing as an escape from urban angst. He moved to the United States for a short period, dividing his time between the music scenes of New York and Miami. His brief appearance in the English documentary "Bombing," a film about graffiti art and breaking, marked his introduction to the sophisticated and artistic side of the underground. Goldie found his niche as a performer and dancer, beginning a long love affair with the unconventional. Back in London, the new jungle scene taking shape in the early '90s quickly entranced Goldie. This was a culture of breakbeats and B-boys that mixed the exhilarating power of hardcore techno with the bravado of old-school hip-hop. Inspired by the "raw sound," Goldie began producing his own tracks -- his 1992 single, "Terminator," was his green card into the genre. "Terminator" is a hard track, a dirty buzz saw that flies manically into darkness. Goldie had mastered the technique of "time-stretching" (stretching a vocal sample over any beats-per-minute without altering the pitch) and introduced a restless energy that needed to be spread. Not content to release vinyl singles to be played at parties, Goldie decided to do something unusual: he recorded a full-length drum 'n' bass album. 1995's "Timeless" can only be described as Goldie's magnum opus. Many critics hailed it as "jungle's first and best full-length work of art." Indeed, the album definitely took jungle out of the dingy club environs and into the realm of "serious" music. It marks a departure from early works such as "Terminator," suggesting an artsy, rather than hardcore, affinity. It incorporates swelling strings, jazz infusions, angelic vocals, and samples galore into the breakbeat formula -- the work is rich, soaring, mind-blowing, even arrogant in its conspicuous hugeness. The title track alone is a sonic super-sprawl that clocks in at more than 20 minutes. With the release of "Timeless," mainstream audiences got their first taste of jungle as listening music. The media snapped jungle up "as the first indigenously British dance music" and declared Goldie the king of the modern tribal sounds. Goldie has produced and recorded other artists as well. His Metalheadz label (formed in 1994 and named after his weekly club parties) introduced such pioneers as Source Direct, Photek, J.Majik, Optical, Lemon D., and Wax Doctor to the jungle scene. The label has become synonymous with a particular drum 'n' bass sound, specializing in moody, jazzy works that tend toward the smoother side. But while the label continues to claim definite respectability, Goldie himself has come under artistic scrutiny in recent years. His later full-length album, "Saturnz Return" (1998), is an even more over-the-top, saturated work that bombed famously when it was released. And his reliance on technical engineers such as Rob Playford has caused some in the scene to cry "poser!" Nevertheless, Goldie introduced the world to the rebellious sounds of the jungle generation in a way no artist had before. He broadened the sound and asked whether driving club beats could also be progressive and musical. His glittery persona and the attendant media hype remain controversial, but the rest is all about dance.... [show less]