Steve Lawler: "This Electro-Pop-Dance Is the Worst Music I've Ever Heard in My Whole Life"

Meet Steve Lawler at Wall Lounge for a pre-NYE party on December 28. Check out Crossfade's full New Year's Eve 2012 guide. Dance music sucks. House music rules. Just ask British rave legend and Viva Music label boss Steve Lawler. "Dance music is not the same as house music," Lawler...

By S. Pajot

December 14, 2011

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Meet Steve Lawler at Wall Lounge for a pre-NYE party on December 28. Check out Crossfade's full New Year's Eve 2012 guide.

Dance music sucks. House music rules. Just ask British rave legend and Viva Music label boss Steve Lawler.

"Dance music is not the same as house music," Lawler told Crossfade in October. "Yes, it makes you dance -- we all know that! But what I have seen happen in America in the last two years is the explosion of commercial pop-electro-dance music. And so many people think it's the same culture, the same scene as what we do with house and techno, and it isn't! It so isn't."

To Lawler's ears, electronic tuneage should be deep, dark, sexy, gritty, even borderline criminal. Which only makes sense, considering the 38-year-old got his start on the party scene as a teenager, promoting and DJing illegal street raves in the shadow of England's M42 Motorway. "Those days were the real meaning of messy," he laughs. "You can't imagine what we used to get up to. I mean, we were having parties underneath a freeway!"

Follow Crossfade on Facebook and Twitter @Crossfade_SFL.

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