Idris Elba's How Clubbing Changed the World Page #4

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with a vocal on it.

And it just took off

and kind of changed my life.

Having big fun

Those chord stamps and then that

beautiful vocal, over the top.

I've gone goose pimply

thinking about it.

We're having big fun

The first time I heard Big Fun

play in the UK, I mean,

the whole club just, everybody,

just was on the dance floor,

and it just blew me away.

Completely smashed the place to

smithereens. Brilliant.

We're having big fun...

Still today when I play that record

now, people are like, "Yep, tune."

We're having big fun...

The record Big Fun, that's

when I realised

the underground had

kind of gone into the overground.

Let me take you to a place I know

you wanna go

It's a good life

Hey, hey, hey...

Inner City's next release Good

Life was an instant classic,

and its influence of modern artists

is still felt today.

Good life, for me, just represents

everything I love about a club tune.

To write a song about joy and to

write a song about being happy,

is actually really hard.

Love is shining, life is thriving

in the good life

Good life

You can't make a record that good.

You put on Good Life,

you'll be like, "I don't know how to

make a record that good."

That's completely original.

The whole techno movement,

the whole Detroit thing,

it made electronic music soulful.

It was the first time I felt

emotion, like deep emotions that

I used to feel with funk and soul,

you know, from electronic music.

Good life...

Yes, I'll be right back.

Now, join me after the break,

as club culture terrifies the drink

industry,

gets its melon twisted in

Madchester,

and a few blokes from Croydon

completely change the face of

popular music. Peace.

Welcome back.

We're counting down

the most significant moments

in the history of club culture.

Now, ever since Buddy Holly strapped

on a guitar back in the '50s,

rock and roll has been

the world's dominant youth culture,

but, with the rise of house music

in the late '80s,

it seemed that Britain had suddenly

left rock and roll for dead.

In Manchester, a handful of bands

were beginning to be influenced

by this new sound.

In November 1989,

The Stone Roses and

The Happy Mondays

appeared on Top Of The Pops.

A new scene dubbed Madchester

came gurning into our living room.

Madchester was the moment clubbing

changed rock and roll,

and The Happy Mondays

were on a mission

to twist everybody's melon, man.

You're twisting my melon, man

You know, you talk so hip, man

You're twisting my melon, man.

They were working-class lads

that weren't necessarily

the best musicians,

but had a special togetherness.

He's going to step on you again

He's going to step on you...

You have a band that were

kind of indie, NME based,

but with

great rolling, driving beats.

That's what British youth culture

has always done better

than anyone else in the world.

They've always used all their

influences and put them together,

and come up with something amazing.

The relentless rise of club culture

meant Britain's youth wanted

to party later than ever before.

And, in 1989,

a club called Turnmills in London

was granted the first

all-night music and dance license.

24 hour party people...

When I first started

going out clubbing,

you could not go to a nightclub

after two o'clock.

Clubs used to shut at two.

Now it seems really early.

You know, everybody used to look

forward

to a four o'clock, six o'clock

finish, you know,

the all-nighter was

the real holy grail of going out.

The way Britain wanted to party

had changed.

Suddenly the idea of going to a pub

was out of date.

The drinks industry had to react.

What happened, initially, with house

music is people stopped boozing,

but they still carried on

getting out of it.

It's not like they were all

raving sober.

They were out of it

in a different way.

The alcohol industry looked round

and thought, "Right,

"we need to wise up fast."

If you went to a pub

in the '70s or early '80s

there'd be a bunch of men

that got away from their wives,

nursing a warm pint of beer.

What the drinks industry did was

it lobbied government,

and they opened up

a whole new world,

and that was basically

the world of All Bar One.

All Bar One is the kind of totem

of that '90s drinks culture.

All Bar One essentially

was meant to be a kind of pre-club,

maybe even slightly clubby

environment,

so hard surfaces

so that the music sounds good.

You stand up at the bar,

and there's big windows

so that men walk past can see

there's loads and loads

of fit women in there.

But it wasn't just pub environments

that were reacting.

The drinks themselves were being

aimed at a younger, clubbier crowd.

I think that alcopops were designed

with clubbers in mind.

Because, essentially, if you're

dancing, you don't want to be

holding a pint.

20 years down the line,

we have binge-drink Britain.

Your Saturday night out

has changed for ever.

From Cardiff city centre

to Los Angeles in our countdown,

the 2012 Grammys were dominated

by one unlikely artist.

A kid from LA called Skrillex.

He might look like a Goth,

but his beats are the nastiest

and bassiest to ever hit the US.

Skrillex got three Grammys for making

really, really hard dubstep

that would scare even me,

never mind my parents.

Skrillex winning three Grammys,

going up on the podium

and shouting out,

"The Croydon Dub Crew,"

was a massive, massive moment.

Yeah, that's right.

A three-time Grammy winner

was inspired by a homebrew sound

from South London.

Its roots are in Croydon

and South London.

Croydonia.

At a record shop, really,

where I used to work,

the blueprint was created by, like,

nine or ten producers in the shop.

Dubstep was a totally new

direction for electronic music.

People didn't know how to

dance to it.

It was half-time drums,

it seemed really slow to everyone

and it didn't make sense.

Then it did.

From Croydon

to stadiums across America,

dubstep has become one of the most

sought-after sounds in modern pop.

Even Britney Spears wants

a piece of it.

There was the Britney record where it

was like everyone was talking about,

"It's got a dubstep bit in it."

I still can't get my head round it

though, it's insane.

These days we take British

innovation for granted.

But, in 1983, before house music

was even invented,

a track exploded

onto the UK dance floors

that sounded a bit like

it had been sent from the future

to give us a slap.

That weird record,

that starts with this,

"De, de," then,

"de-de-de-de-de-de-de."

What's that? You can't do that.

Out of the ashes of post-punk band

Joy Division came New Order.

And with their 1983 track

Blue Monday

they turned the generation on

to the power of electronic music,

and really short shorts.

Blue Monday legitimised electronic

dance music for a lot of people

because it involved New Order,

who had so much credibility

because they had been Joy Division.

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