The first decades of the 21st century saw dramatic changes in the music
industry as technology transformed creation, communication, and
consumption. Amid this turmoil one change occurred relatively quietly,
almost naturally: so-called bedroom producers, music makers raised on
hip-hop and electronic music, went from anonymous, often unseen creators
to artists in their own right.
In Bedroom Beats and B-sides, journalist Laurent Fintoni details the
rise of a new generation of bedroom producers at the turn of the century
through the stories of various instrumental hip-hop and electronic music
scenes. From trip-hop, downtempo, and IDM to leftfield hip-hop, glitch,
and beats, the book explores how these scenes acted as incubators for
new ideas about composition and performance that are now taken for
granted.
Combining social, cultural, and musical history with extensive research
and over 100 interviews, the book tells the B-side stories of hip-hop
and electronic music from the 1990s to the 2010s. Using the format of a
beat tape, it explores the evolution of a modern beat culture from local
scenes to global community via the diverse groups of idealists on the
fringes who made it happen and the external forces that shaped their
efforts.
Before the uniformity of streaming services, always-on social media, and
online tutorials for everything, this is a portrait of independence and
experimentation amid historical change. It's a story of obsession and
dedication and how the fringes brought about a quiet musical revolution.
