Music Arcades: Goldie: Timeless

I discovered that Goldie, like David Shea yesterday, is the same age as me. I find that somehow reassuring. Not sure why.

Goldie was kind of the Burial of 1996, or 1995 if you were hipper than me. The kind of dance music that is greeted as a breakthrough by people who wear rimless glasses; though you're never quite sure if people who actually dance on a regular basis like it. Being in the former category, I hastened to HMV or Virgin when I got the word, probably via The Wire.

And I was disappointed by how relatively conservative it sounded. I grant you it may just be me latching onto the superficial "Inner City" references, but it all felt to me like What's Going On with added breakbeats.

It's easy to forget how Goldie seemed really to stand for something new in British culture a decade and a bit ago. In 1997 he was featured in the title of Michael Bracewell's ever-so-highbrow (and rather inconsequential as I remember it) review of popular culture and national identity, England Is Mine: Pop Life in Albion from Wilde to Goldie. Well, perhaps we had to clutch at straws to hold onto the belief that there was more to this country than bloody Blur versus Oasis.

Yet within a few years it was quite easy to forget about Goldie. When I read on blogs about his success in the reality TV series Maestro, I remember thinking, "Oh yeah: him, with the teeth." I almost wish I'd watched the series now, because it might have been interesting to see how he got to grips with classical musicians and music without being able to read it.

No matter how conservative Goldie's music may or may not be, back in the innocent 20th century, Goldie was spared the ignominy that was meted out to Burial last year, that of getting an approving nod from the editor of The Spectator. Lose 200 "underground" points, and do not pass go.