r/deanblunt

i do like some Dean Blunt and i’m not coming here just to hate, but i feel like he’s massively overrated for the level of acclaim he gets.

“Galice” takes the emotional core of “Nubian Queen” and mostly loops it with some lo-fi tape-warp processing and different vocals over it. i say different vocals, but to me they’re pretty flat and closely follow the same vocal melody as the original song. and this seems to be a common blueprint for a lot of his music. “Smile Please” does something similar with John Frusciante’s “Outside Space”, and “Snakeman Freestyle” uses “He Got the Girl” by Marine Girls.

i’m not saying sampling has to involve 100 different chops or be technically complicated to be good. knowing exactly what section to take is obviously a real skill. but with a lot of his music, it feels like nearly all the soul and musical substance was already in the original recording. his main talent seems to be having amazing taste and knowing how to frame things, rather than being some amazing producer or composer.

i do really like Babyfather because it feels like he adds much more substance, identity and an actual world around the samples. but with some of his solo tracks i keep thinking: if an unknown SoundCloud artist looped the same section, added some lo-fi processing and sang over it, would people still call it genius?

when i found Dean Blunt and went down the rabbit hole, i already recognised a lot of the samples. because i knew some of the original artists and the context and emotion behind their music, i kept wondering what Dean was specifically adding that wasn’t already there.

i know a lot of people would say the vocals he adds are raw and vulnerable, but i’d recommend listening to John Frusciante’s Smile from the streets you hold to understand what i mean. that’s music made by someone who was genuinely in a horrific place and channelling addiction, isolation and instability directly into his performances. he even later said he released the album for drug money.

so genuinely, what do you think i’m missing? is it more about the wider context, lyrics, sequencing and persona, or do you think the production itself is genuinely exceptional? give me some tracks where you think he does something beyond having great sample taste.

at the moment i see him as kind of Rick Rubin style: great taste and direction, but not necessarily a technical producer or musical genius lol

hi does anyone know 4 first notes of the song bare? :) im getting a tattoo and i wanted the notes of the song to be a part of it :3 thank uuuu

I'm trying to track down the exact release date for Hype Williams' JUNT tape. I already spoke to the label owner of Hobo Cult Records, but he's unable to help and "can't remember". I was wondering if maybe Dean or Inga has any emails from that time that could help establish exactly when it was released.

I know that the tape was announced in June 2010 and was sold out by November 2010. For context, it was added to Discogs on October 20, 2010.

since a lot of people are talking about and heavily criticizing and roasting his halsey review, and rightfully so, i wanna bring back this review up, this to me is arguably his worst and also funniest review he's done, from the wrong info to the firm confidence that dean is escrow, a classic overall, just saying