We Need To Talk About Fred… Again
No modern musician is more misunderstood than Fred Dagan. The 29-year-old DJ-producer has become the scapegoat of " serious" electronic music fans around the world as an intruder, usurper and threat to all in sight. He is a culture war within himself, an artist whose very existence creates a discourse on authenticity and class.
When Glastonbury's viral pitch was shown on BBC2 and iPlayer last month, my Twitter feed became a wall of memes and digs at Fred Again and his fans. Some were hilarious ("Fred fans again - the second evolution of Carhartt fans, Loyle Carner fans"), others were angry ("those trained vultures") and others took it upon themselves to list their lawyer - Father Tweet for the crime . Customers (including tobacco and pharmaceutical companies).
The allegations against Frederick John Philip Gibson are widespread and impossible to refute. Chief among them is that it is beautiful. Not just standard British pop school chic, but true blue blood. The established reputation is impeccable; Baron, earl, landowner, socialite and James Bond creator Ian Fleming. The family tree is now so well annotated that the Young Years section of the Wikipedia page is a memory in itself.
Then comes the music: a kind of pseudo-ambient techno, full of funky euphoric melodies and noisy samples. You can clearly hear his influences - Burial, Aphex Twin, Bicep and the lesser known Traumprinz/DJ Healer (which I think is his biggest musical interest).
Even the fans don't fit the standard Berlin mold, nor the Ibiza mold. Cut to a Glastonbury performance and you might imagine it's a post-EDM sensation like Kings of Leon or Flume. Check the tweets about Fred again and the word Normie comes up. Her fans aren't fun, trendy or weird. They are happy - really happy. They are straight - really straight. Men wear short-sleeved printed shirts, while women paint their faces with gold chains. Everyone is sighing at the eerie thrill of the music, reminiscent of Alpha Course summer camp, and paying more than face value for the tickets.
Combining all these factors, Fred XXI . He becomes the perfect victim of the chaos of the 20th century autocracy. It's a throwback to the era of progressive rock, when fame and spectacle were central to music culture, when high school kids like Peter Gabriel and David Gilmour toured the world with sets, stages and 30-piece stacks. Click on In fact, if he played progressive rock again Fred would be very easy, but no. He plays electronic music, a scene full of hard conversations and appropriate discussions.
So here he sits; A very successful artist but a lot of ridicule. A man who is not even cold enough to bear, let alone admire. It was the culmination of years of struggling artists emerging from the underground, applying their generational talent and major label debuts to the scene and making millions in the process. Meanwhile, creative and innovative genres (many of which are obscure, rare, or simply unrecognizable creations) work on a much smaller scale, with much less effort. At Glastonbury, even beating house/techno acts like Sherelle and Jayda G couldn't come close to a " Fred Again moment" as he played something tailor-made for small, dark tents at dusk. - All topics. . the people
