Lol I have been listening to 'electronic' music since the 80's and Kraftwerk and even I dunno what 'techno' music is exactly... there are so many genres now, genres within genres... I've simply lost track. My musical tastes are vast tho I honestly don't think there isn't a 'genre' I don't like, but good 'A' class, intelligent 'electronic' music, well there's nothing else like it to dance to if nothing else and some of the more chilled stuff is just sublime to listen to. Commercial mainstream radio is the epitome of horror when it comes to really good music.
TenCent, you said that Techno and all related genres "suck". Which related genres do you mean by this, because Techno is a rather unique genre in my opinion. It hit a brickwall and died, and Trance evolved rather separately from house, and really got going, succeeding where Techno failed. Yes, there is Hard House, which can sound like Techno at times and I don't really like that either, but apart from that i'm not sure what you mean.
I LOVE Techno. Not the shit you hear on the Techno Parades or so but the true techno sounds. For example Clint Mansell or Karlheinz Stockhausen, Wendy Carlos, Aphex Twins, Mike Oldfield (listen to Tubular Bells, even if it is mainstream)...
Techno confuses me to all hell. It seems to be the netherworld grab bag for the unclassifiable breakbeat style stuff; ie: prodigy, chemical brothers, fat boy slim, etc... house, trance, breaks, drum&bass; these sub-genres I know... and I love drum&bass. I fail to understand how anyone can say that electronica is shit... stereotyping in such a fashion is such a display of ignorance and arrogance. If you don't like it, fine by me; I personally don't like the house beat myself, too repetitive. If you want to challenge the creativity that some of these people have, or whether or not it's even music; I'd like to hear your argument and promptly compare it to what critics were saying about Pink Floyd just before Dark Side of the Moon came out, or alot of the Beatles' post Peppers material. That being said, I've yet to see anybody say anything about DubTribe in any thread... for your housier style stuff, I recall them being good; they had two good singers, and the drum circles they utilized were pretty impressive. Another suggestion in another direction would be Roni Size with Reprazent: New Forms. That album was amazing, and seemed to put drum and bass on the map. Bahamadia doing the vocals and the stand-up bass jazz funk riffs was simply awesome.
You're right. There seems to be here a lot of confusion about Techno. I always thought Techno was a very specific early 80's genre, which was mostly defined by the heavy use of synths with a pretty common rock rythm, a kind of synth driven New Wave sound. Bands like Human League, Soft Cell, OMD and Depeche Mode were considered techno. Synths were used as another instrument, but the music was pretty normal, meaning it was written and performed in the old fashioned way. It's very different from whats known as Electronica, with all it's sub-genres, which is mostly defined by the use of samples, loops and other electronic effects. In this genre, synths are no longer used as normal instruments, but as a tool for assembling the music. Sequencers and computers are used to put the music together in a completely new way. Trance, House, Hip Hop, Trip Hop (and all other Hops), are part of the Electronica genre. This post illustrates the confusion that's found in this thread pretty clearly. In his post, Silent Jay mixes several genres which are completely different from each other. Stockhausen and Wendy Carlos are Avant Garde musicians, and although all of Carlos' music is electronic, most of Stockhausen's isn't. Aphex Twins is typical Electronica, and Mike Oldfield just old fashioned Prog Rock.
Last two posts seem to have summed it up pretty well. The trouble is that Techno is a genre, but if you don't know what it is it is understandable that you might think that it is the umbrella term for all music that is predominantly produced through synthesis. In fact, modern techno makes far more use of samples than synthesis anyway. But if someone says techno is shit, I automatically assume they mean Techno, and they know what they're talking about, because I personally think Techno itself is just not as intellectual a form of music as Trance and House, or even Garage - which is deceptively well thought out even though it makes use of ideas from commercial hip-hop and RnB. But anyway, someone could say that Techno is shit and be dismissing synthesis, and sequencing of samples and synth sounds holistically, and that's just not on. In any argument, if you are going to be dismissing a genre of music, or anything else, it's simple good manners to explain your reasoning, since you're attacking something that a lot of people enjoy, for whatever reason that may be. I always put every bit of nous I have into explaining why I despise Mozart, because I love classical music. I just hate Mozart, so I go into reasons from a classical musician's point of view as to why I despise it. And at no point do I deny his Musical genius which is IMHO second only to that of J.S. Bach. It's purely a matter of taste. But even with taste you can still give concrete reasons as to WHY it doesn't suit your taste. So in short, please no more short sentences such as "Techno is shit and I hate it" because it's very ambiguous as to exactly what you hate, and of course you don't even give a valid reason for it.
I for one think that everything that uses electronical things (tapes, sinus generators, waveforms...) is techno so.
I mean I consider techno as something that sounds electronical. Mike Oldfield is progrock but TBells III was Technostyle I think - but where is the border between techno and spacerock or avantgarde?!?! After composing for many years now I never found out... Argh! It's all very difficult!
so anything that uses electronics and synthesis? That's a bit vague isn't it? After all that covers just about every pop recording made in the last 30 years! There's synthesis and processing involved somewhere in every recording these days. Techno is its own genre. It's a very specific kind of music, there's more than one genre that employs synthesis. And they have to have different names as they're different kinds of music. It's like saying that all jazz is Bebop or all orchestral music is Baroque or all Rock music is Punk (I could go on all day).
i think the guy means he hates any kind of electronic music? if so, i can't understand why. some songs have so much depth it's insane really. hits deeper and harder than any other kind of genre. tho yeah personally i hate techno too.... house, trance etc is the shit. techno's a bit too monotonous and simple but the prodigy are still the phat of the land.
Well he's probably not heard the good stuff in that case, or just doesn't have the musical nous to know what to listen for. If he doesn't like trance because there aren't enough guitars in it, then he probably won't like classical or jazz or anything else for the same reason. In that case well he's not worth arguing with. Anyone else who decides to dismiss a genre or whole group of genres without giving a reason I think will get nothing but a point and laugh response from me.
