Did Prime kill techno?

Okay, so techno is still alive, but as an industry, it's not well. Back in the day, though, you'd get tons and tons of solid records on big, fat, slabs of quality vinyl from prime distributed labels. a lot of the stuff you'd get in 1996-1999 was also good music, though it seemed to me as 2000 approached, more and more prime records were loopy, derivative, and brought little or nothing to the table. and the labels kept multiplying. then prime died, leaving tons and tons of labels and artists adrift. are we not still feeling the aftershocks of this now? bt what was prime?

did prime create a sort of techno-assembly-line, cheapening techno (as derrick may might argue), or was it instead a great vehicle for allowing people's musical expression to be financially viable, and therefore sorely missed?

what do people think?

i wouldnt say its down to prime exactly. music trends evolve and prime saw an opportunity. just good buisiness sense really

the whole funky thing from 2000 onwards killed it really as much as i loved it, thats what brought it all to a head. we could go on forever.

i blame umek...lets hang the cunt :lol:

Did Prime kill techno?
No, techno killed Prime..

Before prime went broke, other big techno distro's also went broke.
Think about what happened with Sonic distribution.

i guess i meant less that it went broke, than that in many ways prime changed the landscape of techno...and in many ways this was a good thing, as tons of great labels were distributed or owned by prime. but it also created a glut of labels, many of which were basically one or two artists. before that point in the mid-to-late 1990s, the industry was more consolidated. so...did prime alter the industry in such a way that stretched techno out too thinly, or did it make an industry reliant upon prime? just some musings...

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Originally Posted by SlavikSvensk

i guess i meant less that it went broke, than that in many ways prime changed the landscape of techno...and in many ways this was a good thing, as tons of great labels were distributed or owned by prime. but it also created a glut of labels, many of which were basically one or two artists. before that point in the mid-to-late 1990s, the industry was more consolidated. so...did prime alter the industry in such a way that stretched techno out too thinly, or did it make an industry reliant upon prime? just some musings...

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I guess the old prime was more like a distribution then a P&D dealmaker.
All the labels like Planet Rhythm, Ground, Drumcode and so on, were all runned by label owners themselves (independents)... And from 2000 on there was an explosion of crappy P&D deals @ Prime.. And there were a lot of labels with Prime as A&R..... That kind of development overkilled techno music... Suddenly there was less space for the real quality stuff..

And we still cope with this kind of problem.

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Originally Posted by Ritzi Lee

I guess the old prime was more like a distribution then a P&D dealmaker.
All the labels like Planet Rhythm, Ground, Drumcode and so on, were all runned by label owners themselves (independents)... And from 2000 on there was an explosion of crappy P&D deals @ Prime.. And there were a lot of labels with Prime as A&R..... That kind of development overkilled techno music... Suddenly there was less space for the real quality stuff..

And we still cope with this kind of problem.

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yeah that's what i'm talking about! i did love a lot fo labels it distributed, and also really liked a few of the primevil records, but then a lot of them seemed to get a bit throwaway and then there were just SOOOO many labels out there basically doing the same thing...

IMO Prime played a big part in the downfall of techno - for the last few years every record was the same old shit. They took no chances and they made techno soooo boring. i ****ing love techno and even i was beginning to hate it.

machina

you guys act like there wasn't a good amount of shitty techno before prime came around. In the past, 99% of techno was always shit. Currently it's 99% shit, and in the future it will be 99% shit.

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Originally Posted by Dustin Zahn

you guys act like there wasn't a good amount of shitty techno before prime came around. In the past, 99% of techno was always shit. Currently it's 99% shit, and in the future it will be 99% shit.

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yeah that's true but it wasn't my point. it wasn't that the shit didn't exist, but that maybe prime flooded the market with it as it started on its downward tragectory. or, to be more accurate, well-produced, forgettable shit...

Yeah, my point was there was just as much crap flooding the market back then as there was when prime was around. Prime sticks out for us because A) they happened to be around when the internet boomed so they made their mark worldwide (previously, only the old schoolers would really have any knowledge of past distributors, etc.) B) Prime was much more recent. But you're right, as far as the market goes today, maybe Prime did leave a mark but I think it's slowly being erased. A lot of crappy labels bit the dust after Prime's downfall and people seem to have forgotten about them for the most part. You could say the same about Integrale, they released a lot of shit music too. Times change and people move on.

What will be interesting is to watch all these minimal distros follow the same fate of Prime and others in the next couple years. They're buying up labels like there is no tomorrow.

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Originally Posted by Dustin Zahn

What will be interesting is to watch all these minimal distros follow the same fate of Prime and others in the next couple years. They're buying up labels like there is no tomorrow.

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good point...i guess i'm not the only one who sees the growth of "minimal" as unstable. techno seems to be all about the boom/bust cycle...

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Originally Posted by SlavikSvensk

techno seems to be all about the boom/bust cycle...

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That's about it in a nutshell!

whats about integrale and ideal? were they "useful" for techno?

i mean that's not really the point now but they broke down as well.. maybe it's more about the artists..