Printable View
question for anyone who cares about philosophical threads...
do the endless and multiplying subgenres within techno add diversity or do they stifle originality by creating institutionalized boundaries that artists consciously or subconsciously adhere to?
(my own opinion is probably fairly easy to figure out)
techno is techno and should be techno.. play whatever you want in whatever way excites you.. just make sure you play good music.
I think it does divide things too much.
but it`s the nature of life today
We are so spoiled we expect exactly what we want, what works for us now, and we want it again and again and again.
Burroughs wrote a very interesting essay on the dreary predictablility of human behaviour when it comes to pleasure.
People seem to focus in on the one tiny thing they like, and just stick with it, as a whole.
With more choice, society seems to get more narrow minded and self centred, and this is reflected in music.
Techno DJ`s playing an entire night of skkkkrannzzzzz or mnmnmnmllll
or whatever.
And people that go to a mnmnmnnmllll night only going to nights that are minimllmlmn, not going to somewhere else to try toher things.
I think it`s something that goes deeper than just music.
It`s more to do with us spoiled, stinking, westerners.
people naturally categorize in everyday life. those who study things also categorize. in techno, the consumers are also the analysts. so we get crazy categorization.
"no, that's not mnml, that's minimal techno."
or
"no, that's not techno, that's tech-house"
or
"no, that's not schranz, that's hard techno"
now, i'm not saying there aren't valid differences between what is generally considered A and generally considered B. but on the borders these differences are fairly meaningless. it's also fairly meaningless to put a new label on anything that comes out. why is mnml (god i hate typing that) not minimal techno? because minimal techno is OLD and mnml should be NEW. maybe it also means a lot of mnml artists are not actually listening to basic channel, rob hood, etc. which would be a shame.
then there's the problem even of artists sitting down at the computer or studio and starting a track, but when it started to sound vaguely subgenred, they subconsciously steer it there because they have a clearly defined sense of what it SHOULD sound like.
i really wonder what techno would be like if we all just made TECHNO. maybe we would ALL be free...
free at last
free at last
god almighty
free at last
:)
I try not to pidgeonhole too much. Remember, it's ultimately about pleasing the crowd and playing to them and not to your own tastes. If you try and get too genre specific (unless that particular crowd is looking for that miniscule genre) you usually end up not giving them what they want. Yeah I play techno, but I usually run the gamut in what I play. I get bored if I don't diversify what's in a set.
Catagorisation is about identity, and IMO its no wonder people want to catagorise themselves these days, particularly in youth culture... there is a void of identity for most young people these days, especially when they find themselves identifying with brands and labels on clothing. Brands which change rapidly. And identity ridnig on the back of commercialism does no-one any good at all. There is no strength of time within in, not like the strength offered by family ties. Therefore its unsuprising that people obsess on a particular genre, espeicallly one that has a strong vision, such as hardcore, or happy hardcore. Sub-genre identification seems to be something that journo's happily create to make their writing easier, and something that half-minded record label owners cling to in an effort to get into the very same magazines that they despise.
Real momentum in music comes from forward thinking boundary breaking individuals who reject these catagories and go their own way, rather than be pigeon-holed. IMO the digital revolution will let people explore their musical boundaries, no be at the whims of distro/publishers, who I hold responsible for holding back creative culture within techno in the last 5 years. It isnt wholly their fault, piracy has led to a temporary dip in the way finance enters music and as a result non of them were willing to take a risk on new and untested music.
Commercialism.... what a joke.
[insert criticisms here please... i like learning]
Dunno? It's all house really innit?
Bah
Play whatever you want.
Just be a good dj. If you're interesting, you'll get your props.
Screw genres.
I can only talk for myself.
My sets are always diverse like techno itself is.
Hopefully organisations will appreciate this kind of approach again in the near future. But now it seems programmers are targeting too much on the styles.
techno is full of steers and queers
So which one are y.......Quote:
Originally Posted by Aratron
Oh.
;)
I think Techno is very divided...
Seems to me that everyone is wanting the Techno community to pull together n show some sense of unity, but by its very nature it seems not to allow this...
Is it just me, or do the other sections of dance music, or indie, goth n the likes all just seem to get on with enjoying the music n that is why I am looking over the fence n saying, "By they all seem happy n content over there...."
I think more is expected of Techno, than the other genres, to morph and twist which brings about a whole different dynamic within that musical community...
More musings needed but definitely something to be going on with....:)
Other more serious areas of dance music suffer the same thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Little_Fella!
House, DnB, Dubstep, Garage, same with Goth and Industrial, you`ve got your EBM, your Darkwave etc
I think it`s pretty common generally, with people being very blinkered to their tastes.
I don`t think more is expected of techno at all, if anything, these days things seem to be dumbed down a hell of a lot more. You`ll find fanatics in any niche scene, which only intensifies the compartmentalisation that is in the up anyway.
i hate genres. i'd actually go further and say that people shouldn't be limited by techno either. if you like house, trance, breaks, whatever then why not incorperate that in your techno.Quote:
Originally Posted by SlavikSvensk
lately i've not even been limiting myself to dance and have been throwing in everything from EBM to rock (all quantised and beatmatched) in my techno mixes.
that's simply not true. In fact goths are particularly anal about the sub-denominations (sp?) of their scene.Quote:
Originally Posted by Little_Fella!
as for other dance genres - hardhouse is a prime example. Theres hardhouse, harddance, hardtrance, hardstyle, hard NRG, Nu NRG, Hard Filth, Bounce, Techno NRG.... the list is endless (and even some of the styles i've meantioned get further sub-devided by people).
it's absurd.
i'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that genre names are there to serve only 2 types of people:
* DJs who loves and plays a particular style but it too coward to admit it so they invent a new name for their scene
* and DJs / producers who work in a particular scene but because they don't play a generic sound, they are forced to invent a new name for their sound to avoid the stigma attached with not playing a generic sound
....so in all - it's just a marketing stunt and shouldn't really have any serious baring on an artists creativity within a scene.
it's force fed to us from an early age isn't it, everything has its own label and place.
We definetly all need to just play/make what we want and sod what people may want to pigeon hole it as
I say we screw it all.Quote:
Originally Posted by dan the acid man
Let`s get Ginned up and Riot.
yeah, not sure about the gin though, i'll grab some red wine
That would be great if gin wasn't a vile substance. I find tequila and most forms of techno are a good mix.
if there was less pigeon- holing i definatly think there would be more room for different variations of sound.
i think people shouldnt get so attached to labels, theyre only words.
its not THAT important. what is important is wether it sounds good imo
techno is techno, its got a past present and future. but dont see the point in getting arsey about catogorising it :)
100% diddo here.......Quote:
Originally Posted by Roxy Trip
at the end of the day a lot of the terms are just adjectives which help describe the sounds that you are looking for/talking about......
and there are lots of tunes which get put into different genres which tbh is great too.... e.g some tunes off ddr's Hazchem label, in one shop ye might find it under techno, another acid techno, another hard house, another in trance....
but music like this has crossover appeal so if some trance head comes accross the hazchem tune and seeks out more on this label or by those artists then that can open up a whole new scene to them...
and 'back in the day' when i used to physically walk into the old record shops i used to trudge through all the other 'genres' or 'boxes' or 'sections' and often come across the odd gem which has been wrongly 'labelled' or 'genrified' (sp)....
which for me was good.....
I think the whole electronic music scene is too divided these days ,
it never used to be like this back in the day when i were a lad etc etc etc , blah blah blah .
and here was me thinking it wa just the breaks peeps that thought their scene was too divided!
it's al labout the purists, cos they believe that, as purists, only they have the genres interests at heart, and anyone that strays from the true doctrine is weakening the scene.
personally i think that's bollocks, but you need them there to keep the party line.
Hehe, agreed!Quote:
Originally Posted by FILTERZ
@ Dirty Bass and Manga Fish:
I must admit my view point is somewhat limited in relation to actual knowledge of the other scenes,:ohdear: , so thank you for correcting my idea of it all with some very good points...
Plus I tend to go around with mi rose tinted glasses on half the time!:;
Shame tho isn't it, that such division is so common place when music is supposed to be the ultimate unifier amongst folk...
I hate the way people are so narrow minded about booze and only stick to one type, can we not just get pissed! :cheese:Quote:
Originally Posted by dan the acid man
Everything should go back underground. Techno being readily available within a few seconds due to the Internet has done the scene nothing but harm. Some of you may jump on my back and say its made the scene better and that the scene has grown so much due to more people listening to the music and having access to it but I don’t think so.
I believe the reason there are now so many genres even in techno is because of the widespread availability and this in turn has created so many people who consider themselves techno artists but instead of forward thinking and progression people just simply take the best bits of the music they like throw a techno beat behind it and call it techno.
The tunes that used to come out you could listen to them for hours on end imo and not get bored because there was so much going and even more so in the background than at the forefront and if u ask me that’s what made it techno.
Now there seems to b a lot of so called techno being made and all it has is what I was referring to as the forefront sounds and it lacks everything that really took you away when listening. This is just my opinion but I really think there are a lot of people who listen to techno but there are not as many who really hear techno.
To me this is the problem. I used to like it when techno was a dirty word.
You have got to ask yourselves how many people would do this if there wasn’t money to b made along the line or some status gained.
Take everything back underground and get rid of the sheep the leeches the fakes then sometime in the future techno would pop its ugly head back up as fresh as the day it first arrived. United we stand divided we fall well I guess we are falling.
totally agree with this bit. not sure i blame the internet for this change (i think it was happening already before electronic delivery was widespread)Quote:
Originally Posted by DORYL_ROY
Right on brother...AMEN :rockin:Quote:
Originally Posted by rhythmtech
Can't we just enjoy ourselves? Enough good stuff out there for sure and simply tons of old stuff to (re-)discover.
I read articles about the death of techno in magazines dating back to 95/96.
Lame.
Quote:
Originally Posted by loopdon
well said mate, couldn't agree more, techno is a voyage of discovery, enjoy it :rockin:
Er... not just any Gin old chap- Bombay Sapphire I say!:briggin:Quote:
Originally Posted by dirty_bass
And then Riot!!:cheese:
As if I`d let anything else pass my lips.Quote:
Originally Posted by Little_Fella!
Only the best Gadgey!!
Only the best.
Quote:
Originally Posted by conor256
yeah i know what you mean , I use to buy my Acid techno in me local record shop, it was always under hard dance , which had hardhouse , trance , and acid techno also hard techno like viper xxl, but the techno section had all kinds ,
does it make any difference to the world if it is or it isn't? really?:whoops:
surely you should play what you like. if people like it..bonus.
if they dont...your shit and maybe think about doing something else as your job/ in your spare time.
simple really:cheese:
that's pretty much the point i have gotten to. i have been playing anything from electro to dubstep to minimal-ish to clunky off-kilter house to techno and having a BLAST doing it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay Pace
also really opens up the places you can play when you have a lot of different stuff at your disposal. :)