The way Schranz is going....

[dirty_bass]

why is it i only hear about techno going down in sales of vinyl.......dnb, house, trance, and hardcore seem to be doing ok no?

no and yes.

Vinyl sales are down across the board, but less so in other areas.
In fact music sales are down across the board, it`s just that techno has been hit by this, and a seeming abandonment by the (not so massive) masses.

House will always be the biggest in dance music.
It has more melody, more groove, more vocals for your average person on a night out to sing along too etc

Trance again is more accessable, melody, vox in some cases.

Drum and bass as a music has more cred than techno for some reason. It`s the rougher edgy relation to street culture it has I reckon, rather than the nerdy white boy studio freak relationship that techno has to most people.
There`s still hoards of drum and bass nights, and they still ram em in.
Techno parties are having difficulty holding regular high numbers.
I think it`s just that techno is less popular, it`s either too abstract, too repetative, too hard, or just plain too inaccessable to people.
It`s an aqquired/learned taste, and also, the prevailance of alcohol culture in clubs over the other kind, means the peeps want more recognisable music, for their slower brains.

the real question is why have we lost so many people?
Aging techno generation not going out?
Over repetition and too much DJ based music driven your average joe away?


Hard to say, but the popularity of minimal, and it`s emphasis on grooves and riffs (and closeness to house), to me, points to a need for more soulful music.

Now what kinda worries me a little, is that for a while now, me and my mates have been securely saying to ourselves
"ah it`ll be ok, these things go in cycles, people will get into it again"
But recently, I looked at it a different way.
All musics hit there peak of interest and then settle into their true, smaller fanbase, rather than the popularist fan base.
Take Jazz, for example.
Once was very popular, then settled down.
It never died (allthough tell that to BBc radio) but has settled into it`s place, not really rising back.

Maybe this is the stage techno is at?

It doesn`t really matter too much really.

But hell, we need something to talk about in here.

[dan the acid man]

some great posts in here, im going to read some of them again.

Personally speaking, switching to mp3 for me has enabled me to buy a much wider variety of styles, due to being able to buy more single tracks instead of an ep

[SlavikSvensk]

techno is too anal retentive for the masses