If this is Techno...

[DannyBlack]

1 sec

[DannyBlack]

mine is the black afro.

[teknorich]

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
:lol: :lol: :lol:
:lol: :lol:
:lol:

[djfilthmonger]

ha ha thats a few years ago was it

[The_Laughing_Man]

This is what I was getting at tbh. There's been a few comments on the forum recently about techno, and what is considered techno nowadays. Things like "I love techno gone to the dogs..." and people saying the lineup isn't techno and that the crowd would be full of fashion kids in tight jeans, or references to "young kids that actually think minimal is techno..." I know myself I find it irritating to look on sites like Beatport and see what they classify as techno (tho they have got better recently to give them their due) and to know that the younger generation of clubbers probably do think that it is techno, but then one comment you (The_Laughing_Man) made in the Minimal forum really made me stop and think: "What the kids call techno, essentially IS techno."

We've all seen a hundred interviews with the old Detroit crowd, going on and on about how they invented techno and how it ain't techno if it ain't from Detroit etc etc. Tbh, that always got on my nerves, and I just thought they were stuck in the past and couldn't move with the times, but I think I'm starting to understand their sentiments more now. I'm starting to look at some of what is called "techno" today and I really don't feel it is techno. To me it just feels wrong. You build up a feeling over time of what is house, what is trance, what is techno. More than just a formula, it is a feeling, a vibe. I hear tracks on beatport which are house to me, tech-house at a (generous) stretch, and yet they are labelled as techno, and millions of young clubbers worldwide think they are techno. Mixmag splashes the word techno across the front cover, but what they refer to is far from techno as I know it.

But that begs the question - what makes something techno? Is it simply that if enough people say it is, then it is? (Do 3 men make a tiger?) Is it techno just cos the kids say so?! Scooter released an album called "The stadium techno experience" - was that techno just cos they told their millions of fans it was, and those kids all believed it to be? The majority vote wins?? Or is it something more, something deeper?

I always thought Techno was a feeling, a vibe, a certain quality to a track. Fast or slow, hard or chilled, it was a certain something to the track which made it techno, and distinguishable from house, tech-house, trance etc. Now those lines seem to be more and more blurred, to the point of being virtually indistignuishable in some cases, and I find myself feeling more and more out of touch, and retreating deeper and deeper into pigeonholes...

So what's changed? Has Techno itself changed, and morphed into the club-filling, commercial friendly mnml of mixmag front covers? Or is the word "techno" just cool at the moment, so media and artists are bandying it around for publicity, but without any real techno feeling/understanding? (reminiscent of the 2 Unlimited days... ) Am I just getting older, more elitist and less open-minded, harking back to the good old days, with a personal bias to what techno has always meant to me? I dunno...

It comes down to age, being resistant to change (the majority of people are) and fanatical geekdom is a major thing.
We are so spoilt for choice in this modern age we can just focus down onto this one tiny little thing we like and then get lots and lots of it, and eventually all the choice ebcomes a lack of choice because we close down open mindedness and become selfish in our choices.

When techno began (if you choose to decide it started in detroit), there wasn`t always a huge difference between it and some house coming out at the time.
AND the DJ`s at the tim didn`t just play one micro niche of a genre, they mixed it up, house, techno, a bit of funk and disco, electro.
as the 90`s went on and dance music exploded, scenes splintered and split, and DJ`s became less open minded and more focused on micro-genre.

The fact that the line is blurring again is healthy both for the future of dance music and for creative inspiration for artists.

You will always get those at the fringes pushing things in new directions, but all music changes over time, eventually it changes so much it gets a new name, ie minimal, which came from house/techno and minimalism/glitch. Dubstep which came from garage and dub.
The thing is the conventional sound of techno has pretty much exhausted itself.
I don`t really hear anything new coming out of that old middle of the road/hard techno, it all sounds like young artists emulating their heroes, rather than innovating based on the lessons of their heroes.. Or very little. IT all sounds like it did in 98-99, bar a very few interesting artists, who generally sit on the edge of the scene as the old names still try to cling on a push their dated old stuff, themselves resisting the very change and futurism they proport to support (ie mills, godfather, respect, etc, but cmon, new sound now please Jeff).
It takes courage and tenacity to try to push your own sound though. Most people want instant success, so by fitting in and doing what is already known, they play safe.

[gunjack]

Yea but this is as generic as it comes.