is that it’s like hundreds of warring little tribes with too few chiefs to guide and unite them. And that is why despite its conceptual thrust of innovation, electronic music continues to largely sputter and stagnate faceless blobs, crushed mercilessly around a few visionary pockets. A hyperbolic interpretation of Sturgeon’s Law comes into effect, but I’m sure we can lower than crud-factor much further.
Superstar DJs and talented producers abound, but few popular leaders weave wonders across borders — and if they do, they’re usually not recognized as being “purely” electronic (see Madonna, who’s enlisted some top aces like William Orbit and Stuart Price). Whatever that means; and it might as well mean nothing. There continues to be a disconnect between the “popular” and “artistic”, and massive failure to recognize that one can be both.
Petty arguments about what genre, sub-style, or splinter-of-a-label “Tune X” belongs to aren’t about the music: they’re about stupidity and narrow worldviews. They’re about prejudice and inability to explore, and the tragedy associated with limiting oneself. And there’s the inevitable sad-jamboree of overreacting, like: “We need to be able to classify the music, or else no one will be able to find things!”
Yes, I understand this.
I also understand the old mode of sorting music like documents-in-folders — in other words, each track can only belong to a single category — is absurd. And yet, it’s still so common. The smarter, better thing to do is akin to Gmail’s tags: apply as many as are appropriate, and a work of art can be all of these. Words, like music, are a fluidic currency, worthless if they mean nothing.
I have a deep-seated respect for the BTs, the James Holdens, the Hybrids (as the name indicates) of the world, those who may birth new strains adopted by others. I especially prize those who can take the obscure and make it accessible to the masses, not watering down the core essence (as they may be wrongly accused of doing so) but infusing it with fresh, digestible vitality. But by the time the infighting has begun over whether something is progressive house or trance, jungle or drum ‘n’ bass, nu skool breaks or big beat, tech-trance or trancey techno, electroclash or tech-pop or nu-new wave — a few of dozens of asinine examples I’ve heard firsthand! — they’ve moved on.
The true genre-mixers can always revisit. There’s no shame in nostalgia, but there’s everything to be embarrassed with dead-end snobbery and a painful lack of actually getting your groove on. That’s where the rewards lie, both feel-goodly, financially, and otherwise.
Then, you have the understated OTHER BIG ISSUE: on one side of the room, producers who make popular hits powered with belovedly catchy melodies, but not many other layers to stand on. Some call this “cheese”, others call it “trance is a dirty word”. (Sigh.) On the other end of the spectrum (and boy, is it polar) are intricate bedroom studiologists who understand the soul of Kyma, Processing, Max, and Celilia, but couldn’t make a memorable melody to save their e-life. Or maybe they chose not to, falsely thinking hummability = weakness. No, it’s a strength, because if your work is forgotten, then it has had no impact whatsoever. And some my favorite masterpieces join what is deceptively unlike, and show the strong bonds we have in common: Hybrid’s “Finished Symphony”, to this day, removes the stinky elitism of the classical music world (which has been crippled by its own infighting) and imports the richness of symphony strings into a surprisingly smooth stuttering of breakbeats. Promise lies ahead from groups like Trifonic, who take familiar acoustic sounds and arc them into warped crescendos of rhythmic madness, while all the long looped riffs worthy of concert chant-along support the foundation.
Lastly, it’s ridiculous how “techno” hasn’t been adopted more by “insceners” as a general descriptor for electronic music. (Wikipedia articles on the topic look almost like a parody unto themselves, which no doubt prompted Ishkur’s brilliance.) I don’t mind, nor should anyone. It’s all TECHNOlogy-based, and that, unlike semantic hair-splitting, is irrefutable.
I agree on some of the points you've raised here, especially the genrelisation of music and the insistance that everything be pigeonholed into it's little sub-sub-sub group. It drives me mad. Genres can't easily be defined because for instance 'trance' for one person isn't the same as 'trance' for someone else.
As a DJ, producer and remixer, I am VERY much into my electronic music, hailing Orbital as the greatest band ever to exist on this planet, never to be surpassed in my lifetime etc. They are a genreless band, truly crossing all barriers and boundaries, very much like The Prodigy have somewhat achieved, Hybrid and others. Hybrid are another band I worship and feature regularly in my SL DJ sets (IM me for details of regular slots) and it's bands like them, pushing the envelope, thinking ahead of the game etc. that keep the electronic music scene fresh.
On the subject of cheese and the more popular chart electronica, it has to exist for the underground to be what it is. Without mainstream, there is no underground, no bands like Autechre, Aphex Twin, Plaid etc. The Basshunters of this world, no matter how formulaic, how manufacturered they might be, have to exist so that those of us who really appreciate the music can have something less popular, yet far more advanced and simply better to listen to.
As for the use of 'Techno'… If Dave Clarke or Richie Hawtin were dead, they'd be spinning in their graves at the bastardisation of that word. Don't get me started on 'techno'