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-- From My Perspective: The Growth of The Dance Music Scene
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All I know is, now people here in Montreal actually know the difference between house and techno. I don't hear techno being thrown around like it used to.
Basically two large conglomerates own the (north american)festival scene already. The local promoters operate as quasi-independent organizations under one or another of their umbrellas, LiveNation is actually Ticketmaster, SFX has the other half of the industry more or less. If I was a betting man I'd say the Livenation/ID-T/Beatport megacorp will swallow even more of it in the coming years, and prices will indeed rise. I'd wager the places you party in at Atlanta are under one of these mega umbrellas already, especially if they are the sort of places that are getting the international headliners.
I can't say this is an altogether negative development. Being seen as a legitimate style of music and not just an excuse to do drugs would be a positive change that megacorps can provide. But others have lamented about this too, the popularity seeks to divorce the music from the culture that bred it. People will know popular electro house without knowing kandi and hugs and phat pants and glowstrings and fuzzy leg warmers and the temporary autonomous zone. Maybe that is a good thing too, who knows. EDM has long been sucked into velvet ropes valets and VIP table service and giant price exclusive superclubs, aside from the festivals of course. I've made that 6 hour drive to ATL more than a few times.
I think our hope is in the smaller indie bars and clubs with the local artists playing. The megacorps will take the stigma out of dance music and make people realize that going to those places doesn't make you a sinner drug addict overdosing rape victim, hopefully. But that indie stuff is pretty much gone now, unless you specify indie in your event and music seeking, and then doing that would suck you into the hipster blogs and shit, and some would argue that the stuff there is just as corrupted and fabricated for commercial gain as the commercial dance world has become. Inevitably, if you want a crowd of significant size in this era (in north america), you pretty much have to welcome your new ticketmaster overlords (except for perhaps a few remaining historical festivals like starscape and such).
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| Originally posted by DJRYAN� (USE PROMO CODE: RYAN) |
oh that is just FOR ME
So, you're excited for GABRIEL & DAVE DRESDEN next month?
You can trash talk Ryan as much as you want, only Existo had a better profile picture than him though. 
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| Originally posted by Woony So, you're excited for GABRIEL & DAVE DRESDEN next month? |
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| Originally posted by Looney4Clooney your point seems to forget the fact that the so called groove USA is destroying was an american invention. EDM owes more to american culture than people ever seem to want to give. America has always understood dance music. It just has never been a mass movement. Even popular disco was good disco white washed just like rock music before. Without America, you get electronic music ala stockhausen. It is only because of america your dance music is danceable. I guess I think you should be somewhat sensitive to the history and as much as current douche bags ie OP representing 1 generation of americans, it has contributed more to every genre post romanticism than pretty much every country. and that goes from the very technology to the core aesthetic of the music. With USA, you would be raging to music concrete based waltzes. |
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| Originally posted by corjay9 All I know is, now people here in Montreal actually know the difference between house and techno. I don't hear techno being thrown around like it used to. |
I think the most worrisome about the EDM scene today, is that no one really gets successful for having substance in their music. No provocative lyrics, no complex compositions, just "exceptional beats".
Let's say we liken electronic music to paintings. If paintings were like edm today, we'd have all these mind-blowing brushing techniques, perspectives, shadow layerings and color compositions, yet all we'd ever paint was the same generic still life paintings over and over again.
All I'm saying is, you don't need to sacrifice style for the sake of substance. Same thing goes for the other way around. Supersaws and wobbles can be used for expressing big things about the human condition, it's just that no one's doing it.
/can-of-worms-opening-procedure
Yes they do, you just don't know about them because you listen to an extremely narrow body of music.
i have crabs.
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| Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Yes they do, you just don't know about them because you listen to an extremely narrow body of music. |
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| Originally posted by pointPi Knew I would be given this response. Funny thing is I actually wrote while listening to your Time & Space mixtape. Yes, it's a really good mix, but has it anything to say about the human condition? That's all I'm asking. BTW, could you please recommend me a good set that may for now, broaden my 'extremely narrow' taste? |
Post Apocalyptic Transmissions [Ambient/Techno/Dubstep] by Jack Moss on Mixcloud
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| Originally posted by SYSTEM-J If you want to listen to one of my sets that has something to say about the human condition, I recommend Post Apocalyptic Transmissions: Post Apocalyptic Transmissions [Ambient/Techno/Dubstep] by Jack Moss on Mixcloud More saliently, I was reading an article in The Wire magazine the other day about Sandwell District and their use of situationism, surely a suitably high brow concept to satisfy your requirements. Sandwell District were picked up by all the big blogs and the likes of Wire, which meant they will have sold a lot more copies of their last album than most of the jokers clogging up the Beatport Top 100. They are far from the only example of dance music that is increasingly being intellectualised by a new gentrified demographic of listeners, far away from the simulacra silliness of trance music "stardom". And actually, throughout the last 20 years there have been plenty of producers who've had huge success with records that meditate on the human condition, from Orbital's savage satire on modern society, Snivilisation, to Burial's aching encapsulation of inner city estrangement, Untrue. The problem for you is more likely that you just don't have the critical faculties to pick up on these themes when they're not being warbled at you above an acoustic guitar. Really though, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to your naivety. Because I would argue the real problem with dance music is not that it isn't being intellectualised enough or that it doesn't have "anything to say", but rather than people like you are encouraging this false opposition where having "exceptional beats" and making people dance is seen as an inherently unintellectual, hedonistic and unimportant pursuit, which creates a chasm between the undanceable art-beats that get prime time on the likes of Resident Advisor and the moronic dancefloor shit clogging up the likes of A State Of Trance. There should be a more postmodern conception that making people dance is a statement on the human condition, and that actually making people dance is something that should require as much thought and intelligence as any conceptual piece that perpetuates the over-worn semiotic subject/object "but what does it mean?" paradigm of artistic merit. The trouble is that smart dance music is dying out, and producers increasingly recourse to the same tired, manipulative set pieces to inspire ever-diminishing reactions from an increasingly undemanding and uneducated crowd. What we really need is a critical discourse that doesn't attempt to justify dance music by writing bad lit crit essays about it but rather embraces the medium on its own merits. |
LOL
Guys, let's solve the worlds ails on TA.
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| Originally posted by pointPi The "message" itself has to come in the form of lyrics, visuals and/or sound effects. |
this debate between program music and absolute has been going on for centuries. I think it depends on the person. Lyrics can add layers of interpretation as much as they can make it trite and annoying. And a kick drum by itself is rather boring. Absolute music is generally agreed upon by most as higher art but then you people like wagner who do works of art that are beyond comprehension in that it is hard to imagine how 1 person could do what he did. So I would not say there is a consensus then or now.
Dance music has always been on the lower side of art but what makes something merely dance music and then something that is more than just music for people to dance to is hard to quantify.
I find as long as something is different in some way, there is some merit in it.
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| Originally posted by pointPi The only problem is that whenever I put myself in front of my virtual studio, all enthusiasm drops to zero pretty quickly, and I end up making the same generic beats over and over again, that I think is okay but not upload worthy. Help me. |
I don't understand how bringing EDM to the mainstream is in anyway good. What's the point of rallying a promoter to spread dance music to more people in clubs? The result will be more people who have a less qualitative perception, ie people who are amused by the music enough to go get drunk and dance to it, but don't actually know enough to properly understand it as an aesthetic. Some people say ultimately exposure is a good thing but personally I miss when people gave less of a fuck about dance music and were listening to their own music, when I felt LESS embarrassed about liking dance music as opposed to now, when in the back of my mind I'm always thinking, "How can I defend this shit music when it just looks so damn foolish?".
10 years ago, fewer people listened to EDM in the US. The US didn't even try to catch up to the massives and excellent club nights that were happening in Europe and other places that entire time. Then, mainstream culture, since Americans have no fucking culture at all, avalanches and all the sudden dance music is "in". Fucking amnesiac wakes up. "Back then" (I'm not reminiscing) the person out of 100 who did listen to EDM, may have had decent taste and knew what they liked and was versed in the music. Now, 60 out of 100 like it and they know DICK about the music. It's all watered down, formulaic, recycled fucking garbage designed for their easy consumption.
But, with anything there is bad and good, and the scales ultimately will balance and this dance music fad will fucking go away (I hope), and eventually roots house music will start to engage people who have discovered that they like actual quality EDM, not just dance-infused pop music with artistically-stale, ripoff motifs in every song. I would rather have fewer people listen to EDM and actually have an appreciation for it than a multitude of shits who will emulate, copy, and conform to any mainstream fad who are basically making a complete mockery of the music, which is a cultural and musical phenomenon that they will never grasp.
Do people who are devoted to conscious, underground Hip Hop give two shits about what Kanye's up to?
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| Originally posted by PivotTechno Do people who are devoted to conscious, underground Hip Hop give two shits about what Kanye's up to? |
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