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Oh my, I love me some lists. I think OP's intention of creating a list concerning dance music history is fair, since this place is still mostly dance music oriented and general electronic music list would probably be loaded with names such as Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream and Brian Eno - mostly as a result of already well-established critical consensus. Nonetheless, if you're interested in some kind of electronic music history guide, I don't think you'll find anything better than THIS.
First some observations:
Influence is maybe not the best word to describe something that is worthy of respect. Shit gets copied and emulated too, thus shitty artists can in a way be influential as well. Second, are these artists included on a purely musical or some general contribution basis? Because Sven Väth is certainly one of the most meritorious people for advancement of dance music in general with his role as a club owner, label head, DJ, etc., yet his musical contribution is minor and mostly negligible.
| quote: | Originally posted by Woony
His material on Evolution as well as "76:14" served as a major blueprint for Ambient, Techno and IDM. |
76:14 is like the purest ambient album ever. It's beautiful and most certainly one of the classics of the genre, but I wouldn't say it set any kind of blueprint, surely not for techno and IDM. His Reload stuff is bit tech-ier, but again not the pure dancefloor material and definitely not groundbreaking. I love him and Mark Pritchard, but their work is far from what this thread is about.
| quote: | Originally posted by Woony
12 Phuture (for one fucking track) |
Is Acid Tracks really that good? Yeah, it's the first acid house tune, but musically speaking it's really poor (even for the genre-originating tune), don't you think? It feels like they were so astonished and amazed with obtained acid lines that they forgot to work on the other elements of the track. Sleezy D's I've Lost Control (that actually came out year earlier) is an example of the track in which acid riffs are much more suitable complemented by frentic percussion work, hysteric laughs, screams and crazy vocal lines which all together create general sense of paranoia and insanity. And in the end, acid house was bound to happen anyway, so the feat of Acid Tracks being the first acid house tune becomes even less impressive.
Anyway, my list would look something like this (strictly musically-wise). And by dance music I mean techno/house:
01. Plastikman
This is also a reply to Swamper: He's the guy who completely redefined techno and turned it into another direction. He offered a radically new and unique view on how to utilize percussion and acid lines, he patented couple of his own sound effects ("helikopter", "kriket" and "woodpecker" - using often just a 909), he was among the first to apply minimalistic technique to techno (Spastik was done solely on a 909), he was one of the first techno guys focused on albums (real albums that is, with intros/outros/interludes, planned lows and highs, narrative and overall theme/mood/atmosphere) and he was also the first techno producer specifically signed to a big and respectable label (Mute). The fact that he's frequently mentioned by other techno producers as a main inspiration (only behind Belleville trio) is just a confirmation of all of this.
02. Juan Atkins / Derrick May / Carl Craig / UR
03. Basic Channel
04. B12 / The Black Dog / Kirk Degiorgio
05. Leftfield
06. Marshall Jefferson / Farley "Jackmaster" Funk / Larry Heard
07. LFO
08. Surgeon / Regis
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