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Has the internet and modern media destroyed musical regionalism?
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| Lira |
This has puzzled me for a while...
In the beginning, it seems like the many genres of electronic music were highly regional - i.e. acid techno and jungle (and everything related to them) were a Brit thing, house and hip-hop were an American thing, trance was a German thing, and so forth. As time passed on, the music spread to other countries where they would sound different from their original counterparts (Dutch Trance, French House, Swedish Techno,...) but once these genres became popular, all surrounding countries adopted this new style and the difference was very subtle (for example, when you listen to a modern trance tune, it's almost impossible to know where it came from; the same for most other genres), as if each genre had become a whole block, instead of having the good ole variety.
Do you agree or disagree? Do you find it to be a good thing? Is the contemporary globalisation to blame? |
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| digitalbreach |
I agree.:happy2:
seriously. |
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| torontotrance |
| Music was always something global, music always seemed to cross boundaries and languages (at least the non vocal stuff). Music regionalism will always exist, in Toronto, there will always be the Chris Sheppard's, the Dr.Trance's, the nick holders, the mc flipsides that are unique to my city. The internet was not changed that, the internet has just made it easier to people to exchange ideas, made it easier for people to share their music with others. The internet has made the world much smaller in some cases, say like Kuffdam and Plant can make music together, while both live in different countries, both have never met. The internet and mp3's have just made it easier to hear things and made millions for armin, tiesto and co. and they like most have a love hate relationship with it. Technology has it's good and bad properties, I mean Mike and L-Vee hate mp3's but that's one of the sole reasons that they got booked in North America to begin with. The world will constantly be changed by new technology and the unique regionalism will always exist, that's in the music I argue. |
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| TweeK |
| Interesting concept |
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| paranoik0 |
you still get regionalism, but on a slightly smaller scale. i'm sure that each region still has the "most popular" electronic music style. i mean, here in madeira the popular is tribal house, every new dj spins that, every new dj produces that, but then there's the odd idiot like me that goes to the net, finds different styles and gets hooked on it. the vast majority goes with the trends, the odd idiot represents like 1% of the dj/producers.
debating also about internet i think one of the problems is that some producers download a ton of music per week like we do ;) and listen to too many stuff to develop their own ideas, hence the standartization and all these tracks that sound like each other |
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| aspergian |
Maaz, again you bring up a good point. Alvin & Heidi Toffler had a lot to say about this in their very bold futurist books on a general level -- and this was many years ago.
I think, some things definitely get blurred in the process of shifting cultural homogeneity, and one thing I do know is that when it comes down to it, we are (or are supposed to be) unique individuals and people from the same country or even same town will express things differently because of this. Each person has a different set of inspirations and influences that shapes the sound in a new way.
I was just thinking about BT (from the other thread) and I don't know if his coming from Maryland in the US has anything to do with why his brand of trance has always stood out, but I'm sure it's "in the mix" somewhere, figuratively speaking.
If tunes made by a lot of producers all sound the same, I don't think it's necessarily because of any geographical phenomenon but it's simply easy access -- MP3s and the Internet as has been stated -- making it easier to listen to, and if desired, copy the music one enjoys.
| quote: | | ...and listen to too many stuff to develop their own ideas, hence the standartization and all these tracks that sound like each other |
Indeed, paranoik0. And not only this but fear of being different sometimes, fear of melody and other strange apprehensions I do not relate to. :) |
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| Orange Project |
| What about British trance. The scene was bigger than anywhere else |
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| Lira |
Argh, I had written a better post, properly quoting everyone, but my computer locked up :mad: Anyway, here's what I meant to say:
I'm not talking about some genres being popular in certain areas (like tribal house in Portugal or trance in the uk), but rather how the trance that used to be spun in the UK, for example, was not much different from what was being played in the Netherlands. In order to be DJ friendly, genres adapted themselves to standards so a techno DJ in Detroit could play what had been produced in Stockholm, and it would still sound like the other tunes he had previously dropped.
As for the fact that producers can easily listen to what's being done in other countries, this shouldn't lead to a standardisation, but improve the quality of the tunes, merging trends and whatnot. Acid techno (one of UK's legacy to the world :D), for example, came from acid house (which was an American genre) and acidcore (origin unknown by me) and led to a new sound, without killing the genres that inspired its creation. There's so much to be done, but people don't inovate, as they believe superstar DJ's wouldn't play something that was out of their style (you wouldn't expect Tiësto to play a 110 BPM techno tune, would you?). As Aspergian said, they easily copy what they enjoy, even if this tune had produced 20.000 km away (heck, I like Russian and Japanese EDM more than anything else, and now I'm listening to Michel De Hey... if that isn't a proof, I don't know what it would be).
That's it, I would just start repeating myself if I carried on.
ps.: Who are these people from Toronto, Andy? I'm curious :) |
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