[SYRFox]

The Simian Mobile Disco from last year was electro and almost disco at some times but it's fucking great!! By far not the best electronic album of 2007 but it's so good!

[Toilet & Bowels]

everybody just calm down

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wZSwMBKJ5A

[Rob Instigator]

Originally Posted by sarramkrop

Look, ROB, I am REAL, just like YOU . REal.

You are indubitably real my friend.

Bleep bleep bloop

[batreleaser]

yeah, i like listenin to chic and the beegees when im locked in my room, no one can hear/see me, throw it on the record player, and saturday night fever it!


but yeah, i listen to tons of electronic music. like many kids who grew up on punk rock and indie and metal, i got bored with it for a couple years. thats when i started listening to tons of idm, glitch, dub, hip hop, and all sorts of shit, then i rediscovered all the stuff i listened to when i was a young skater pothead, and from then on got into everything. now there are no borders to my listening tastes.

[fugazifan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_zMU2tX5n8

[greedrex]

no disco for me, but these classics from the 70's / early 80's never seem to die, so catchy.
I'd be the one to leave on a good disco number on the radio in my car just for the fun of it. I particularly like the slick ABBA classic songs. These were really well-written and produced.
anyways, electronica is not my favourite kind of music, however i like me my:
autechre
aphexxxxxxxxx (the IDM stuff only)
fourtet
more abstract Kranky stuff
BoC 1st LP
u sed to like Plaid, it sounds dated now though, doesn't it?
i got loads but i can't find it just right now

[greedrex]

also obscure stuff from Warp, like Mira Calix or Chris Clark
you know
i'm no expert but i'm always open

[greedrex]

i was gonna forget the MORR label stuff is good cuz it's catchy, nearly alml the time and it's got slick beats yeah, console, lali Puna, and loads more

[demonrail666]

What should be a brilliant thread is in fact a testament to the underlying conservatism of most SY fans. 'IDM', 'real' instruments. It's enough to make me reach for my Roland.

I'm the first to say that I like traditional 'Rock' music, played on electric guitars, with electric bass and a live acoustic drumkit. But none of these things are any more 'real' than a laptop, a drum machine, a keyboard, etc.

I'm going to go so far as to say that the problem seems to be largely cultural. Being European it seems that we have (for whatever reason) far less of a problem dealing with synthesised music than do our American friends (based on most of the posts here). As i mentioned in the Acid House thread, a massive number of the American pioneers of House Music now live in Europe, where they themselves have expressed ability to able to work far more easily, and without prejudice, than they say they would be able to do in the US - where dance music still seems to have associations with gay culture.

The late 80s and early 90s were an incredibly exciting time for dance music in Europe, with the early Acid House and Balearic scene spawning a myriad of offshoots - from Rave, to Jungle, to Hardcore, etc. Meanwhile America embraced Grunge, and its slightly insipid off-spring - The Lemonheads, Buffalo Tom, etc. A few of you have mentioned that 'disco' was something your parents listened to, but feel no problem with endorsing another type of music that, to my ears at least, was even more clearly defined by music from that era - albeit played, on a stage, and using 'real' instruments.

[MellySingsDoom]

demonrail - a v good post, sir. Do you feel that, to some extent, the disdain felt by many US-ians for disco etc comes from a Weltanschauung as outlined by Joe Carducci's "The Rock And Pop Narcotic"?

[demonrail666]

I don't think I've ever read that, but I do know from talking to many Americans in the 'real' world, so to speak, that they're far more likely to dismiss any kind of music that is made solely on electronic instruments - especially when its aimed at the dancefloor. If anything though, I become even more depressed when I speak to, or read posts on here, from younger Europeans that take a similar view.

[MellySingsDoom]

There's also the somewhat dubious "disco sucks" thing as well, with its undercurrent of "let's not be friendly to the gays". I feel that there's a certain defensiveness to with some rock fans, like they have to protect the "legacy" of rock (manly) against any infection from dance (more feminine/pansexual). All that this does though, of course, is to treat rock as an even fucking bigger museum piece than it is already, leaving the real advances in music to come from dance (Grime, Dubstep, Bassline and House in the UK).

[demonrail666]

Personally I think Rock has been a bit of a museum peice since the late 80s at best. And to be fair it's a museum that I like wandering around and sampling probably more than any other. I love Rock music, it's what I listen to - in its various forms - a good 90% of the time. I wouldn't even say that I like particularly forward thinking Rock - whatever that might be, but safe to say it isn't Big Star!

My point isn't that people should like electronic music (much of which is as dreadful as any other type of music) but that equally they shouldn't dismiss it simply because of how it's made.

America's cultural conservatism may well reflect a certain underlying dread of difference, but as Europeans we can't become too smug about this, considering how we live in a place where a goth girl is literally stamped to death by kids in a park simply for looking 'weird'.

Significantly, I think that any stigma associated with dance music in the UK is class rather than race or sexuality based. I don't know what music so-called American 'white trash' listens to these days, but in the UK its quite likely that the kid wandering around a council estate in a Burberry cap and designer tracksuit is gonna be listening to some form of either Techno or Garage or Grime. I'm not sure what this tells us, either about the music or the people that listen to it, but in all of my time in the US I never once heard a single Nitro record pumping out of a trailer park.

[Toilet & Bowels]

Originally Posted by MellySingsDoom

There's also the somewhat dubious "disco sucks" thing as well, with its undercurrent of "let's not be friendly to the gays". I feel that there's a certain defensiveness to with some rock fans, like they have to protect the "legacy" of rock (manly) against any infection from dance (more feminine/pansexual). All that this does though, of course, is to treat rock as an even fucking bigger museum piece than it is already, leaving the real advances in music to come from dance (Grime, Dubstep, Bassline and House in the UK).

dance music is just as much of a museum piece as rock is now, plus i think it's a lot more coservative than rock due to it's inherent limitations in that everything must be geared to the dancefloor

[therealglenstyler]

all music is obsolete. the only true creative outlets these days are the blogs run by models on their days off showcasing their party/street photography.

The only musical innovation going on in the whole world today is the photos on those blogs of the model in question and their pretty friends doing ironic karaoke at kettel one sponsored loft parties.

[Toilet & Bowels]

Originally Posted by Toilet & Bowels

dance music is just as much of a museum piece as rock is now, plus i think it's a lot more coservative than rock due to it's inherent limitations in that everything must be geared to the dancefloor

actually, i disagree with myself, i don't think any kind of music counts as a museum piece

[Toilet & Bowels]

this is awesome
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-eRogTjqvQ

[atsonicpark]

Demonrail, you're echoing the things I've been saying for far too long. People on here.. not everyone but a good deal of people are are closeminded and want to discuss aesthetics or something instead of discussing compelling sound. A good melody is a good melody -- I don't care if it's from a glitch artist or a country artist. People who place restrictions upon their listening habits, to me, don't really care about music. There's good artists found in EVERY genre.

I've loved electronic music for a good 10 years now, ever since hearing Atari Teenage Riot and Babyland, and my problem at this point is that I've heard so many artists that do the same shit over and over and sound exactly like everyone else... As someone who has made electronic music, I can testify that a lot of what passes off as great in electronic music isn't terribly difficult to do... you can randomly generate beats and melodies all day long if you want to, honestly... It takes something more than that to be interesting to me... I guess that's why I love Autechre so much.. I mean, they use randomly generated sequencing but they.. I dunno, there's just something about their sound.

The truth is, no two electronic groups should sound anything alike (unless they intend to). There are infinite combinations of tools and sounds... I just think people try to emulate everyone else. The same could be said for any genre but it's especially noticeable in electronic music.

But yeah, if you dismiss music just cuz "duh it's made on a craptop not a rokk geetar", then you need to re-evaluate why you even listen to music to begin with.

[demonrail666]

Yes, although the simplicity involved in making some of that stuff shouldn't necessarily be a fault - The Ramones were hardly complex and yet they managed to create some great music. Virtuosity and complexity is no short-cut to quality (not that I believe you think it is, but some do).

Autechre are an interesting case of two musicians that came out of the UK club scene but wanted to move beyond the limits imposed by the dancefloor requirement of the 4/4 beat. Chill out rooms in clubs in the late 80s and early 90s provided a valuable forum for such experiments and are largely responsible for the emergence of 'electronica' or, the horribly named 'idm' scene. Refering to music made by the likes of Autechre as 'dance' (regardless of whether its 'intelligent') is daft. I can't imagine how anyone could dance to any of their tracks without appearing rather odd. Certainly it's far less danceable than something like Buddy Holly's 'Rave On' (choice of song title for purposes of argument are purely intentional) and yet how often is Buddy Holly thought of as a maker of dance music? The media is as much to blame as anyone, with artists like Autechre continually dumped in the 'dance' section while, say, The Cramps (who are great fun to dance to) are inrvitably thrown into the 'Rock' section. If all that dance means is music made by people with synths instead of strats, we're in a really sad state.

[atsonicpark]

I'm not saying simplicity and ease of creating music is a bad thing -- I'm saying it leads to a million artists who sound exactly the same.

The rest, I agree with.