i’m always lookng for a good explaination for dance music. i really need somebody to sit me down with a stack of records, and show me the difference between house and techno, and drum n’ bass, and acid, and trance, and IDM, and ERG, and illbient, and industrial, and whatever hundreds of largely similar and mostly unlistenable club genres there are out there
that is truly amazing.
paul, listen to moby.. he’s quite listenable ;)
his latest stuff, hotel, is really cool. the first disk is kind of what you’d expect from an indie type artist but the second disk is ambient stuff.
if you listen to his album, play, you will see that it’s not as indie nor as ambient.. it’s definitely more techno influenced.
of course, the chemical brothers, fatboy slim, and those guys from the 90s are really the ones that stood a chance in making their art famous. while that video stated that djs have been around for decades, i think at least in our generation, those are the guys that somehow made what was highly underground highly loved by the radio.
i think i’m going to listen to the chemical brothers now.
Um…. Moby?
No.
eh, not really a moby fan. i need like a guide to electronic/dance music. like, i can tell you how emo ala 1996 is different from emo ala 2004. of the difference between punk, post-punk, and new wave. i want to know why drum n’ bass isn’t house or techno, or whatever. and also, why i should give a crap, b/c most “dance music” i hear is pretty awful. but give me some avalanches, zoot woman, cut copy, the juan maclean, the knife, etc, and i’m more than happy to shake my tailfeathers
Ishkur’s Guide to the rescue, Paul. (Enjoy all the really bad Flash animations. But it’s seriously a decent overview of the main styles, timelines, etc. of electronica.)
man.. moby’s the jam!
aight.. so, no moby.. who’s your jam, shua?
Electronica-wise, I tend towards folks like Sasha, Blue States, Thievery Corporation, Peace Orchestra, Kruder & Dorfmeister, Layo & Bushwacka, etc… laid back.
I’m too lazy to link everybody, but Google is your friend.
So, more on the Indie side of electronica, eh?
Considering that all of those groups have major-label distribution, I’d say “indie” is the wrong terminology to use. (But more often than not, it’s a misused term in music circles these days.)
However, the gist of what you’re saying is “non-mainstream/top 40″ acts, and so the answer is undoubtedly yes. In America, electronica’s never been a particularly lucrative or marketable genre of music outside of a few artists and specific albums, so I’d say that the vast majority of good electronic music isn’t mainstream.
Looks Like Dallas is in trouble!
Phoenix might end up blowing them all away.
PHX vs. Det. Hmmm..Could be interesting?
About The Author
I'm a graphic designer and sometimes writer living in Anderson, South Carolina. I serve as the Design Director for NewSpring Church. I love Jesus, my wife, Levi's Jeans, good Tex-Mex, and 8oz glass bottle Coca-Cola Classic. On good days I love them roughly in that order. Email me.
The Amen Break
Mon 06/05/06
Longish, but informative video history of the Amen Break, a six-second drum sample used extensively in early hiphop and sample-based music, which became the basis for drum-and-bass and jungle music.